>>12655330Some advice from a fellow retard:
>Started studying physics years after finishing school>had no idea about basic math anymore>at the beginning I thought I was just too dumb to do itFrom time to time I still think I am too dumb to grasp this, but some people (like me) just don't get stuff the first time. As other anons mentioned you just have to put in the effort. And don't feel dumb or anything. The field is so full of stuff and you can never know everything about it. I would advice to practice the basics because they are most important. Almost all the time I don't get something it is because I have some gap in the knowledge of the basics.
A lot of it is also rehearsing after some time.
Learn the basics (first practice, then the theory - this is my approach - others do it the other way around). Also write some short summaries. That can help tremendously. For that I would also advice browsing the net for sources of the topic you want to learn. There can be several great sources for different topics and how good they are for you depends totally on your learning style. Archiving things properly also helps to reread stuff in the future. This will take a little bit of time but will be very helpful for you in the future.
calculus: derivatives and integration, sums and series, then progress to partial derivatives and different coordinate systems
linear algebra: systems of equations, basics of vectors and matrices, determinants, eigenvalues and eigenvectors and the properties of those, diagonalizability. Practice those topics.
And also try to get a feel for different notations. They were very confusing at first for me, but it becomes a skill after some time. It's like grammatical structure of a language.
And don't let yourself get caught up in the thousands of sources. Sometimes you watch or read stuff and don't get anything. Just be patient. This is a very long road and mountain to climb. This is not about quick and fast progress.
Good Luck
