With uploaded video US captions test Show Transcript something else that's really important to know about math is that being good at math does not mean being fast at math in fact the opposite may be true mathematicians who we could think of as the world's top math people are some of the slowest math thinkers as I've met I don't say that to disrespect mathematicians I work with many mathematicians but they're not usually fast math thinkers they're deep mathematical thinkers this is Lloyd Schwartz he won the fields medal which is the top math phrase like winning an Oscar in math he struggled in school because his school valued speed and he was 1 of the slowest math thinkers in his class after he became very successful he wrote an autobiography and this is how he describes his school days I was always deeply uncertain about my own intellectual capacity I thought I was unintelligible and it is true that I was and still am rather slow I need time to seize things because I always need to understand them fully towards the end of 11th grade I secretly thought of myself as stupid I worried about this for a long time I'm still just as slow at the end of 11th grade I took the measure of the situation and came to the conclusion that rapidity doesn't have a precise relation to intelligence what is important is to deeply understand things and their relations to each other this is where intelligence lies the fact of being quick or slow isn't really relevant many strong mathematical thinkers like Lawrence Schwarz think deeply and slowly and like to understand things fully if you are 1 of those people do not be put off by people who may be faster that isn't important what is important to repeat Lauren tros so deeply understand things and the way they relate to each other it's fine good even to think slowly about math and it is really good to think deeply and ask questions that will allow more depth questions like why does this work how this method connected to other methods what would a drawing of the situation look like and it's important if you're a slower thinker never to think it means you cannot be a math person it is great to think deeply and carefully to fully understand to ask questions we need those fingers in math doing well at math is not about being quick or slow it's about thinking about Connections thinking