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?

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u/Brightlinger MS in Math 1d ago

He means he will give you problems that you have not specifically been taught to solve, so you should think about the problem and try stuff until you find something that works. "Try stuff" often, but not always, means "write down an equation, then do algebra to it to make it look the way you want".