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Comment by greymalik | Hacker News Reader

Thank you for that. It’s helpful. I suppose my next question is how do I attain mathematical maturity most efficiently?

One thing that will help a lot is being thorough. Try to understand as well as you can, try to fill in missing steps and details, make sure the text itself is actually clear and correct and is not missing something. Try to guess how a proof might start before looking at it.

Broadening your field of view will also help a lot. Some introductory abstract algebra (groups, rings, vector spaces) would be a solid next step in my opinion, because there you will have sets of axioms and lots of proofs and you will learn about properties such as commutativity, associativity, inverses and identities in a more abstract and general way.

Do you want something at the level of beginning algebra? Or something more advanced?

I know how to do beginning algebra and geometry but I don’t necessarily know why the various rote techniques work. So beginner as far as intuition. But also beginner for technique for things like linear algebra and calculus that I never learned at all.

There is a book called “Number, Shape, & Symmetry”. You can download it at z-lib.org. It’s a book that will give you the flavor of mathematics and prove some of the basic algebraic properties. It does not require calculus but will require a desire to understand. It’s an art form to read mathematics and understand. I recommend the book along with using a tutor or math.stackexchange.com.

Good luck!

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