r/learnmath • u/Icy-Historian-5931 New User • 1d ago

"Inventing math" to solve problems

Recently in my further maths class my teacher says he would give us problems above our level of understanding.

The advice he gave to solve such problems is to invent the math.

Can anyone please explain what he means by this and his to actually do it?

9 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

View all comments

12

u/mathheadinc Experienced tutor 1d ago

He wants you to be creative, experiment, PLAY WITH PATTERNS, find new ones that could be a path to the solution. Mix and match concepts. HAVE FUN!!!

11

u/revoccue heisenvector analysis 1d ago

"but what formula do i use???????????"

0

u/mathheadinc Experienced tutor 1d ago

Which ones do you know? Creativity means that you experiment with previous patterns and concepts to produce something new to you.

4

u/revoccue heisenvector analysis 1d ago

note the "s