What kind of questions do you ask yourself when learning math and physics?

[cs23]

During a lecture on a technical topic what kind of questions do you ask? I find that when I'm in class, i sit there not knowing what's going on. I think I'm not actively engaged because I'm not questioning. I know for the information to stick i need to ask questions to myself. What are some questions some of you ask?

Also when reading a textbook, let's say on heat transfer, what kind of questions do you ask. Just reading a textbook passively won't get the information to stick

 

[atyy]

My question to the lecturer is always: Please sum up everything you said in one sentence. I've never asked this, but the best lecturers always provide a guiding big picture to prevent us from getting lost in gory details.

But just ask *anything* you don't understand - everyone gets stuck at different points - and asking questions helps the lecturer figure out what he is explaining poorly.

Of course it is necessary to struggle with the material on your own too. Your questions will be better after that. But there are truly no stupid questions.

 

[cbetanco]

I struggled a lot as a first year physics student. Usually, a lot of times in lectures I wouldn't really know what was going on either, but I just wrote everything that was on the board down, and figured I would have time to review it all later, with the help of a book of course. The only way to really get physics is to struggle through your homework problems. You can only learn so much from a lecture, but working through the problems actually makes the material stick and is where the majority of learning is done.

But there are truly no stupid questions.

I wish I could agree, even for the sake of making cs23 more comfortable with asking more questions. But, I have heard some pretty ridiculous questions asked before... (maybe some people thought the same of my questions)

 

[atyy]

Or maybe ALL questions are stupid:) See the Pauli story on p74 of http://books.google.com/books?id=dl...l+questions+were+stupid&source=gbs_navlinks_s

 

[jeebs]

What frequently happened to me is that the lecturer would make some comment, and that would set my mind off thinking about some totally tangential implication of what he said. By the time I tune back into the lecture I'd have no idea what was going on.
If you do this you've just got to learn to catch yourself doing that and tune back in immediately.

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

Why I don't have gf?

Answer: learning too much maths and physics.

 

[nonequilibrium]

Answer: learning too much maths and physics.

That's my answer too, but I think I'm flattering myself.