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My Mathematics PhD research workflow: LaTeX notes and instant pdf referencing

castel.dev

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Re: My Mathematics PhD research workflow: LaTeX notes and instant pdf referencing

#31

Post by godelski »

benibela wrote: post #27
godelski wrote: post #6

Does anyone have a good reference for Tikz? I feel like I'm pretty good at it (at least better than most my peers) but I also believe it takes a significant amount of time to create interesting pictures and do even basic things that PPT or other basic tools can do easily. I want the full editing power of tikz but doing the basic parts is tough (same with manim, though lower barrier to entry). As for writing documents…

I have the best reference. I ask Till Tantau when I have any urgent tikz questions. The advantage of working at the university of Lübeck: his office is next to my office.

Any advice you've learned along the way that you'd care to share? Otherwise I'm confused by the comment. Are you just flexing?

Re: My Mathematics PhD research workflow: LaTeX notes and instant pdf referencing

#32

Post by jzer0cool »

Could you share a type of math with 1 or 2 concepts that would be good for computer science or solving problems in general. Reference to something not too difficult, but a "good to know" kind of thing. For example, something from upper division math.

Let's say in undergraduate I would say: Calculus I - understand what is derivative. Calculus II - understand what is an integral.

Math is broad, so maybe 1 or 2 takeaways from some topics in upper division math that I might find useful.

Re: My Mathematics PhD research workflow: LaTeX notes and instant pdf referencing

#33

Post by jgwil2 »

joeman1000 wrote: post #24
rcap wrote: post #2

Author here, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them. It really is amazing how hard it is just to retrieve the currently opened pdf file and its page number in a pdf viewer. Some pdf viewers (Like Zathura) provide this via DBus, but even very common ones like Evince don't. I managed to find a way using gvfs, although it's a bit of a hack. For others (e.g. Mendeley), I have no idea on how to do this... Anybod…

The solution is emacs. I know you’ve got a lot invested in vim already. You can get instant LaTeX rendering with AUCTeX, view the pdf in emacs with pdf-tools, which can be used with something like org-ref (there are many bibliography packages) to query a db with the DOI of the pdf. (Try saying that two times fast). This EmacsConf talk should give you a taste of what I mean: https://emacsconf.org/2021/talks/research/…

This one?

https://castel.dev/post/lecture-notes-1/

HN thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19448678

Re: My Mathematics PhD research workflow: LaTeX notes and instant pdf referencing

#34

Post by [deleted] »

mhh__ wrote: post #25
retskrad wrote: post #9

I looked at the math in the article and I asked myself, what compels people to choose this path for their career? Nothing about it looks appealing. It looks like a bunch of gibberish for 99% of humanity and only 1% of people willingly go to school to learn this stuff. I have a lot of respect for people who have jobs involving this level of math and physics so dummies like me have the ability to type out this comment.

Why do people climb mountains? "Because it's there"

[deleted]

Re: My Mathematics PhD research workflow: LaTeX notes and instant pdf referencing

#35

Post by amathres_info »

Another tip: the vast majority of ArXiv papers have the LaTeX source available under "other formats". I used to download those instead of the pdfs for better searching. Now I don't really bother keeping a personal collection of papers, however.

Downloading the LaTeX source also has the advantage that you can see the comments the authors made that don't show in the pdf version. Sometimes appalling: "% Author 1: Is this lemma even true? This proof seems like bs to me % Author 2: Eh screw it who knows, it's probably true."

Re: My Mathematics PhD research workflow: LaTeX notes and instant pdf referencing

#36

Post by jules »

jzer0cool wrote: post #32

Could you share a type of math with 1 or 2 concepts that would be good for computer science or solving problems in general. Reference to something not too difficult, but a "good to know" kind of thing. For example, something from upper division math. Let's say in undergraduate I would say: Calculus I - understand what is derivative. Calculus II - understand what is an integral. Math is broad, so maybe 1 or 2 takeaway…

It's hard to capture an entire lecture series in one sentence, but one way you might categorise subjects by the type of problems they allow you to solve:

- Multiple linear equations over the rationals/reals => linear algebra

- Solve equations over the integers / integers mod p / factor numbers => number theory

- Solve polynomial equations / factor polynomials => algebra

- (Partial) differential equations => (partial) differential equations

- Approximate solutions to various equations over the reals => numerical analysis

- Counting the sizes of various finite sets => combinatorics

- Integrate wild functions => measure theory

- Formal understanding of real numbers => real analysis

- General framework for differential equations => functional analysis

- General framework for continuous functions and limits => point-set topology

- Prove that two elastic shapes are different => algebraic topology

- Prove that a knot in a circular piece of string cannot be untied without cutting the string => knot theory

- Determine optimum strategy in a game with incomplete information => game theory

- Describe very big sets / prove that certain things can't be proved => set theory

- etc.

Re: My Mathematics PhD research workflow: LaTeX notes and instant pdf referencing

#37

Post by sverona »

rcap wrote: post #2

Author here, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them. It really is amazing how hard it is just to retrieve the currently opened pdf file and its page number in a pdf viewer. Some pdf viewers (Like Zathura) provide this via DBus, but even very common ones like Evince don't. I managed to find a way using gvfs, although it's a bit of a hack. For others (e.g. Mendeley), I have no idea on how to do this... Anybod…

No questions. You're a pretty swell dude and I used a lot of your advice while writing my thesis. Love your work.

Re: My Mathematics PhD research workflow: LaTeX notes and instant pdf referencing

#38

Post by SnowHill9902 »

retskrad wrote: post #9

I looked at the math in the article and I asked myself, what compels people to choose this path for their career? Nothing about it looks appealing. It looks like a bunch of gibberish for 99% of humanity and only 1% of people willingly go to school to learn this stuff. I have a lot of respect for people who have jobs involving this level of math and physics so dummies like me have the ability to type out this comment.

1% is 70 millions so not even that level of mathematics could you comprehend.

Re: My Mathematics PhD research workflow: LaTeX notes and instant pdf referencing

#39

Post by triyambakam »

joeman1000 wrote: post #24
rcap wrote: post #2

Author here, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them. It really is amazing how hard it is just to retrieve the currently opened pdf file and its page number in a pdf viewer. Some pdf viewers (Like Zathura) provide this via DBus, but even very common ones like Evince don't. I managed to find a way using gvfs, although it's a bit of a hack. For others (e.g. Mendeley), I have no idea on how to do this... Anybod…

The solution is emacs. I know you’ve got a lot invested in vim already. You can get instant LaTeX rendering with AUCTeX, view the pdf in emacs with pdf-tools, which can be used with something like org-ref (there are many bibliography packages) to query a db with the DOI of the pdf. (Try saying that two times fast). This EmacsConf talk should give you a taste of what I mean: https://emacsconf.org/2021/talks/research/…

Where are you taking your degree?

Re: My Mathematics PhD research workflow: LaTeX notes and instant pdf referencing

#40

Post by fennecs »

I had a similar idea that I would just add daily notes to in markdown/tex to add to a knowledge graph, but then I lost motivation.

I just started using the iPad to make handwritten notes. What I really want is a way for the handwritten stuff to be integrated into a knowledge graph, or even automatically generating tex/diagrams for me.

On top of that, daily scribbles don’t necessarily go anywhere, or are even wrong, so it can generate noise anyway. What was more valuable was consolidating a few weeks+ of progress into a more complete summary or set of notes. You can still explain the reasoning of how you got to something finished, but it’s just all correct.

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