Ask HN: How do you learn complex, dense technical information?
I&#x27;m a big fan of the idea of using Spaced Repetition for this. The idea is that it allows you to both:<p>- be able to keep your knowledge &#x2F; understanding of an area around for the long term; but also<p>- be able to gradually build up your understanding by first committing the fundamentals to memory, and then using that to build up your level of abstraction and get to the more complex ideas and principles.<p>Michael Nielsen has written fairly extensive explanations of two slightly different approaches in:<p>- Using spaced repetition systems to see through a piece of mathematics [1]<p>- Augmenting Long-term Memory [2]<p>I&#x27;ve only used this particular approach for a handful of subjects so far - indeed, it seems to just take time to build a high-quality, long-term understanding of a thing. However, I&#x27;ve been pretty happy with the process so far.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;cognitivemedium.com&#x2F;srs-mathematics" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;cognitivemedium.com&#x2F;srs-mathematics</a>
[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;augmentingcognition.com&#x2F;ltm.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;augmentingcognition.com&#x2F;ltm.html</a>