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terrisus · Oct 3, 2014

$life.jpg$

So, there's a sizable and useful Math Help Thread for people looking for help with math. And that's definitely cool and useful and all.

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But, I thought it would be fun to have a thread for those of us who have gone through a Mathematics degree, are pursuing further education in Mathematics, are going through a Mathematics degree, or are considering a degree in Mathematics (for this last group, one tip:

RUN!

), to just kind of discuss mathematics stuff, commiserate with each other, try to get over the trauma, and convince others that it's really actually worth going through all of those.

$xkcd.jpg$

As far as people from other related fields (since, you know, just about everything relates to mathematics), the thread's open to all. You may or may not have fun poked at you though >.>

But, yeah, I don't really want to make this OP too long, not sure how well this thread will take off, but I thought it would be interesting to try.

So, come on in, introduce yourself, grab a cup of coffee, and find a chair.

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Hi all, my name is terrisus (or, well, Eric). (Also, no, that's not me in that picture. It was just a good picture)
For some reason, in 2007, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, decided to give me a BS Mathematics, with a concentration of Teaching.

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I'm really not quite sure why they did this. I guess I must have tricked them into thinking that I understand and can perform some mathematics or something, I don't know >.>

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I enjoy proofs, lemmas, theorems, and other wordy types of mathematics. I think Calculus is mean, and should go away.

I also enjoy long walks on the beach, meaningful conversations, and SNES RPGs.

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So, anyway... Yay Math!

DragonKnight · Oct 3, 2014

Guess im number one

dokish · Oct 3, 2014

This willl be the most unpopular thread on history.

RedShift · Oct 4, 2014

Finished my degree this summer (maths at Warwick). Enjoyed the first 3 years, but the last one was hell. Now spending 6 lovely months temping, travelling and lazing around doing nothing before starting working as a software developer.

I'm glad I did maths but I'm pretty happy to have it done with. So nice to be able to forget the definition of a Riemann surface or the difference between elliptic, hyperbolic, parabolic stuff and all that. I still wake up in a panic about revision sometimes.

$miracle.jpg$

Ah yes, the old backup plan for proofs. If all else fails start at one end, go as far as you can, start at the other and go as far as you can backwards, then whatever is unproven in between is trivial.

Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew · Oct 4, 2014

This thread needs a Q.E.D.

FINALLY, a thread where my tag is relevant!

terrisus · Oct 4, 2014

RedShift said:
Finished my degree this summer (maths at Warwick). Enjoyed the first 3 years, but the last one was hell.

It's funny, I was the exact opposite. I hated the first couple of years, but the last couple were pretty good/great.
Got to take Number Theory my last semester, and I loved that. Really wish I could've done more of that.

RedShift said:
Ah yes, the old backup plan for proofs. If all else fails start at one end, go as far as you can, start at the other and go as far as you can backwards, then whatever is unproven in between is trivial.

Exactly >.>

shagg_187 said:
This thread needs a Q.E.D.

You know, I was thinking of putting that at the end of the OP.
But I didn't know if that would keep anyone else from posting and messing it up :þ

Masquerader · Oct 4, 2014

I got a GCSE in maths! In other words, I'm qualified to badly use a scientific calculator. Does that count?

Also here because Touhou picture

HORRORSHØW · Oct 4, 2014

ah mathematics, the bane of my academic career.

terrisus · Oct 4, 2014

Masquerader said:
I got a GCSE in maths! In other words, I'm qualified to badly use a scientific calculator. Does that count?

Yeah, that reminds me, I didn't even touch on the awesomeness that are graphing calculator games.
ticalc.org was awesome back in the 90s

when I was still in high school, and actually had time to use it for things other than mathematics >.>

Masquerader said:
Also here because Touhou picture

Ah, so that's what that's from :þ

m3k · Oct 4, 2014

I'll join this thread because I'm relearning highschool mathematics to tutor... I'm a history major haha

kabel · Oct 4, 2014

Ugh math....I dropped out of college because of it.

TUSR · Oct 4, 2014

i dont really understand what im supposed to do here

terrisus · Oct 4, 2014

Grimløck;132787385 said:
ah mathematics, the bane of my academic career.

kabel said:
Ugh math....I dropped out of college because of it.

Just think - there are people who wanted even more of it >.>

Wichu · Oct 4, 2014

I thought I could do maths because I was good at it in secondary school.

Turns out there's a large difference between arithmetic and actual mathematics. In uni it went from being my strongest subject to my weakest

gngf123 · Oct 4, 2014

I might check out this thread every now and then. Masters graduate in Applicable Mathematics, mostly with an interest in CFD.

Pretty rusty, though.

Volotaire · Oct 4, 2014

Thanks for this OT. I'm interested in mathematics from a purely curiosity standpoint, and having done a few methods modules in my university course. Nothing too abstract however.

