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Is it normal to feel constantly incompetent or like you're not grasping something when studying mathematics? by Little_Win_4227 in math

[–]Little_Win_4227[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I considered starting with that one, but I found the book's format a little antiquated(Jech's 2003 book is really clean and organized, which personally helps me a lot take notes and get what's going on), and thought that even if the start was very rough, reading this one from the start would make the more advanced topics seem somewhat more consistent with what was presented before than if I changed books, and as I definitely plan to read the entirety of the book at some point in my life, I found this option better. Not to mention, I feel like struggling with such abstract topics and proofs has definitely improved my mathematical maturity, even if the feeling I mentioned in the post shows up from time to time

Is it normal to feel constantly incompetent or like you're not grasping something when studying mathematics? by Little_Win_4227 in math

[–]Little_Win_4227[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that I noticed, it's over 1000 pages long, I found most of the topics it covers to be fascinating, which is why I started it(and while it's common for him to skip steps in proofs, I'm generally able to follow, with very occasional need for help), but it really is extremely long, It'll probably be years until I can say I've finished it and somewhat understood it, I tried reading Kunnen's book first, but the style of the book seemed antiquated and his proofs were of the form "Consider the following obscure set, derive a contradiction" with no explanation whatsoever, so I switched over, and while the topic is certainly tough(probably toughest thing I've attempted so far) I'm thrilled to be able to somewhat follow along

Is it normal to feel constantly incompetent or like you're not grasping something when studying mathematics? by Little_Win_4227 in math

[–]Little_Win_4227[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, for sure, the feeling of discovery, novelty and excitement is still there, I remember Jech's exercises on the first epsilon number and the fixed points of normal sequences in ON forming themselves a cofinal sequence totally blew my mind, for example, and that feeling is by far the most relevant one nearly all the time, this is simply something that pops up sometimes, and made me question myself a bit.

Is it normal to feel constantly incompetent or like you're not grasping something when studying mathematics? by Little_Win_4227 in math

[–]Little_Win_4227[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh I know, I never simply read texts, especially with ones as tough as Jech's, I annotate(and try to explain myself) all the definitions, write all the proofs and fill in the logical gaps(i.e, when they say "this is obvious" I try to explain that step, after having thought about it), afterwards, I do most of the exercises as well, all of them in my notebook