> got derailed when a teacher, in an early grade, said "let x be the unknown"
I don't have the experience to know myself, but I imagine that there are various triggers of early mathematical derailment. It would be interesting to see a list of common causes.
Personally I find it hard to internalise canonical notation. Like f and F in probability theory, which is which again?
> I imagine that there are various triggers of early mathematical derailment
I have come to believe that the main trigger by far is the attitude of society. Of parents, family, friends, tv stars, heck even many (non math) teachers. "I wasn't good at math haha" is such a standard phrase to hear, and parents telling their kids that they don't need to worry if they "don't get it" as if it's some mystical topic that only a few gifted can unlock. Plus the uncool stigma attached to "math nerds", folks who simply have an open mind to try to "get it", turns out that it isn't actually that hard. At least when talking high school math or some basic college classes.
> Personally I find it hard to internalise canonical notation. Like f and F in probability theory, which is which again?
Probability theory's notation isn't very canonized. The typical usage, f for PDF and F for CDF, is easy to remember from the calculus notation of uppercase being an integral of the lowercase.
I don't have the experience to know myself, but I imagine that there are various triggers of early mathematical derailment. It would be interesting to see a list of common causes.
Personally I find it hard to internalise canonical notation. Like f and F in probability theory, which is which again?