I Ended Up Not Doing Topo Yesterday And Made An Animation Of A Lipschitz Function Instead:

Please fund my research in finding fewer applications of mathematics. I'm going to start my project with trying to find fewer uses of trigonometry, so that ideally we can eliminate the need for remembering trigonometric identities. Then I'm going to move on to researching fewer uses for integration by parts, because that tends to get real tedious real fast. With your unending financial support, I believe I can return mathematics to the purity and simplicity it has always yearned for.

17 IX 2022

for the past few days life was treating me quite aggressively. today I had a terrible migraine, I feel weak and tired in general. doing math in a state like that isn't as pleasant so obviously I didn't do much, prioritized my health instead

during the semester I used The introduction to manifolds by Loring Tu to study analysis and I forgot that there were many nice exercises there that I didn't have time for but promised myself I would try them eventually

so tonight was the night and I studied grassmannians

I had some "results" done on my own, which later confirmed to be true, namely that the grassmannian over ℝⁿ for a 1-dim subspace is equivalent to a projective space of dimension n-1. I'm pretty sure that we are getting the projective of the same dimension for n-1 dim subspaces but I didn't calculate anything for n>3 so I might go back to that one day

it's fun to get hunches like that even if they turn out to be completely obvious to the authors of textbooks lmao

I am finally in the place with studying the theory for homology, commutative algebra and apparently differential topology (as it turned out today), where I have a variety of exercises I can try and that's the good part for me, always helps to get deeper insights and allows me to be more active

a friend asked me for a talk about the zariski topology in the context of algebraic sets and spectra of rings, so I'll see her soon for that. she will give me a personalized lecture about her thesis, which is about general topology. I am not a big fun of general topo but I'm always a slut for lectures about math so am excited for that

I hope my body will get its shit together because I still have to prep my lecture on euclidean geometry and when I don't feel good it's super difficult to motivate myself to do things that are not super exciting. I will never see productivity as a value on its own for this very reason lol I can barely do anything I don't find interesting

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational invited readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the winners:

I want to follow all of you!

this is a strawman. the distinction into the inattentive presentation and the hyperactive presentation is useful, because stimulant-based medication usually helps with the first kind of symptoms and the medication like atomoxetine will help mostly with the hyperactive symptoms such as emotional dysregulation or restlessness

the picture that made OP so angry was probably made by someone who has nothing to do with being trained in psychology, because there is something called combined presentation, which is what it sounds like: symptoms that are both from the inattentive and the hyperactive presentation

the term inattentive adhd makes sense because the deficits in the brain that cause the inattentive symptoms are similar to those with the hyperactive presentation, that's why they changed the name. it is literally the same disorder, just different presentations. besides, "inattentive" is just a name, every psychologist or psychiatrist who specializes in adhd knows that the problems come from regulating and directing attention

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I started replying before finishing reading the post and oh my god it gets even better? this is a joke right? please tell me that I started replying in a serious manner to a post that is supposed to be a joke because the other option is that someone seriously wrote something so stupid and believes it, and I don't want this to be true

okay. this fucking picture made me so mad i went on a 15 minute rant to my sister while she was trying to read her book.

so ive been looking at a lot of pictures of posts on pinterest because thats just where i spend most of my time. most of these posts are on the topic of adhd. ive never been properly diagnosed, but reading through these posts has made me feel so welcomed and understood (more than my parents have made me feel, pretending that this is "all just a phase that ill get over soon because pretending to have adhd is just the thing right now") that i realized ON MY OWN that "hey maybe i do have adhd." well.

i found this post while scrolling through pinterest, and it really sparked my anger.

i have a friend who was diagnosed with add before it was considered an "outdated" term and scrapped because apparently ALL FUCKING FORMS OF NEURODIVERGENCY THAT ARENT AUTISM ARE JUST "ADHD".

i read this post and it was what sparked my anger and my 15 minute rant to my sister. people who get degrees in this stuff, or counselors at schools, never really know what youre going through. all they know is that youre having some problems and they need to be solved.

which brings me back to this picture. if you look up "is add still a thing" on google, this is the first picture to pop up. and just seeing the visual aids they put with it makes me furious enough to throw something or someone out a fifth story window. the little girl is fucking SMILING while thinking about the most common shit people think us neurodivergent folks think when distracted. first off, no. false. we dont just think of video games and candy. we think of the randomest shit possible, like how long can i sit here without blinking or what kind of funny shit can i draw on this one sheet of paper.

and ALSO.

