Both Boz and RollingStoned have valid points when you think about it. A bird flies without you having to explain the Bernoulli principle to it and if you did explain the Bernoulli principle to it, the bird would not understand it and it would have no effect upon their flying abilities one way or the other. Understanding the math behind something enhances your problem solving skills and opens you up for more easily expanding your knowledge base.
Here's where the issue begins. Understanding the math behind a function is often many times more difficult than understanding how to perform the function (which we discovered while trying to explain the Bernoulli principle to a bird). In the time you took to try to understand the mathematical aspects of the function you could have learned many more functions that have practical application value. The moral of the story is to learn all of the functions first and foremost with learning the mathematical aspects of it as secondary. Never stop studying, learning and training. Understanding the math behind the method allows you to make your own interpretations and expand on known and established concepts but to attempt to understand the math behind every concept that you learn as you go is the equivalent of dragging a ball and chain along as you try to learn known and established concepts. You have to walk before you can run. Don't allow the math involved to hold you back from learning known and established concepts before doubling back to begin thinking about the math and theory behind these known and established concepts is all.
When someone questions why do you hit A,7vsT and you say, "Because that's the basic strategy and the correct play about 90% of the time" and they go on to argue the issue and say it doesn't make sense to them and they would need to understand the math of it. You go into a lengthy and precise description of the math and at the end of it all they say, "Well, it still just doesn't feel right to hit A,7vsT!" You walk away shaking your head and disgusted.
This is a bird that not only has no concept of the Bernoulli principle but it can not fly either. Someone tosses a chicken up onto the stage at an Alice Cooper concert. He picks it up and tosses it into the air back over the audience, assuming it's going to fly away (because if you drink enough Budweiser beer you can forget that chickens don't fly all that well), the audience rips it up into pieces with some of the various pieces landing back up on the stage...
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