How I Rewired My Brain to Become Fluent in Math - Issue 40: Learning

I was a wayward kid who grew up on the literary side of life, treating math and science as if they were pustules from the plague. So it's a little strange how I've ended up now--someone who dances daily with triple integrals, Fourier transforms, and that crown jewel of mathematics, Euler's equation. It's hard to believe I've flipped from a virtually congenital math-phobe to a professor of engineering. One day, one of my students asked me how I did it--how I changed my brain. I wanted to answer Hell--with lots of difficulty! In fact, I didn't start studying remedial math until I left the Army at age 26. If there were a textbook example of the potential for adult neural plasticity, I'd be Exhibit A. Learning math and then science as an adult gave me passage into the empowering world of engineering.