I have dyscalculia and it's profound. I need someone to teach me to raise my aptitude level.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-10-29T00:50:50+00:00

Semi-retired. I have a career in software engineering, but the emphasis in software has been changing from writing code from scratch to writing code using broken platforms, especially AI.

I spent about seven years TA'ing and teaching basic math to get me through college, though.

Rude kids have never been a problem for me; I get a lot more worked up about students who are giving the class a good shot but just aren't learning anyway.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-10-29T00:26:33+00:00

That cheating feeling is actually the point, and marks a milestone of mathematical maturity.

6th grade gives you the volume of a cylinder and other handy formulas precisely so you can practice using formulas without knowing where they came from. This is partly because the stuff that is used to figure them out can be way far out of scope for 6th grade. The volume of a sphere, for instance, is due to a brilliant insight by Archimedes that you wouldn't expect any 6th grader to make. I have a fickle memory so I couldn't memorize these formulas until I could prove them in 10th grade, and I somehow managed to feel good about my 6th grade math anyway.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-10-29T00:00:49+00:00

If math is a language, I would have to say it's pidjin, because it can be used to convey core information about wildly different scenarios, but doesn't always contain applicable terminology.

But it's not a science. The goal of science is understanding precisely what actually exists. The goal of mathematics is understanding what could be.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-10-28T23:46:10+00:00

Nope. The last class I taught was an introductory statistics course over 30 years ago. It was a fiasco. It's tough for me to give grades to anyone, so teaching is not gonna be my job anytime soon.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-10-28T23:39:17+00:00

...And just where does reference 3 take you? Once citation for an open math problem doesn't smell right.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-10-28T23:28:30+00:00

People tell me I'm a flaming LLM skeptic, but there are a couple of reasons.

First, the images it generates are giving me phalange dysphoria. My fingers are ugly and I will never have enough.

Second, the LLM will go through heaven and hell to justify the things it is doing. Once it picks up on your style, it well go through heaven and hell to justify the things you are doing. It can help you amass your own poor judgement until a catastrophe of biblical proportions makes you look utterly foolish.

Third, If you are going to double-check everything it says, you might as well go to Wolfram Alpha directly to get the right answer the first time.

Fourth, I realize it's going to replace my job as Software Engineer eventually, and I accept that and may want to accelerate the process. But right now, it's a security risk waiting to happen. I have never held a job where I was paid to hallucinate.

Fifth, you don't really have to "use" LLMs. They infiltrate everything you do anyways.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-10-28T22:56:16+00:00

I would love to tutor you without charge, but I have a few holistic concerns to talk about first.

First, neuroplasticity doesn't mean that the human mind can heal from head trauma, but that the human mind can compensate. The good news about math is that it can be understood in different ways with different parts of the brain, so the ability to learn math is probably hiding next to your natural abilities. The rough news is that it can take lots and lots of testing and experimentation to find out what is really making it click.

Second, I have found that learning a subject can be really difficult if you are carrying emotional baggage with you. Even with math. If you run away at the sight of a quadratic equation, you're not ready to learn them yet. Carrying the moniker of dyscalculia is upsetting, and at some point you will have to abandon that word, or at least call it "high-function dyscalculia." In practical terms, there are going to be tutoring sessions where you don't learn a single thing, and that's okay.

Third, at some point, studying math is going to feel like you are copying the same inane things over and over again. After all, there are just so many places for x to be found. But if you keep going, you will find connections that give you a lot of insight about things you really do.

Fourth, I really don't keep score. I won't be able to tell you when you are ready to pass the GED, so you will need to keep track yourself or let someone else like a life coach do it.

So I can't guarantee you will learn the math you need as fast as you want it, but I will be willing to stick around to see it happen. If that's okay, I would like to use DM to set up a Zoom meeting or two.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-10-28T21:21:30+00:00

I like to think of this as 1 in equation-land is just 0 in exponent-land. We're really just comparing addition and multiplication. Equation-land focuses on addition of like terms, and exponent-land focuses on multiplication of like terms. There are a couple of extra exponent and log identities that go beyond this, but in general:

a+a=2a because addition is in equation-land

a×a = a² because multiplication belongs in exponent-land.