you cant just categorize adhd as TWO SEPARATE THINGS and call it good. we dont fit under two umbrellas. theres too many of us. we each have our own figurative umbrellas that only we ourselves can fit under, no one else. thats the problem with neurotypicals. they fit the typical stereotype for humans: we try to understand everything by putting it in a box. those lists of "symptoms"? i match every single one. on both sides. so ha. take that SCIENTISTS. what am i? some kind of freak of nature because i dont fit under just ONE of your precious categories?

i also looked up what "inattentive" means and it made me angrier. according to oxford languages, "inattentive" means "not paying attention to something", which doesnt seem too bad, right? it fits some people perfectly with their symptoms, right? but its not the definition that bugs me. its the example sentence thats used. "a particularly dull and inattentive student". basically saying that if you dont pay attention well to something, youre dull and boring.

im sorry, what? sometimes i have trouble paying attention, sure, but you ask any of my friends and they can agree i am NOT boring in any way, shape, or form. non of them would describe me as "dull". inattentive? sure, but not dull. so to call it "inattentive" adhd, instead of just add, is stupid! my friend with ADD (not fucking adhd, stupid scientists) is one of the funniest, most entertaining people ive ever met. shes an incredible artist, super smart, and knows how to make anyone laugh. does that sound dull to you? does she have problems focusing sometimes? yes. does she struggle with doing something sometimes? yes. but dont the rest of us?

my point is, when i see things like this, it pisses me off. like, unless all of the scientists who agreed "add" is an outdated term have it themselves, i refuse to believe its outdated and i will continue to say that my friend has it. she was literally diagnosed by the doctor telling her "you have attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder without the hyperactivity." THATS JUST FUCKING ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER YOU DUMBASS!!!

anyway, i hope im not the only one who feels this way. i just felt it necessary to get this out there. maybe someday, people wont be so dumb and single minded. in my opinion, neurodivergent people are superior in intellect and creativity, but i guess until someone like that takes over the world and dropkicks neurotypicals into the stratosphere, we'll never know.

Nothing but respect for this mathematician's webpage

thinking about the time a prof told us that in real research mathematics it's fine to be slow, speed itself is not essential, as long as you can find it within yourself to make consistent unyielding inexorable forward progress, like the time some guy stole an M60A3 tank and terrorized a suburban neighborhood with it, said guy wasn't going that fast but plowed through cars and telephone poles and shit no problem. i'm not kidding that's what he said, that's the metaphor he used, he told us that the act of mathematics is like the 1995 san diego tank rampage

I've been thinking about how different math feels after three years of consistently doing it. it's a sad thought, because I used to get super excited about learning new things and solving problems, whereas now my standards seem to be higher..?

I spent the day doing exercises from galois theory and statistics, in preparation for the tests I have soon. it felt like a chore. sure, the exercises were easy and uninteresting, I decided to start from the basics, so there is that. however, in general practicing like this became a routine and there used to be a sense of mystery around it that is now gone

when I don't have any deadlines but feel like doing some math the obvious choice is to learn something that will be useful in the future. more homological algebra, algebraic geometry, K-theory, or digging deeper into the topics I already am familiar with. all of those are good candidates and I used to be very motivated to just learn something new. but here comes to paradox of choice, where every option is good, but there isn't a great one

I think I might be annoyed with always learning the prerequisites for something not yet defined. it did feel exciting when I was studying the modules of tangles so that I could answer an open question, it doesn't feel as exciting to learn about the galois theory to pass a test. a metaphor comes to mind. doing math without a fulfilling goal feels like taking a walk – it's rather nice, I enjoy going on walks. with a fulfilling goal it feels like walking towards a destination such that the walk itself is a pleasant activity, but I really want to get to said destination. by that I mean that I still enjoy simply learning new stuff and working on exercises, but it doesn't feel as fulfilling as it used to, how much walking without getting anywhere can you do in three years? you can do the same thing in prison

three years is nothing compared to how much knowledge and experience is necessary to do actual research, I know that. I fail to feel it, but I know it. when I am asking myself what state of mind is the most fulfilling I'd say exploration, discovery, getting an idea that is new to me and seemingly comes from nowhere, not just an obvious corollary of what I've seen in lectures, an insight, an act of creating. I suppose all those things are to be found in the future, but god how long do I have to wait

on a more pragmatic and realistic note, I think I'll talk to my professors about what I can do to speed up that process. I'll ask them how the actual research feels and how they went from being a student learning basic concepts to where they are now

a question to those of you who are more experienced than me: does this even sound familiar at all? what were you like as a student and what took you to where you are now? how does math feel after 3, 5, 10 years?

ok uh. how do you hypothetically say "i want to study you" in a friendly way

so far the best I've got is "can i join a discord derver that youre in so i can observe you in your natural habitat"

ah yes my boy tom cardy. everyone must listen to him, he's the best

I need everyone to see this ABSOLUTE MASTERPIECE