Something you’re just good at with minimal effort and/or you learned much more quickly than average.

For me, it’s paper snowflakes. My brain just seems to effortlessly figure out what cuts to make to the paper wedge to make it turn out exactly how I want it. Largely useless, but good fun and was a much-needed ego boost when I was a kid :]

  • spicy pancake@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    1 year ago

    With math, is it arithmetic that gives you trouble or the actual symbolic manipulation of mathematics?

    I am hot garbage at keeping track of numbers but turn those fuckers into letters and (at least for me) it’s off to the races. Then I just convert everything back to numbers in the last step before jamming it all into a calculator. This method saved my ass in 400-level biochemistry courses. (Annoyed the shit out of the grad students grading my exams, I’m sure…)

    You may be better at “math” than you think :]

      • spicy pancake@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Good on you for just casually getting a computational physics degree without inherent math talent… like holy shit that’s impressive!

        I have also cried over coursework on linear algebra as well as electricity and magnetism :') Brutal stuff.

    • Legolution@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Please could you explain a bit more about the process you describe, above? Maybe with some simple examples? I’m woeful at maths but really good with mechanical and physical problems. If there’s a way I can improve upon the former, I’d love to try.

      Thanks in advance!

      • devils_advocate
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        C = BxA

        Move A underneath C and swap the equality

        B = C/A

        A lot of algebra is spatial manipulation.