Re: Math is not a memoriter course.

In article <fagas7$i73$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
mina_world <mina_world@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello sir~

We learn many subjects in school.
My professor said that math is not a memoriter subject except multiplication
table.

Are you agree ?

Yes... and no.

The multiplication tables are probably the only things that you really
must memorize absolutely by rote: no understanding, just know them.

However, there are plenty of other things that one must memorize,
simply because it would be impossible to do mathematics without having
those things at your fingertips: definitions and basic properties, for
example. You do not need to memorize the proof that cancellation (in
sums) is valid in vector spaces, but by the same token you do not want
to have to think about it and rederive it every time you need to
cancel a summand in a vector space. Likewise, whatever your subject,
one is well-served if you just ->know<- the basic theorems and basic
definitions, or the hypothesis and conclusions of the important
theorems that are applied over and over again.

Can you imagine someone doing algebraic geometry these days who has
not memorized the definition of "scheme", and needs to look it up
whenever he starts work?

--
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"It's not denial. I'm just very selective about
what I accept as reality."
--- Calvin ("Calvin and Hobbes" by Bill Watterson)
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Arturo Magidin
magidin-at-member-ams-org

.