NotBacon · Oct 4, 2014

terrisus said:
I enjoy proofs, lemmas, theorems, and other wordy types of mathematics. I think Calculus is mean, and should go away.

But Calculus is the only math that makes sense.....

CCS · Oct 4, 2014

Guess I should represent in here. Currently in the third year of a degree in mathematics at Oxford, and regretting my life choices up to this point

Orbis Tabula · Oct 4, 2014

I was waiting for this to pop up. Checking in! B.S. in Math. Currently getting my Masters.

To be honest though, I'm a sell out. I'm not in the math program anymore. I switched into...operations research. Tough decision because I love pure math, but I think it'll be a better career move for me. And at least I still see a proof from time to time.

terrisus · Oct 4, 2014

Wichu said:
I thought I could do maths because I was good at it in secondary school.

Turns out there's a large difference between arithmetic and actual mathematics. In uni it went from being my strongest subject to my weakest

Yeah, I have a feeling a bunch of people end up falling into that trap as well.

I don't know what my excuse was, since I didn't really care for it in secondary/high school either >.>

NotBacon said:
But Calculus is the only math that makes sense.....

Who says I want things to mke sense? :þ

EskimoJoe said:
I was waiting for this to pop up. Checking in! B.S. in Math. Currently getting my Masters.

To be honest though, I'm a sell out. I'm not in the math program anymore. I switched into...operations research. Tough decision because I love pure math, but I think it'll be a better career move for me. And at least I still see a proof from time to time.

Yeah, if you can make a decision that will work well for your career, that's definitely a good thing to do.
Since, I'm doing nothing with my degree

aside from making this thread, and getting to say I have a degree in it >.>

My Master's is in Education, had planned to go into teaching (not necessarily mathematics, but licensed for that as well).
But, didn't get hired for anything =(

Alaskanbullworm · Oct 4, 2014

Currently I'm an adjunct at a local college in Math. Have a degree for Middle and High School, but I'm not going to do that anymore. Not really sure what I want or even can do with this Math background

In all of my Math classes I went to, the History of Math was by far the best and most informative. Being able to see and prove certain things the way they saw them many hundreds or thousands of years ago was awesome. I highly recommend that class if they offer it at your school

Masquerader · Oct 4, 2014

terrisus said:
Yeah, that reminds me, I didn't even touch on the awesomeness that are graphing calculator games.
ticalc.org was awesome back in the 90s

when I was still in high school, and actually had time to use it for things other than mathematics >.>

Ah, so that's what that's from :þ

Calculator games~? Sounds fun, if you, er, like playing games on a calculator? Blimey, it sounds a bit weird. Also, on a sort-of related note, I have a question:

Why do scientific calculators break easier than normal ones? I must have burned through about five of them in one term, before resorting to nabbing other people's calculators.

Tesseract · Oct 4, 2014

lovely thread, subscribed

here's some flavor:

terrisus · Oct 4, 2014

Masquerader said:
Calculator games~? Sounds fun, if you, er, like playing games on a calculator? Blimey, it sounds a bit weird.

Check out ticalc.org, there's some pretty great stuff up on there (including some fairly useless programs from me back around 1999 >.>)

Masquerader said:
Also, on a sort-of related note, I have a question:

Why do scientific calculators break easier than normal ones? I must have burned through about five of them in one term, before resorting to nabbing other people's calculators.

Don't know of any specifics, but, as with anything, the more parts inside of it, and the more it does, the more that can go wrong.
My TI-86 and TI-89 from high school are still chugging along just fine though.

Tesseract said:
lovely thread, subscribed

here's some flavor:

Euler has entered the building!

Now this thread is legitimate.

FreddieQuell · Oct 4, 2014

I once took a math major course on accident in my last semester. It wasn't a fun time

ComputerMKII · Oct 4, 2014

On a scale from 1 to 10, how pimp is Cédric Villani?

5859248-cedric-villani-l-anglais-a-l-universite-est-une-necessite.jpg

Dankul · Oct 4, 2014

First thing that came to mind after reading to OP. I'm sure most of you have seen this.

Apoc29 · Oct 4, 2014

Math can be fun...at least when it's not being taught by a boring old stuffy professor.

Numberphile is one of my fave Youtube channels where they present various math topics and actually make it seem interesting!

Some random selections:

Infinity is bigger than you think
Problems with zero
Base 12
Why do people hate mathematics?

dorkkaos · Oct 4, 2014

Yay! Nerd sniping thread!

http://xkcd.com/356/

terrisus · Oct 4, 2014

Dankul said:
First thing that came to mind after reading to OP. I'm sure most of you have seen this.

But... That's not a smooth curve... The line is tangent to it at multiple points... >.>

terrisus · Oct 4, 2014

I missed this post earlier, but...

