When I need a clear, straightforward summary of a topic, I’ve started reading the ‘Simple English’ version of Wikipedia. It’s primarily written for people whose first language isn’t English, but I’ve used it profitably.

Here’s my theory: Some students struggle with economics because they do not fully understand the mathematical tools economists use. Profs do not know how their students were taught mathematics, what their students know, what their students don’t know - and have no idea how to help their students bridge those gaps.

Assignments are incomplete until one is competent. If it’s not good enough, change it. If you don’t understand the premise fully, redo it. Failing and moving on isn’t an option because every bit is important.

> Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthling assumptions) as color means to a blind man.

Whisper it, but the periodic table does not exist even in the way that the Tube map exists, representing the actual position of the stations on the ground. But the table traps the elements it represents in a kind of prison and stops us seeing them for themselves.

At readings of my new book, Periodic Tales, parents have come up to me afterwards and told me their child is having “to do the periodic table”, and how can they help?

Here’s how: get them thinking about the individual elements instead. After all, the periodic table is only a checklist of what is truly elemental. Mendeleev’s table shows how the properties of each are similar, but this tends to obscure their uniqueness. What is more, each element is linked to our lives in unique and often unexpected ways. We know them through our human culture, how they have been woven into our objects and stories, not by entering the privileged space of a laboratory.

For 350 years, the Royal Society has called on the world's biggest brains to unravel the mysteries of science. Its president, Martin Rees, considers today's big issues, while leading thinkers describe the puzzles they would love to see solved.

The book, that fusty old technology, seems rigid and passé as we daily consume a diet of information bytes and digital images. The fault, dear reader, lies not in our books but in ourselves.

Reading mathematics too quickly results in frustration.  A half hour of concentration in a novel might net the average reader 20-60 pages with full comprehension, depending on the novel and the experience of the reader.  The same half hour in a math article buys you 0-10 lines depending on the article and how experienced you are at reading mathematics. There is no substitute for work and time.  You can speed up your math reading skill by practicing, but be careful.  Like any skill, trying too much too fast can set you back and kill your motivation.  Imagine trying to do an hour of high-energy aerobics if you have not worked out in two years.  You may make it through the first class, but you are not likely to come back.  The frustration from seeing the experienced class members effortlessly do twice as much as you, while you moan the whole next day from soreness, is too much to take.

Slow reading is the intentional reduction in the speed of reading, carried out to increase comprehension or pleasure. The concept appears to have originated in the study of philosophy and literature as a technique to more fully comprehend and appreciate a complex text. More recently, there has been increased interest in slow reading as result of the slow movement and its focus on decelerating the pace of modern life.