A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra)

one of the first steps toward gaining expertise in math and science is to create conceptual chunks—mental leaps that unite separate bits of information through meaning.

To figure out new ideas and solve problems, it’s important not only to focus initially, but also to subsequently turn our focus away from what we want to learn.

The diffuse approach on the right often involves a big-picture perspective.

(An important side note here is that a key difference between creative scientists and technically competent but nonimaginative ones is their breadth of interest.22)

long-term memory might be thought of as a storage warehouse.

understand the basic idea you are trying to chunk,

Long-term memory is important for learning math and science because it is where you store the fundamental concepts and techniques that you need to use in problem solving.

But as long as we are consciously focusing on a problem, we are blocking the diffuse mode.

Diffuse-mode thinking is also essential for learning math and science. It allows us to suddenly gain a new insight on a problem we’ve been struggling with and is associated with “big-picture” perspectives. Diffuse-mode thinking is what happens when you relax your attention and just let your mind wander.