- #1
Bipolarity
- 776
- 2
I have a problem and I feel that it is becoming something of a psychological disorder. Whenever I am learning some scientific subject, I have a desire to "prove" all the ideas "from first principles". At some times it has escalated to an unavoidable desire to prove something so obvious that even a child would understand it at first glance. I feel this is reaching a level of almost "abnormality".
I have trouble making progress in my subjects unless I can prove the ideas whose proof I did not yet encounter. For the more difficult topics I usually take the idea for granted and write it down somewhere hoping to see the proof at some other time during my life, but for the simpler ones that are just out of my reach, I try to prove them but end up becoming frustrated over my efforts and often it is very time consuming. Many a time I am not successful in my efforts, and in the process people probably think I'm mad doing what it is I try to do.
I will soon study engineering and I feel that as an engineer, I will have neither the necessity nor the opportunity of being so skeptical about what I learn. For example, it's hard for me to use a theorem from math in physics unless I know its proof etc. but then that just makes my work all the more difficult.
Does anyone else have my problem? Is my problem a problem or is it a good thing? How can I manage it? I assume all mathematicians/physicists/economists/computer scientists faced my problem at some point in their careers, but how do they deal with it?
BiP
I have trouble making progress in my subjects unless I can prove the ideas whose proof I did not yet encounter. For the more difficult topics I usually take the idea for granted and write it down somewhere hoping to see the proof at some other time during my life, but for the simpler ones that are just out of my reach, I try to prove them but end up becoming frustrated over my efforts and often it is very time consuming. Many a time I am not successful in my efforts, and in the process people probably think I'm mad doing what it is I try to do.
I will soon study engineering and I feel that as an engineer, I will have neither the necessity nor the opportunity of being so skeptical about what I learn. For example, it's hard for me to use a theorem from math in physics unless I know its proof etc. but then that just makes my work all the more difficult.
Does anyone else have my problem? Is my problem a problem or is it a good thing? How can I manage it? I assume all mathematicians/physicists/economists/computer scientists faced my problem at some point in their careers, but how do they deal with it?
BiP