hey folks first time posting this sort of interview as a podcast (shout out the three anon on twitter that requested it).
now that I think of it the format does make sense since me and the interviewee are mostly chatting and exchanging ideas!
will be posting more of these in the future!
in this episode I had the pleasure of spending not 1 but 2 days interviewing the learning legend justin skycak.
we've talked about his quite impressive self-learning journey (3000h of math in high school) all the way to how he hand curated the initial knowledge graph for math academy to make that process more efficient.
I like justin because I understand his inner desire for learning.
I had the exact same “awakening” let’s say in my tiny bedroom when I was a teenager. I realized while doing some homework that I loved learning and found an immense sense of peace within it.
this realization kind of got lost in the midst of winter depression for a while until it got awoken again with a burning flare that never died down since (more trauma dump here).
this understanding that there is a meta-learning-skill is so fun because then the whole world kind of open up for you.
you encounter a hard problem you don’t know how to even get started? → great let’s use “learning”.
you got an opportunity that you are under prepared for? → great let’s use “learning”.
you want to make something seemingly impossible happen? → great let’s use “learning”.
what I like about justin’s story is that it is very concrete and touch math which has far reaching usefulness in life.
so here is the very lively 3h discussion where we touch these topics:
0:00:00 - intro:
0:02:10 - justin background
0:05:45 - 3000h math self study in high school
0:11:45 - what a day looked like for that 3000h stretch
0:16:10 - meta-learning vs pure math learning
0:21:50 - when did you get into cognitive neuro?
0:29:55 - how did the fundamental math helped in your research projects
0:43:10 - what does the math academy learning system looks like
0:47:34 - how did you guys build the 2000 topic knowledge graph
1:01:15 - would LLM be useful as an interface to that knowledge graph for the students?
1:10:46 - how does the FIRe spaced repetition algorithm works?
1:17:34 - does the same knowledge graph structure would work for physics? or other topic?:
1:34:05 - how do you understand the subject vs the curiculum
1:35:50 - is there a connection between studying math and learning a sport?
1:42:00 - do you think in math doing and teaching requires different skills?
1:56:25 - could you get understanding without automaticy?
2:05:35 - do you see any upside of confusion in learning?
2:14:11 - learning math as an adult?
2:19:20 - how to fill the motivation gap after learning the fundamental?
2:24:10 - how should teaching math for kids and adults balance fundamentals and creativity?
2:33:55 - is it ever too late to learn math seriously?
2:46:00 - mastery learning vs ultra learning
2:51:30 - top-down vs bottom-up
2:53:40 - mastery learning for domain without a structured hierarchical structure?
2:56:30 - neurodivergence / adhd for structured math learning?
3:06:20 - amateur mathematician augmented with technology will be able to contribute to research?
3:14:37 - what are you most excited about right now in term of learning
enjoy my guys! :)