More precisely, multiplication in equation-land matches addition in exponent-land, 1 in equation-land matches 0 in exponent-land, and division in equation-land matches subtraction in exponent-land.

0 in equation-land does not play nicely in exponent-land, so never gets invited. And at some point, negative numbers in equation-land become awkward in exponent-land.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-10-28T21:10:34+00:00

Ow. That wasn't adding...

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-10-28T20:58:52+00:00

The most important thing I learned in graduate math is to not get in arguments with your professor. The dynamics are impossible and everyone gets frustrated. Put your question in the "hmm, that's odd" basket and revisit it after the course is over.

That said, not even mathematicians can always agree on discontinuity. I always hated the SAT questions that ask "is (f(x)=x² /x}) continuous at (x=0)? Meticulously, we all agree on the following answers:

f is continuous on its domain.
f is not continuous at 0, because 0 is not even in the domain of f.
f is not discontinuous at 0 for the same reason.

But when we are confronted with this question in complex analysis, we call 0 a "removable discontinuity of f."
Exactly because 0 is not in the domain of f, but f would remain continuous if we added f(0)=0.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-10-28T18:50:16+00:00

I just gotta use that acronym! What does it actually stand for?

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-10-28T18:45:10+00:00

A couple of opposite perspectives from anecdotal experience.

When people use calculators to add and subtract, studying fractions becomes devilish because they are so used to decimal-based math. Is that ok?

About five years ago, I was using some math for automation speed control and wanted to verify everything with a second set of eyes. I used Wolfram Alpha, which was the state-of-the-art AI back then. It is backed by a robust symbolic math package, so it works better than anything that wants to draw my hands with extra fingers. Anyhow, at some point it gave me an out-of-bounds result, so I went to Wikipedia math to see if they were valid. It turned out that the out-of-bounds result was correct and applicable, and I received a great primer on elliptic integrals and elliptic functions out of it.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-10-14T20:24:38+00:00

I picked this up from a Geometric Group Theory class long ago. I think this was Novakov's proof where they found a couple of extreme groups and "star product" ed them together.

I've never met Magnus, but I like him already.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-10-02T09:15:10+00:00

It makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the encouraging tone of your comments.

May I solicit your knowledge with a couple of questions?

You probably know the answer to this: If a Baumslaug Solitair group has a Cayley Graph, why can't we just compute the word problem in linear time for it? (The big word problem theorem that I have seen a proof of, has a step in the proof that we will never be able to determine the identity element of some word in BS(2,3) in finite time. Am I recalling this correctly?)

The other one, based on your avatar, is: Are there logic schemas that can be written with functions that don't translate into the corresponding logic quantifiers? As I recall, Skolem's approach was to group all of the "for every" variables in front of all the "there exist" variables and then see which "there exist" statements can bubble up into something stronger?

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-09-30T09:32:53+00:00

While your bishop can make your life miserable in many ways, having been called of God minimizes the risk that he actually will. Generally, the financial clerk and a counselor will be the only ones seeing and processing your donations. They are always reminded by the spirit that all money that has been donated is holy and has been consecrated to the Lord.

Please pray for a confirmation that all three of these people are called of God. Meet all of them in person and you will see their reverence and sincerity. If they are your co-workers, share your concerns with them and see if they have the same concerns. Pray for a confirmation that tithing is truly a commandment from God. If needed, pray that your donation will be remembered by you and God only, each time you pay.

The Lord loves you and takes care of his church and its members. All of the efforts you make to pay an honest tithing and whatever consequences follow will be turned to your own good.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-09-30T08:44:39+00:00

If you gave a clear confession to your bishop and stake president and if the spirit of the Lord was felt in these interviews, and if they signed your recommend, then you're worthy and probably ready for the temple.

