Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#181

Post by AdamH12113 » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

gorjusborg wrote: post #123

time_to_smile wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I enjoy 3blue1brown's videos they definitely fall under the umbrella of current gen "edutainment" where the goal is to make you feel like you've learned something without have anything really click. Pretty much everyone I know who claims that 3blue1brown's video helped them understand a topic... doesn't really understand that topic at all. 3blue1brown's video can be fun for topics you already know, providing a…

I can't speak generally about all of 3blue1brown's content, but the essence of linear algebra made concepts like eigenvectors and values and what they are click for me, there is no question.

I agree with the GP that you really need to work through a lot of problems to fully understand a mathematical subject. But there are a couple cases where I did have real, lasting moments of insight, and the 3B1B linear algebra series was one of them. Hearing it stated directly that the columns of a transformation matrix are the coordinates of the basis vectors after the transformation (a fact that I had somehow missed across multiple linear algebra classes) turned on a light bulb in my head.

The Borsuk-Ulam theorem is another example of something that seems obvious in hindsight but that I had never run across before.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#182

Post by ianyanusko » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

The Three Body Problem series, while a fictional sci-fi trilogy, resolved the Fermi Paradox in what was for me the most terrifying and convincing way possible.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#183

Post by connectsnk » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

blahblah1234567 wrote: post #129

Statistics. It made data, functions, web applications, and REST API finally click for me. I took two stats courses-- a simple one at a community college where we dabbled with a stats analysis app. And a more complex one, where we wrote scripts in the language "R" and uses rStudio. I began to realize things I should have realized long before that: - Functions typically intake data, and output data. What made it click…

Which book can you recommend for learning stats

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#184

Post by ianyanusko » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 5:11 PM UTC

The Three-Body Problem, while a fictional sci-fi trilogy, resolved the Fermi Paradox in a way that was, for me, the most convincing and terrifying way possible.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#185

Post by domnomnom » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 5:11 PM UTC

Calculus - an intuitive and physical approach. I did some of these exercises and they were easy. They helped me in calculus. I liked the explanation of secant lines.

How to prove it - I like the reduction of proofs to mechanical symbol pushing. Good exercise difficulty for self study, good notation.

I also liked some parts of the traditional calculus book. I read a lot of it. It’s pretty good considering literally everyone takes the class with the book. I would never use this for self study, but I enjoyed it during class.

Mathematics for physicists books provide a good overview of math topics. Haven’t really done any exercises though.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#186

Post by thoughtpalette » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 5:14 PM UTC

luuuzeta wrote: post #148

I've been struggling with wrapping my head around asynchronous programming with callbacks, promises and async/await in JS, however I think it's finally clicking after watching these YouTube videos and creating a document where I explain these concepts as if I'm teaching them to someone else: * Philip Roberts's What the heck is the event loop anyway? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aGhZQkoFbQ * The Story of Asynchr…

Commenting for later. Wish you could "favorite" comments.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#187

Post by leephillips » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

cwmma wrote: post #74

I had so much trouble with English grammar until I took Latin, then it all clicked and made sense. I say this as a native English speaker.

Interesting comment. Do you mean trouble with using English correctly, or trouble with grammatical analysis or terminology?

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#188

Post by tsycho » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

AlwaysRock wrote: post #149

gwbas1c wrote: post #119

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It (Michael E. Gerber) What it taught me is that effective organizations invest heavily in training newcomers how to do their jobs / processes. I see this everywhere; when I walk into a business and something's "just off," it's almost always because management is dropping the ball on training newcomers how to do their jobs. In my specific…

My first question for recruiters is always about how a company trains/mentors employees. I have gotten maybe 5 good responses out of the 100's of times I've asked that question. It's shocking to me. Every employee you hire is going to have to be trained on SOMETHING that is new to them or specific to your company. Why dont companies spend more time developing onboarding and training programs that actually work?

While your question itself is good, it's unfortunately quite likely that the recruiters won't actually know the answer. So their answer isn't a good signal.

Separately, in larger companies, there will be significant variance between the onboarding process of teams/orgs.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#189

Post by solarmist » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

thoughtpalette wrote: post #186

luuuzeta wrote: post #148

I've been struggling with wrapping my head around asynchronous programming with callbacks, promises and async/await in JS, however I think it's finally clicking after watching these YouTube videos and creating a document where I explain these concepts as if I'm teaching them to someone else: * Philip Roberts's What the heck is the event loop anyway? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aGhZQkoFbQ * The Story of Asynchr…

Commenting for later. Wish you could "favorite" comments.

You can. Click on the time for the comment. Then you can favorite it.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#190

Post by sureglymop » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 5:16 PM UTC

tinco wrote: post #164

crazygringo wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All religions are essentially different paths to the same destination Just to be clear, many religions and religious viewpoints would vehemently disagree with you. The idea that all religions lead to the same place is really just one variety of religious belief. There are many others. Reading the Tao Te Ching is great, but I'm not sure it's going to give you much insight into what Roman Catholics or Sunni Muslims a…

Well of course they'd vehemently disagree, they're on a different path and they believe that path goes to a different destination, while in reality necessarily all those path lead to the same destination. A Hindu might believe they're on a path that leads to reincarnation, a Muslim might believe they're on a path that leads to heaven or hell. At the end of their path though, necessarily something real is going to hap…

Logically speaking I do not follow. Why would it be the same? Why could it not be possible that different religious groups would have a different outcome "after living"? It's just as unprovable, no?