Learning & Education

Jeremy Nixon's compiled knowledge on how to learn effectively -- meta-learning, autodidact methods, skill acquisition, and the structure of knowledge. Synthesized from 40+ raw entries.

The Autodidact's Method

Jeremy's approach to learning is itself systematic: treat learning as a skill to be optimized, study the best learners, and build frameworks for knowledge acquisition.

• compressing-how-to-learn -- The compressed guide to learning methodology
• meta-learning-story-of-an-autodidact -- Jeremy's own learning journey as presentation
• autodidact-resource-sharing -- Resources for self-directed learners
• education -- Broader thoughts on education systems

Learning Specific Domains

Jeremy documented strategies for learning specific fields:

Machine Learning & AI

• 15-03-19-ideas-for-learning-mlai -- Early strategies for learning ML/AI
• 17-02-01-ideas-for-learning-machine-learning -- Refined ML learning approach
• 17-07-07-ways-to-explain-machine-learning-algorithms -- Learning through teaching
• 19-01-29-machine-learning-interview-recombination -- ML knowledge for interviews

Mathematics

• 16-12-09-learning-maths -- How to learn mathematics effectively
• high-level-understanding-mathematics -- Building mathematical intuition
• 17-08-08-juicy-sides-to-mathematics-and-programming -- Finding the interesting parts
• notes-strang -- Notes on Strang's linear algebra
• limitations-of-mathematics -- Where mathematical thinking breaks down

Computer Science

• 15-05-07-ideas-for-learning-algorithms -- Algorithm learning strategies
• 15-08-25-getting-good-at-algorithms -- From understanding to mastery
• high-level-understanding-cs -- Bird's eye view of CS
• 06-21-14-learning-programming -- First principles of programming

Physics & Sciences

• high-level-understanding-physics -- Understanding physics at a high level
• 19-05-20-21st-century-major-scientific-breakthroughs -- Major scientific advances
• 18-06-02-grand-scientific-projects -- The biggest open scientific projects
• 20-01-29-computational-neuroscience-theories -- Theories of the brain

Reading & Books

Jeremy is an obsessive reader with extensive reading lists and book notes:

Reading Lists & Recommendations

• jeremy-nixons-bookshelf -- Jeremy's personal bookshelf
• 18-09-29-my-favorite-books -- Jeremy's favorites
• book-list -- Comprehensive book list
• reading-lists -- Curated reading lists
• great-reads -- The best things to read
• books-i-like-that-i-expect-lt1-of-my-friends-have-heard-of -- Hidden gems
• books-to-consider-buying -- The acquisition pipeline

Curated Libraries

• patrick-collisions-bookshelf -- Patrick Collison's reading
• bret-victors-library -- Bret Victor's influences
• topos-library -- Topos Institute library
• santa-fe-institute-library -- Santa Fe Institute reading
• andreeson-horowitz-library -- a16z library

Book Notes

• notes-deep-learning-textbook -- Goodfellow et al.
• notes-elements-of-statistical-learning -- Hastie, Tibshirani, Friedman
• notes-the-selfish-gene -- Dawkins
• notes-strang -- Gilbert Strang's linear algebra
• notes-meanings-of-life -- Baumeister
• applied-predictive-modeling -- Kuhn & Johnson
• structure-of-scientific-revolutions -- Kuhn
• relentless -- Tim Grover
• patterns-of-conflict -- Boyd

Meta-Reading

• 07-06-14-to-synthesize-reading -- How to synthesize what you read
• 19-06-18-ways-to-read-my-whole-library -- Strategies for reading at scale
• 19-02-02-things-i-should-read-daily -- Daily reading priorities
• 19-02-01-book-dissection -- How to deeply extract value from a book

Learning Thinking Frameworks

• 15-07-14-ideas-for-ingraining-thinking-framework -- Making frameworks stick
• 15-07-17-intellectual-habitslifestyle -- Building an intellectual lifestyle
• 18-12-17-fields-by-transferability -- Which fields teach the most transferable skills
• 18-12-19-fields-to-create -- New fields worth creating
• fields -- Overview of intellectual fields
• on-knowing-everything -- The aspiration to comprehensive knowledge

Experimentation

• 15-02-19-experiments-i-should-be-doing -- Personal experiments to run
• 17-09-11-experiment-ideas -- More experiment ideas
• 17-09-26-additional-weakness-experiments -- Experiments addressing weaknesses
• experiments-list -- Master experiment list
• 20-07-19-learning-tools -- Tools for learning

The Structure of Knowledge

See also wiki/thinking-frameworks for related material on meta-concepts and information structure.

• metalearning-the-structure-of-information -- The foundational document
• overview-of-abstraction-space -- Mapping the space of abstractions
• book-manuscript -- Jeremy's book-length treatment of abstraction
• 18-09-15-renaming-generalization -- When concepts need new names
• 18-01-16-how-to-talk-about-abstraction -- Communicating abstract ideas