why do harder concepts (ie calculus, physics) get harder to understand/process for the brain?

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why do harder concepts (ie calculus, physics) get harder to understand/process for the brain?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

For two reasons: because they rely on “easier” concepts (arithmetic, etc.), so they are much more abstract than the “easier” concepts. If you remember from math, little kids start with counting apples or other actual objects, then once they “get” numbers the teachers start using numbers (no longer actual objects), then “x” represents “any” number and you start working with equations and functions, etc etc. it just becomes more and more abstract and further and further removed from “reality” (apples, oranges, coins, dollar bills, what have you).

And also because they start to increasingly use the names of the scientists who invented or proved these things. With the “lower level” concepts it’s rare – Pythagora’s Theorem for example, but as you go higher, Euclidean space, Minkowski space, Poincare group etc etc it’s all names and names and you have to know the history of it (who discovered what) in addition to the actual theory. Makes it harder, at least for me.

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