What is wrong with the way most of us are introduced to maths?
The way mathematics is taught is akin to an art class in which students are only taught how to paint a fence and are never shown the paintings of the great masters. When, later on in life, the subject of mathematics comes up, most people wave their hands and say "Oh no, I don't want to hear about this, I was so bad at math". What they are really saying is, "I was bad at painting the fence".
So what is it really like to be a mathematician?
You don't discover something beautiful every day. Most of the time, you work on something for weeks or months, only to realise that it doesn't work. But, you never give up, you go back and try to analyse the data that you have, and try to see the analogies and connections ...
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