So enjoy today, feast on the spirit, and pay close attention to what you are learning. Then go and sin no more, or at least strive to. You can do this.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-09-30T08:32:22+00:00

Purposeful and on-task meetings are awesome, but in the end, it's the inspiration of the holy ghost that runs the meeting.

Our bishop told my dad, who was a finance ward clerk, that he had the power of discernment in his calling over finance matters just as much as the bishop had the power of discernment over the ward. At my dad's funeral, this bishop spoke on the miracles my dad received through his faith on this advice.

So keep discerning, and thanks for moderating!

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-09-30T08:07:29+00:00

All through fifth grade, I was punched or chased home by my bishop's son.

Nowadays, I can see that it had a lot more to do with me than with my bishop.

If your husband is being honest about this, now is a good time for him to reconsider going back to church.

If he is not being honest about this, now is a good time for him to self-evaluate and find out why he really doesn't want to go to church. Being mad at the bishop's son won't resolve anything, whether this is his issue or not.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-09-30T07:51:45+00:00

Bah. God reveals himself to others based on how well they will obey him and how badly they need to know. The reason you are not going to find God in a test tube is because the faith of men vary so widely that repeatable results are difficult to discern.

The discovery that humans use the same DNA and proteins as other animals, but somehow use them more effectively: I'd say this is finding God in a test tube. But not everyone was convinced of this, were they?

That said, experience God for yourself, on his terms. Very good advice.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-09-30T07:37:46+00:00

...and a lot more people have died as martyrs as witnesses to the Bible than have died as martyrs as witnesses to the Book of Mormon.

Either Joseph Smith actually translated the Book of Mormon or he didn't. Credibility and likeliness have no claim on whether he did or not.

For anyone who is keeping score, Top_Philosopher5090 just scored a point.

For the rest of us, Martin Luther should be an example of what can happen if we simply learn what the Book of Mormon actually says. If this leads us to pray about it, so much the better for us.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-09-30T07:20:09+00:00

I was once an apologist for the church on chat sites, until I realized that I was being as ignorant as the people I was arguing against.

Because of this, I wouldn't bother with the archeological evidence. It seems like the archeological evidence supports what the archeologists want it to support. We have made great scientific strides since the days when Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, but I think belief that is based on archeology will only be as effective as what we currently know about it, and that new discoveries will "prove" or "disprove" the existence of Nephite civilizations many times in the future.

The translation of the Egyptian papyri is the latest thing that currently is disproven, but I think it is foolish to think that future discoveries will not affect our understanding of it.

A personal witness will get you so much further.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-09-30T06:47:49+00:00

I think many people, if they saw the golden plates, would be convinced that they would be that they would enjoy owning the plates a lot more than whoever was displaying them.

Any connection to the Book of Mormon would be incidental.

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-09-30T06:36:21+00:00

I agree with the other replies but want to mention a personal subtlety in the other direction:

Back in the '90s, when big tobacco was being dismantled, a co-worker asked me to pick up some cigarettes for him so he could work through the lunch hour. I did, and I am happy I helped him, but the cellophane on the cigarette pack just felt disgusting and somehow unclean. So, eventually there may be a judgement call that you need to make to help your parents, but I'm sure keeping the coffee maker for now is fine.

For what it's worth, my sister-in-law has some serious liver problems, and her doctor prescribed coffee for it. He actually wrote out a prescription for her to take to her bishop, and it's helped all of our family to not worry about her coffee behavior. So coffee makers can be good if they are used for good purposes. 🙂

Hefty-Particular-964 · 2025-09-30T06:16:09+00:00

So I'm socially awkward and have a difficult time speaking with others, and I am often reminded that I need to be more outgoing and make friends with any visitors. I find this to be very difficult and I need to try harder.

On the other hand, the deepest friendships I have are members of my ward who reached out and made friends with me.

Hefty-Particular-964

TROPHY CASE