CCS said:
Guess I should represent in here. Currently in the third year of a degree in mathematics at Oxford, and regretting my life choices up to this point

If you're attending Oxford, you've done something very right with your life
/jealous

Trey · Oct 4, 2014

Math is very interesting. But it's underutilized and underrepresented in our society. We should push better teaching methods to expand the collective grasp on the subject.

El Topo · Oct 4, 2014

First year is the hardest, then the real fun begins.

MikeDip · Oct 4, 2014

I have an honours BS in math. Hurray?
I'm cool right?

infinitys_7th · Oct 4, 2014

I graduated a few years ago with a double major in engineering and math. I also had a healthy helping of Classics, microbiology, and a bunch of other stuff as I really like everything (except the social sciences lol). Lots of fun

I really miss college.

My focus was on stochastics and numerical methods, along with linear algebra and Calculus/DEs. Basically subjects useful for an engineer, though I also took more foundational courses like analysis and algebra.

Nakho · Oct 4, 2014

I looove math, but I got scared and went for a Electrical Engineering major instead. At least it is the engineering area with the most math >.> But I still get bored, it's mostly about using formulas to solve problems, nothing too interesting. Although it should get more interesting in my Masters, where I hope to do something with Artificial Intelligence or modelling of noisy channels.

I loved that in the first semesters our math courses were taught by actual Math PhDs. I remember one very interesting lecture about real vs integers numbers (cardinality, Cantor, etc), which obviously had nothing to do with my major.

I keep my math flame alive by reading books about the history of math. I specially loved Fermat's Last Theorem.

harriet the spy · Oct 4, 2014

terrisus said:
I missed this post earlier, but...

If you're attending Oxford, you've done something very right with your life
/jealous

But Amherst is an excellent college.

StickSoldier · Oct 4, 2014

I really wanted to be good at math, but somewhere along the lines in life, I decided that trying to be cool with the football people was more important than being cool with the math people.. Fuck... Now I want to play catch up and learn, but is there really a good way to learn other than going to school?

terrisus · Oct 4, 2014

harriet the spy said:
But Amherst is an excellent college.

UMass Amherst, not Amherst College.

And, I mean, it's a good enough place...
But it's not Oxford.
Or Harvard or MIT
So I feel inferior and jealous >.>

Zoibie · Oct 4, 2014

I'm currently using Khan Academy and some other various math(s) books to expand my knowledge. I'm not sure what the American equivalent of an A level is but I have that, so I'm trying to find the natural progression of that sort of stuff. Finding a structure to how I go through the material is proving difficult though, but I'm persevering.

Therion · Oct 4, 2014

Picked up my bachelor's in math (and computer science) a few years ago and just received my MS this summer. Currently working on my PhD. My focus is in functional analysis, but don't ask me for specifics or I might accidentally reveal how little I know about this stuff.

Tesseract · Oct 4, 2014

StickSoldier said:
I really wanted to be good at math, but somewhere along the lines in life, I decided that trying to be cool with the football people was more important than being cool with the math people.. Fuck... Now I want to play catch up and learn, but is there really a good way to learn other than going to school?

khanacademy + james edgar thompson's for the practical man series, pm me if you can't find them.

ItIsOkBro · Oct 4, 2014

I'm in Computer Science, can I join

direct_quote · Oct 4, 2014

I really find math quite an interesting subject... It's too bad I struggle with it. If I was really good at mental math I'd probably pursue a phd in some field of study in math...

terrisus · Oct 4, 2014

Therion said:
don't ask me for specifics or I might accidentally reveal how little I know about this stuff.

>.>

On that note, question for anyone else who has graduated already (and especially if they're not working in a mathematics field) -

Do you ever wonder how in the world you got your degree, and how much of it you could actually do on a moment's notice if necessary/how much you could do even with a bit of time/just in general how good you actually are at mathematics?

I mean, obviously I did the work at the time (graduated in 2007), and I suppose it's to be expected that, in 7 years of not using it, that I wouldn't remember most of it at this point. And I'm sure a good amount of it would come back if I was actually in a situation where I needed it/with a bit of time.

But, darn, I'm not kidding when I say I have no idea how I actually got that degree, and how I still get to claim it >.>

Haly · Oct 4, 2014

Nerds.

I'm teaching myself Linear Algebra using MIT OCW.

Ahasverus · Oct 4, 2014

I love you and hate you at the same time. With love, an engineer.

Macattk15 · Oct 4, 2014

Master's in EE. Hope I'm done with math classes forever now.

Lonely1 · Oct 4, 2014

Macattk15 said:
Master's in EE. Hope I'm done with math classes forever now.

Go for a PhD!

Therion · Oct 4, 2014

Haly said:
I'm teaching myself Linear Algebra using MIT OCW.

That's with Strang, right? I was watching and enjoying his lectures at one point, but I stopped for reasons I can no longer recall. About the only thing I remember is him defining the determinant in terms of its properties rather than starting with the matrix operation, which I thought was a pretty cool approach.

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