the-real-numbers:

Learn Real Analysis On Your Own!

1. Get ready to cry
2. Cry
3. Cry some more
4. Question why you gotta prove the thing
5. Decide you’re gonna do it anyway
6. Get somewhere with it
7. Run out of energy (too many quantifiers)
8. Take a break
9. Have an epiphany, scribble something down
10. Try it out
11. Get excited because it actually works (kinda)
12. Discover there’s a detail you might have missed.
13. Curse yourself
14. Dig out your textbook again and read through some proofs to see how that sort of thing was handled
15. Let epsilon be greater than zero/delta greater than zero/there be a limit… Etc.
16. Oh shit that’s what you forgot
17. Make sure there was no fuckery with a negative sign
18. You’re good
19. Write out a draft of the proof!
20. Oh shit, you could have done it better!
21. Write a new proof halfway
22. Stumble into a problem
23. Get stumped and take another break
24. Oh, that was silly, you had it.
25. Finish the new proof
26. It’s been two days and you finally went through one theorem
27. Realize that’s just how it is
28. Repeat.