In school I essentially hated all math beyond Algebra, because it started to become something less tangible and more rote. Which is a sensible way to teach it as a pure subject, but it completely undercuts it's utility and connection to real world problems and the intrigues that go along with them.

Once I started to really want to understand and write audio processing code, I suddenly had a framework to not only care about Trigonometry, but to actually apply it and to have a tool that would validate my understanding of it. That short feedback loop got me through the subject incredibly quickly.

I was completely blown away when I started reading some Linear Algebra material because I realized that I had essentially been doing it for years without even strictly realizing it. The subject came to me very quickly because I already had a solid "mechanical" understanding of how to implement systems utilizing a particular subset of it.

I think passion for the deeper maths is something most people just have to discover through application, and there just happen to be a rare few who discover a pure love of it very early in life.

It's interesting how opposite people's interests in math can be. I hated elementary arithmetic and its focus on memorization and speed. Once the focus switched to solving equations and became less about concrete numbers, that's when I shot from "severely underperforming his potential" to "a natural at math"

What's funny is I was that guy (not literally the same guy, but did similar things) as GP describes who could type in a program implementing the math lesson in the time it took the teacher to describe it.

And. I. Struggled. So. Much. with math classes.

Could never get homework done because I couldn't focus due to undiagnosed (and thus unmedicated) ADHD. On tests it'd take me the whole hour to do three problems out of twenty because I had to re-derive every equation and lemma from first principles before I convinced myself I was doing it right. And then (probably again due to the undiagnosed ADHD) I'd transpose symbols while working the problem or make other working-memory errors.

The best math class experience I had (later in life) was with a professor at a community college who was a military veteran (mentioned because it influenced his attitude toward teaching). He said, "I'm going to spend hardly any time explaining things; we're just going to work the problems." And that's what we did; we just worked problems.

You'd think I'd be bored with that, but it was the opposite. As I think about it now to try to explain why, I realize that other math classes I'd been in the expectation was lecture was for explaining the concepts, homework was for self-directed working the problems, and tests were for demonstrating that. But if you're bright and have ADHD you're quickly bored with the explanation and completely UNable to self-direct working the problems. So the class time was wasted and homework sessions were hell. So this professor using class time to work the problems was just what I needed.

I struggled a lot in math too. Got a D in calculus, nearly dropped out of high school. I'd absorbed my dad's excuse, "I'm bad at math." What a crock of shit. Turns out, I was bad at doing work in absence of motivation. But my parents didn't believe in ADHD, so I couldn't have that.

Went back to community college after some time as a web dev, and had a teacher with a booming voice and a gentle attitude, who explained that we were going to be doing a lot of homework. Like your instructor, he'd spend class time working problems, and then I'd go home and do an hour or two of homework every night while it was still fresh. That kicked off a trajectory that resulted in a PhD and a very fulfilling job as a mathematician.

I was on my high school's math team. For three years I was in a special class where all we did was look at math problems selected from competitions and solve them. On the one hand, it was great and fun. On the other hand, trig problems were in short supply, and I came out with a less than excellent grasp of trig, especially identities.

I mean, I agree anyone can do anything with enough effort, but some people have an easier time. It’s really easy for me to program computers. I routinely am perplexed that people I know can’t understand or see the algorithms and structures I see. That doesn’t mean I’m the best or that others cannot learn it, just that somehow my brain is structured, whether through nature or nurture, in a way that helps me do logic and math required for programming. On the other hand, I cannot learn other languages. I just cannot figure them out. I still worked hard to learn that skill, but I definitely worked way less hard to become experienced at this than so many programmers I know.

In my view, not everyone needs to be good at everything, but I do get that society sets up maths and science as way harder than it has to be. Part of that is how we teach math, too. I hated math until I went to college and roundabout earned a maths degree.

Maryam Mirzakhani is a lovely 3xamoke of somebody who didn't find mathematics effortlessly easy as a child.

On the other hand, there definitely are people for whom mathematics is much easier than others. I found mathematics effortless at school and even to an extent at university in a way that other people clearly didn't. I did work at the Olympiad type stuff at school I guess but that felt like fun.

I didn't become a Fields Medallist though :-)

Most of the international-calibre mathematicians I have crossed paths with did find a certain level of maths effortless in the same way I did I think, but they also worked hard, although not necessarily relentlessly. Most certainly had other interests outside mathematics. They all really really loved mathematics.

> Maryam Mirzakhani is a lovely 3xamoke of somebody who didn't find mathematics effortlessly easy as a child.

"3xamoke" is "example", right? If I seemed to claim that good mathematicians found mathematics effortless, I definitely didn't mean to! Rather I meant to claim the opposite: that doing truly deep mathematics (or anything) is deeply effortful even for those who wind up excelling most at it; those people are just the ones who feel such a passion that they can't stop putting in that effort.

> On the other hand, there definitely are people for whom mathematics is much easier than others. I found mathematics effortless at school and even to an extent at university in a way that other people clearly didn't. I did work at the Olympiad type stuff at school I guess but that felt like fun.

I don't claim anything as absurd as that there is no difference in mathematical ability between different people, only that (1) I think the relevance of ability compared to effort is overstated, and (2) even to the extent to which ability is relevant, looking at certain people and declaring them as just good at math (a) undervalues the effort that they put in and (b) discourages people who struggle with it, and who think that means that they cannot do well at it.