What drives you forward when you stuck? I know that discrete Mathematics grows harder and harder with the progress.
But sometimes my brain just seems to stop working even with the easiest material. (e.g. the mechanics behind rewriting linear maps into matrices)
As an undergraduate Mathematics newcomer, I would like to ask:


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*Is this a common problem or just for me?

*What drives you through these difficulties if such status last desperately long?

*Is there an easy fix for this kind of issue?
Great thanks.
 A: First, there are no "easy" fixes for when you're stuck.  If math were easy, more people would do it and the best would just focus on harder problems, where they'd get "stuck" too.  Think of Andy Wiles working on Fermat's Last Theorem:  seven (or more) years, alone, in the evening, being stuck nearly every moment.  
Nevertheless, here some techniques I use when I get stuck:


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*Work on the simplest version of the problem (typically the smallest, where one can write out terms)... look for limiting cases

*Write a computer program to perform the calculation (explicitly add a large number of terms, say)

*Try to visualize the problem (as some graph, or plot, or ...)

*Change the problem to make it easier (reduce the dimensionality, the constraints, etc.) and then try to work back to the original problem

*Re-read the textbook or relevant research papers

*Explain the problem to someone else.  (This has proven remarkably helpful!)

*When truly lost, ask for help (online or with a faculty member)... but don't ask for the answer!


I would also recommend two books:


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*How to solve it by George Polya

*Solving mathematical problems by Terence Tao

