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00_Start_Here

Level: 101 · for anyone

What this library is

One idea per page, and every claim backed by a program that runs, or, where no program can check it, by a grade that says how strong the evidence is. The pages are short, the programs are stdlib-only Python, and the output printed on any page came from an actual run that CI re-checks on every push.

It is about learning itself: how to tell whether you have learned a page, how to learn so that it stays, what to believe about yourself while you do it, how to plan the time, and which of the claims about sleep, exercise, food and the brain a learner should trust. It grew out of the math library ↗, whose chapter on learning to learn moved here when it outgrew a chapter, and it still points back there for the mathematics its examples use.

What to read first

The chapter numbers are the suggested reading order, and each chapter is one argument.

01_Knowing_What_You_Know/ — How do you know that you know? A feeling of knowing is not knowing. Write a confidence before every answer and compare it with the result; see recall go from 3 of 15 to 12 of 15 with nothing changed but the goal; climb Bloom's levels on one theorem. Read it first, or whenever a test goes worse than you expected.

02_Making_It_Stay/ — How do you learn so that it lasts? The three techniques with the strongest evidence in all of learning research, and why each feels worse than the habit it replaces: reviews at growing intervals that keep a fact for years at a logarithmic cost; mixed practice, which rehearses the choosing an exam tests; and making the foundations automatic, so a page weighs one chunk instead of nineteen; and why an hour more of focus on a stuck problem climbs the same hill again, while stepping away finds another.

03_Believing_You_Can/ — What does a belief have to do with the evidence? A belief low enough to stop you trying never meets the evidence that could raise it; small steps let it back in. And a confident "day or night" hides a cutoff nobody named.

04_Planning_the_Work/ — Why does a good plan still fail? Task times are skewed, so a day planned from honest estimates overruns almost every time; what a goal has to look like to survive a semester; and what an AI is for.

05_Body_and_Brain/ — Which claims about sleep, exercise, food and the brain should a learner believe? No program can check these, so every claim carries a grade. The evidence is strongest exactly where the other chapters already have lessons, and thins out fast as the claims get more biological.

Other ways in

  • Topic map: every page by subject, with the threads that run between chapters.
  • Glossary: the terms, each with the page that explains it.
  • Resources: the books; References: the papers, with what kind of study each is.
  • Roadmap: what is written and what is deliberately not written yet.

How to read a page

Every lesson has the same shape: a claim in one line, the argument, the program's output, questions with hidden answers, a deck of flashcards, and a short summary in Polish. Read the claim, try to say why it should be true, then read the argument. Run the program yourself; change a number and run it again. Do the questions before opening the answers, and write down how sure you are first. That last step is the first chapter, applied to itself.