[senorprogrammer]

> mathematics works by people guessing rules and then checking them

This will sound facetious, but I suspect many people treat great swathes of life this way. My wife has a friend who tries any random googled herb-based cure any time she gets ill. Recovery from this illness, this cold or flu, is always taken as proof of the validity of the cure, regardless of how long she's had to ingest it.

You, reading this, have already thought of half a dozen ways to disprove her cures, as have I, however no amount of evidence can assuage this need to believe. At this point my theory is that this belief forms an intractable part of her personal identity.

At the core of all of this, and perhaps for these "autodidact physicists" as well, seems to be a very primal need to understand the universe in terms comprehendible one's self, regardless the cost.

[ktRolster]

> mathematics works by people guessing rules and then checking them

This will sound facetious, but I suspect many people treat great swathes of life this way

Including programming. Good programmers are the ones who try to derive the underlying rules, instead of trying something and checking if it works for a couple cases.