Exploring personal growth and development
"If you want to create a different kind of tomorrow, you have to take time today for personal growth and development." There are many ways in which we can do this. One way is by reading books that enrich and educate the mind. You can start by reading Les Miserables from Victor Hugo or The Alchemist from Paulo Coelho.
Another way is through taking online courses with Coursera or edX. There are over 2200 free online courses offered by top universities like Harvard, Stanford, MIT, University of Tokyo and more. You could take courses on algebra, macroeconomics, machine learning, algebraic topology and more.
There are many other ways as well. You can learn new things by trying out new activities, volunteering in an organization that is dedicated to social causes or starting a business idea that you have been thinking about for long.
Once you start doing these things regularly, it will become a habit and you won't need to make so much of an effort to keep doing them. And eventually, you will see positive results in the form of increased confidence levels and better personal growth. [ARTICLE END]
Updated on 16 February 2016: I revised some grammar mistakes that I had made in this article earlier.
Updated on 21 August 2016: I added a new paragraph about online courses with Coursera and edX for the reader's benefit.
Updated on 29 January 2017: I have removed the reference to The Alchemist in the article's introduction because the book has been given away for free by its publisher downloadfreeebooks.net. It is against copyright laws to give away a copyrighted book for free, and so this has not been done by any other publisher or website.
Updated on 27 May 2017: I have added a new paragraph that discusses ways in which one could explore personal growth through reading books and taking online courses. Any suggestions for improvements in this article are welcome.
Updated on 3 December 2017: I have added a new paragraph on how you can learn new things by trying out new activities, volunteering in an organization or starting a business idea that you have been thinking about for long. This article has also been translated into Persian by Parvaneh Nasiri on her blog click here .
Updated on 24 June 2018: I have updated the links.
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1. What is the role of creativity?
2. What is the difference between science and mathematics?
3. When was mathematical thinking discovered and who was the first to do it?
4. What are the two ways in which numbers can be written?
5. How is mathematics useful in solving problems in everyday life? (If you haven't read this chapter yet, please do! There is a lot of interesting stuff here. I'll show you why we haven't figured out how to make a perpetual motion machine!)
6. What is the difference between the numbers 2 and 2?
7. How is mathematics similar to music?
8. What is the difference between length and distance?
9. Can you give an example of a problem where you have to measure length, weight, and time when doing a job? (These are all 'measurement problems'.)
10. In what way does mathematics help us communicate with others, both verbally and non-verbally? (If you haven't read this chapter yet, please do! There is a lot of interesting stuff here.)
11. How are measurement and estimation related to each other?
12. How can you estimate the height of a building using a barometer?
13. How can you find out the distance between two places without using a measuring tape?
14. Why are estimation problems not measurable?
15. How does the language of mathematics make it easier for us to solve problems in everyday life?
16. What do we mean by the language of mathematics?
17. What is the connection between geometry and music? (I am discussing this in an upcoming blog post.) 18. What is the difference between the set of numbers and the counting numbers?
19. How is a group of geometric shapes similar to a group of apples?
20. How is mathematics similar to art and music?
21. Are there any problems that cannot be solved using simple mathematics?
22. Why do you think mathematics isn't taught in elementary schools the way science is? (This question is asked in this chapter.) 23. What should be taught and what shouldn't be taught in schools? (This question is asked in this chapter.) 24. How would you define science, maths and engineering ? 25. Is mathematics an art or a science ? (Read both my answers .) 26. Why do you think that more girls are interested in maths than boys? 27. Why do you think that more girls are interested in art and music than boys? 28. What is the connection between the five senses and small groups of numbers ?
29. What is the difference between a mathematical idea and a mathematical proof? 30. Can you define maths , math , geometry and arithmetic as opposites or as synonyms? 31. Is it impossible to solve problems using only pure mathematics? 32. How can we benefit from using pure mathematics without any application of it ? 33. In what way does pure mathematics help us learn to live in society? 34. Is it possible to teach pure mathematics? 35. Could anyone do mathematics? 36. If you were a mathematical prodigy, what would you be interested in doing? 37. Could someone who suffers from dyscalculia become good at maths ? 38. Can mathematical proofs be proved without using mathematics ? 39. Is there any content in pure mathematics that can't be taught to children without being able to explain why it works? 40. Can you prove some basic theorems using geometry alone ? 41. How can we find true statements and obvious truths using pure mathematics alone (without another subject like history or logic?) 42. Can maths be learnt in a short period of time (say, over 3 years)? 43..
Conclusion
Thank you for reading this article. It's a long one, but hopefully it has piqued your interest. Please leave me a comment to let me know if I have written anything that is unclear or false. I love reading comments from my readers and will do everything in my power to answer any questions you might have about the topics that I discussed in this article. If you think that any of the information above is wrong, please write me an email at shrikantjoshi999@gmail.com with your questions about these topics and I will try to answer them properly as best as I can, and give you credit for helping me improve this article.