I absolutely think that it can work for mathematics, but I'm not sure I recommend it. Well, I used to do this digitally with spaced repetition (I used emacs' org-drill, which is the emacs answer to Anki). I use flashcards to this day whenever I want to learn a new subject in math. One person picks, the other proves at the board and must be able to explain all the steps, then switch. We'd plunk down the flashcards on a desk in the office and challenge each other to "pick and prove". He also insisted that the front of the flashcards had the statement of the theorem and that the back contained the proof. He pointed out that I had absolutely no hope of using, say Ascoli's Thm, if I didn't know exactly what Ascoli's thereom said. When we started studying for quals together he insisted I make them and taunted me until I did it. A friend used them and I was always stunned with how well fast and how thoroughly he learned the material in the classes he took. I thought they were dumb, that people who use them were "just memorizing", and that I was better than that because I didn't have to "memorize" because I "understood". Putting definitions and theorems to use is the best way to understand and remember them. Do all the practice problems you can find, and try to understand all the steps you’re performing. My advice is to focus less on memorization, and more on practice. Additionally, ‘memorization’ of important theorems and objects tends to come naturally when you use them repeatedly. Like, it’s not going to do you any good to verbatim memorize the first isomorphism theorem if you do not have the conceptual understanding of what it’s doing, and if you do have that conceptual understanding, you won’t have to memorize it since you know what’s going on. However, as you progress, you really need to be able to internalize the WHY, rather than just simple memorization. If you’re doing some version of “qualifier courses” (required courses in the first year or two, usually algebra, topology, and analysis), I could see flash cards being slightly useful for memorizing a bunch of theorems. Depends on what level you’re at in grad school.
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