Some thoughts about self-education

[wrobel]

I deeply respect people who are engaged in self-education. Nevertheless the problem of self-education is as follows. A person reads textbooks and forms his own opinion about what he has read. Then he tries to solve a problem and faces the fact that his answer is not equal to the one in the end of the book.
Then he goes to specialists and asks them what the story is. He expects that specialists will help him to solve the problem and they will do that by using his own understandings and interpretations which he developed while reading textbooks. But what can a specialist do if these understandings and interpretations are mostly inadequate?
Sometimes it is a big challenge for specialists indeed. Usually it is an easier task to reteach a person from the beginning than explain the problem in his language.

 

[fresh_42]

I agree. The main difficulty is the lack of a control instance. PF would be a good place to fill this lack. Unfortunately, many people use LLMs these days instead. They tend to please their clients rather than ask the challenging questions that are necessary for learning. I don't want to derail the subject in that direction, especially as there are already enough threads about LLMs. My main point is the control instance. At university, you have discussions with fellow students, weekly homework, tutorials, seminars, and exams. I always say that the main difference between mathematics and physics is the language, and I mean literally the way things are expressed. But learning languages on your own is challenging, too. They require practice. Hence, it is all about that control instance. You described a situation without any, or a sort of oracle (the scientist asked to help), I mentioned the problem with possible replacements (PF, LLMs). It seems as if some sort of control instance is inevitable in either perspective. The question of a replacement for control mechanisms at the university is thus the center of the problem.

 

[Klystron]

I also agree with the origial post, but the problem can be corrected. For example I read prodigiously as a child, adding many new words and expressions to my vocabulary. Not hearing the new words I would sometimes mispronounce them. This problem was later corrected by attending school, listening to adults speak, and watching films and such made from the source material I had read. (Reading phoneticly helped but phonics usually encountered at school supporting formal education.)

As one learns more advanced mathematics, one's knowledge of physics deepens built on some basic levels of understanding. Errors and incorrect reasoning should be amenable to change as learning continues throughout life.

 

[gleem]

While helping people online with homework like PF is valuable, it is cumbersome. The people must present their whole spiel, misunderstanding and all, in one fell swoop. In reading the post, the advisor might have liked to halt it at the point where the person was beginning to go astray and direct them to the correct direction.

Additionally, there are many competing viewpoints from other advisors who intervene during one's attempted dialogue with the person. These competing posts may be a distraction, drawing the person's attention away from your approach. They may also be significantly different from yours and sometimes confusing.

Sometimes, after many responses, the person may give a courteous thank you, but leave us wondering if our help was understood.

One thing that I thought might be of value is for one of the advisors to summarize the solution or post the" best" solution at the end of the discussion. This might be helpful to others who later peruse the Forum, find the problem of interest, but do not want to spend too much time working through the multitude and sometimes circuitous suggestions and approaches.