No wonder I feel bad at math. I merely applied procedures instead of understanding what I was doing.

Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.

I could not do mathematics until I was 16.

For more than ten years, from first grade onward, I felt as though I were swimming in a sea of rules, formulas, and procedures—learning to memorize them without ever understanding why they were true. Eventually, I began to feel as if I were drowning.

Yet I never gave up on mathematics. The reason was physics.

I loved physics because I could see it. I could visualize an experiment in my mind, imagine what was happening, and then make sense of the results. Physics was not a collection of formulas to me; it was a way of seeing the world. Mathematics, however, seemed to be the language I was somehow expected to speak without first being taught how to think.

Then, when I was 16, I met a mathematics teacher who was also an electrical engineer. He told me something that changed my life: “It is not you. Your teachers simply don't know how to teach mathematics.”

For the first time, I considered the possibility that perhaps I was not incapable of understanding mathematics. Perhaps I had simply never been shown how to see it.

I spent the entire summer learning from him. Slowly, something opened up. I began to see that mathematics was not really about memorizing rules. Beneath the rules was structure; beneath the structure was logic; and beneath the logic was a way of thinking about the world.

Mathematics became something I could reason about rather than something I had to remember.

From that moment on, I essentially taught myself to become a mathematician.

And there is a certain irony in that journey.

Physics was the reason I refused to give up on mathematics. I entered mathematics because I wanted the language necessary to understand physics. But somewhere along the way, mathematics itself became the destination, and I never pursued physics.

Perhaps that is one of the strange things about life: sometimes we pursue one thing only because it is the road to something else, and then, somewhere along the road, we discover that the road itself has become our destination.

Still, there is a sadness in it.

Physics was the first subject that taught me that the world could be understood through imagination—that if I could visualize what was happening, I could begin to understand why it happened. Mathematics later taught me something deeper: that behind what we can see lies a structure that can sometimes be understood even when it cannot be seen.

In the end, I became a mathematician because I wanted to understand physics.

And perhaps the saddest irony is that, in finally learning the language of physics, I left physics behind.

Im an adult and this has helped me

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but for the first problem 27 is 3/4 , can’t you divide 27 by 3 = 9 , then add 9 to 27 making 36= x ? 👀

Same for 30 2/3 , 30 divided by 2 = 15

15 + 30 =45

Or is it better to do it the long way?

The crazy thing is, it’s still procedural.  Somebody still needs to show you what needs to be done in that situation.  Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re doing something completely different.  You’re really just presenting the procedure visually or using words to communicate the same steps.

7:30 this guy is a genius of a whole other magnitude.

This was a beautiful music played by numbers that were making sense. Thank you, Sir.

1st time in a long while I watched a good Ted Talk

Greg Tang
YT channel: Tang math games

Why just kids, this is a topic that can be relevant and a bit healing  for anyone from any age group who has struggled with maths. 😊

As A primary math teacher , I have started using AI to do visulization and create bar models for many of my word problems  / questionsand content where applicable. Visual learning aids math understanding very effectively.

Huge fan! You have opened my eyes to a new way of thinking about math and I love it! Thanks for the great information.

Yes, loved the math explanations - a lot. However, this was the most notable standout 7:22 part. Great mental model to keep in mind for public speaking! Over come nerves. It's not about you and memorizing words. It's about sharing and explaining what you know to others.

This is awesome! Gen X kids had it rough with math 😂

Love these Tedtalks.

This is absolutely fascinating!!!

May fail?
If I have to show my work!?!?
But, this is absolutely amazing

I love Mathematics. That was FUN!!! I feel like I'm back in elementary school I was just prompting AI bot on algorithms that compute eigenvalues and combine them with representations in Banach Space!!! The AI discussed Computational Functional Analaysis and Infinite Dimensional Operator Theory.

However, the basics is where you start: Visualization, Reasoning, and Number Sense. This was a good Ted TAlk.

Man I wish I had a teacher like you

I have taught and supported the teaching of mathematics for 60 years(81 and still volunteering in à secondary school) and you have highlighted the three areas that I believed were taught so badly.  Visualisation ( I called it making mental pictures) was pretty much ignored, even with the younger pupils and although in the UK we had a national project to raise standards in number sense, this has now been down played and pupils who need teaching mental dexterity with number (some pupils develop this by themselves) are now unable to estimate numerical answers and so accept anything that is presented as an answer on a calculator, as true.  I find it very depressing.