[SamuelMulder]

As a mathematician, how much time do you spend studying proofs written by other people?

I'm genuinely curious, because I think that if I wanted to be a novelist, I would spend a lot of time reading novels before trying to write one. I feel like we never have children read the great "literature" of mathematics, but then expect them to write their own proofs and are surprised when they hate it.

[j2kun]

I literally study the proofs of others every working day, for at least a few hours a day. But I am a young mathematician and still inexperienced with research.

I imagine that once you are a professor you can spend less time studying the details of proofs because you can generate them on your own once you understand the big picture. But even so this depends on your field (combinatorics folks, for example, REALLY spend a lot of time studying proofs).