What do grad students in math do all day?
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What do grad students in math do all day?
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Re: What do grad students in math do all day?
#2I thought they worked it out with a pencil as they saying goes.
Re: What do grad students in math do all day?
#3"Can use use a vacuum cleaner to clean a cat?" ... Yes, but I've found that the cat might not like it. I'd also recommend using the upholstery tool and whatever you do, don't allow the cats tail (or any other part) to come into contact with the rotating brushes. For a moderately dirty cat, the vacuum's suction should be enough. If you have a really dirty cat, or a lot of cats to clean at once, try an automatic car wash instead (just make sure it's the kind where the doors close before the wash starts, otherwise too many escape).
Re: What do grad students in math do all day?
#4Fun read, well-written. I can relate to this somewhat. I recently proofread a paper discussing new applications for hermite polynomials (for english mistakes), and I was blown away by the years of study it would take me to even begin to understand what was going on with my amateur math skills. I guess it can be similar to what a non-programmer feels like when looking at code.
Re: What do grad students in math do all day?
#5I go to my master classes or slack mostly. There's this one guy in my class that do read math books though. But really, it doesn't change anything.
Re: What do grad students in math do all day?
#6... or rather, what does a grad student do in any quantitative field?
Re: What do grad students in math do all day?
#7I go to my master classes or slack mostly. There's this one guy in my class that do read math books though. But really, it doesn't change anything.
Masters or PhD?
Re: What do grad students in math do all day?
#8An incredibly accurate depiction of research in any theoretical field, I'd say. Compound that with the fact that during your education you're mostly presented with texts that summarize decades or more of research into a scant few pages as if the people involved had just flowed naturally from one idea to the next, from a problem statement to the incredibly complex idea that unlocks the proof.
When it's finally your turn to try your hand at actual research, it turns out that your contributions are barely a couple of side notes on a restricted subset of a problem in the hope that someone will use that information to find out something that is actually relevant in practice.
Rather than turning me off from academia, it makes me marvel at the tower of minuscule pebbles upon which our modern civilization rests. One day, I might get to place a few more of them on top.
Re: What do grad students in math do all day?
#9> "It is a tool that does suck up dust to make what you walk on in a home tidy."
This is essentially the idea behind Natural Semantic Metalanguage[1], Andrzej Bogusławski's theory of cross-cultural semantics from the 70s.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_semantic_metalanguage
Re: What do grad students in math do all day?
#10An incredibly accurate depiction of research in any theoretical field, I'd say. Compound that with the fact that during your education you're mostly presented with texts that summarize decades or more of research into a scant few pages as if the people involved had just flowed naturally from one idea to the next, from a problem statement to the incredibly complex idea that unlocks the proof. When it's finally your tu…
Agreed. After doing 2 years I left with a masters and never looked back. What is even scarier than the minuscule contributions you might make is the few that have done anything but minuscule. Those people are amazingly smart.
By the way, cats do like vacuums... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCzkm2z4-6g