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credit_guy · 2019-07-28 · Original thread
It depends what you mean by "dive into math". To get to the level where you understand the proof of the theorem mentioned in this blog post (Theorema Egregium)? This, I think, is roughly where non-elementary math begins. My opinion may prove unpopular, but I don't think this is actually doable by self-study. Well, except that I did something like this myself, I spent 3 months one Summer going page by page through the wonderful "Riamannian Geometry" by Manfredo Perdigao do Carmo [1].

So, it's certainly possible, but also kind of not. It depends where you are in your life, and why you want to do that. If you have a job, maybe a family, and think you'd like to invest one-two hours of day for this hobby, I'm not sure you can get there. If you are willing to invest substantially more time and effort, you need to ask yourself why? Do you want to enhance your career? I think there are better areas of math/CS/Machine Learning that you can attack, with a much better return on investment. Do you already have enough money, that career advancement is not a concern, and you simply want to pursue truth and beauty, and you find advanced math to fit your taste? Then you can go solo, and I think you can succeed, but I think it's much more efficient to actually get feedback from other people (via tutoring or attending courses, or even MOOC).

Anyway, not sure if you know about 3brown1blue [2]. Check it out, I hope you'll enjoy it.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Riemannian-Geometry-Manfredo-Perdigao...

[2]https://www.3blue1brown.com/

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