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IlyaShpitser comments on Innate Mathematical Ability - Less Wrong
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I suspect that all that shows is that you aren't used to the relevant bits of mathematics, and being confronted with unfamiliar and weird-looking notation intimidates you. There's no shame in that, and it says basically nothing about your intelligence or your natural aptitude for mathematics.
(Remember that the Raven matrices are designed to have as little dependence on prior knowledge as possible; mathematical questions, almost by definition, are not.)
Seconding this, weird notation makes many folks lose morale easily. I guess one watershed moment comes when, having conquered enough notation in specific cases, one realizes it's just a formal symbol pushing game in general, and then new weird looking notation doesn't cause a morale crisis.
Novel math papers often just invent new notation as they go.
I'm reminded of Graham's number (g notation) as an example where new notation (kind of) was invented for the purposes of a math paper.
I read a riveting blog post a few months ago introducing several concepts and building up to graham's number in a very accessible read if anyone's interested:
http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/11/1000000-grahams-number.html