I Have A Bet Going On With A Friend. We Need A Third Opinion. Can One Find The Square Root Of 2 In Pi?

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

Complex Number Grapher

https://jutanium.github.io/ComplexNumberGrapher/

This grapher is really fun to play around with! 

A normal function takes in a number, x, and outputs another number, y. But a complex function takes in a complex point on a plane (a+bi) and outputs another complex point. Without 4 dimensions, it would be impossible to graph a complex function :(

The creator of this project instead uses complex domain coloring which they explain much better than I have here so you should 100% go and check it out!

Look at this cool function I got:

f(z)=(sin(z^3))^((cos(z))/2)

" 'They' isn't singular!" Oh yeah? Show me its multiplicative inverse matrix then.

I love reading stuff on abstract geometry because there'll be some extremely complicated construction of abstract polytopes that takes up like two full pages

and the first example is this

and you're like "wow that's a cube :)"

and then the next example is this

i've been working on it with my boyfriend for a while now and–

our first video is up!

i hope you enjoy it and subscribe to our channel

https://youtu.be/-X2BBtRI1Xw

6 Things People Don't Always Tell You About Studying

1. you ace tests by overlearning. you should know your notes/flashcards/definitions basically by heart. if someone asks you about a topic when you’re away from class or your notes and you can answer them in a thorough and and accurate answer, then you’re good, you know the material. 

2. if you don’t understand something, it will end up on the test. so just don’t disregard and hope that this specific topic won’t be on the test. give it more attention, help, and practice. find a packet of problems on that one concept and don’t stop until you finish it and know it the best. 

3. sometimes you just need that Parental Push. you know in elementary school, they would tell you “ok now it’s time for you to do your homework! you have a project coming up, start looking for a topic now!” ONE of your teachers might be like this. be thankful for it and follow their advice! these teachers are the best at always keeping you on track with their calendar. if not a teacher, then have one of your friends be that person that can keep you accountable for the things you promised you would do. 

4. you just need to kick your own ass. seriously. i know it sucks and its hard to study for two things at once. BUT. I DONT CARE IF IT’S HARD. you need to do it and at least do it to get it over with because you can’t keep putting things off. If you do, you will eventually run out of time and you will hate yourself. force yourself to do it. i made myself sign up for june ACT even though there’s finals because if i didn’t, i probably never would. like do i think i’m gonna be ready in one month? probably not, SO I BETTER GET ON IT AND START STUDYING! 

5. do homework even if it doesn’t count. if you actually try on it, then you will actually do so much better on the tests, it’s like magic. 

6. literally just get so angry about procrastinating that you make yourself start that assignment. I know how hard it is to kick the procrastination habit. I have to procrastinate. So I make myself start by thinking about my deadlines way early. I think, “oh i have a presentation in three weeks (but it really takes 2 weeks to do), i’ll be good and start today.” when that doesn’t happen, you say you’ll do it tomorrow, and this happens for like the next four days. I get so mad at myself for not starting when i am given a new chance to do so with every passing day. By that time, you actually have exactly how much time you need for it AND you were able to procrastinate the same way you usually do ;)

some more animation: how secant-teenager becomes tangent-adult

also! it illustrates a well-known inequality of a differentiable convex function and its tangents & the monotony of slopes

The proof is left as an exercise to the IRS

from now I’ve got to start chasing regular discomfort, because otherwise comfort isn’t comfort but stagnation. you can’t have one without the other. to be challenged is to grow and it’s the only way to actually feel at peace

in my country having a diagnosis is highly confidential, too. there is no such thing as "the government knowing about your diagnoses" unless you get evaluated for disability documentation (I have no idea how to translate this to english), which is your choice. besides, who knows when the diagnosis will be useful? waiting for a diagnostic appointment takes several months and is very expensive, so taking an opportunity to sort this thing out when it's possible is good. depending on where someone lives, it can be very harmful to say that having a diagnosis somehow creates disadvantages

at my university the support program for people with asd has been introduced two years ago. it took me almost a year to get everything done, a year of unnecessary suffering. treatment for depression with or wihout adhd can be completely different and having it on paper that in your personal circumstances ssri might not work can save so much time. when someone suspects adhd and the situation calls for introducing medication, it's nice to be able to try right away, not wait several months for a diagnosis. those are just some practical examples of how you never know when diagnosis might be useful

and the validation reason, yeah, that too, it's beneficial to have someone work with you through that stuff. moreover, with professional support there comes someone suggesting solutions and forms of help that one might not even thought of. there are shitty doctors, but there are good ones too, and I think we should talk more about how to find the right ones instead of demonizing getting help

By the way. Before you rush to get a professional diagnosis for a Brain Thing you should really weigh your options. Like do you just want to "prove it" or will this actually give you access to treatment you can't have otherwise? Are the treatment options available worth having the government know you're neurodivergent? Because sometimes it's better to keep things off the record because unfortunately we still live in a very deeply ableist society and you might not want to have more real material oppression stacked against you than you have to