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What is an online reading session? Like a mother reading a children book to her kids?

It's where people get together to have a discussion around a set piece of reading. In this case the reading is of a textbook, and the discussion is intended to help everyone understand the material.

if the mother is _reading_ Number Theory at post-grad level and the child is any randomer on the internet, then yes, something like that

The book they are reading, Apostol's "Introduction to Analytic Number Theory", is for undergraduates.

According to the preface, even that is overstating it: "Actually, a great deal of the book requires no calculus at all and could profitably be studied by sophisticated high school students".

Nevertheless, when I picked up a copy near the start of my freshman year at Caltech and had a go at it, it kicked my ass.

> According to the preface, even that is overstating it: "Actually, a great deal of the book requires no calculus at all and could profitably be studied by sophisticated high school students".

I'm pretty sure the harder the math book the more they claim a sophisticated high school student could study it.

Yes - looking at the reading requirements of textbooks is often cause for wry amusement.

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