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I mean you can't learn math in a linear order. Can I just read a paper first on a subject I haven't studied and just work backwards? For example, I have never studied combinatorics but I sort of have a fuzzy idea about the paper on alternating permutations by Stanley.

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    In my opnion u **Can't**2011-05-30
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    I assume you are talking about Ravi Vakil's advice on this page: http://math.stanford.edu/~vakil/potentialstudents.html If not, could you be more specific?2011-05-30
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    @Qiaochu Yuan: Yes...the tendrils of knowledge.2011-05-30
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    You could try. If I point you at the Wikipedia page for, say, de Rham cohomology, you could in principle just keep following the links until you reach something you can understand, and then work your way back up to the starting point. I learned a fair bit of differential geometry that way.2011-05-30
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    I'll second Zhen Lin. That's how I've learned most of what I know.2011-05-30
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    Different individuals learn best in different ways. Whether you can learn in this extreme backward way depends on you. Try it if you want, and see if it works for you.2011-06-01

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