15 V 2022

26 III 2023

I had a lot of headaches recently, idk why. probably something to do with muscle tension, because my back, neck and jaw just lock up sometimes to the point that every movement hurts. I need to see a doctor about it, maybe I injured something or there is some other underlying cause

I wasn't very strict with studying this week, because a lot of stuff we did was a review of what I already knew but obviously it needs a refresher. if I keep ignoring it, I will end up in a situation where I won't know what's going on at all

I picked up some side hustles along the way, one of which is reading the extra topics from hatcher. one of the lecturers recommended a book to me, about galois theory in the context of covering spaces, I'm reading it right now, seems pretty good

tomorrow I'm seeing my advisor to discuss my progress with solving the problem for my thesis. I think I found the basis for the module, at least I proved that the set I chose generates all the other elements, remains to show that it's linearly independent. the second part of the question is the rank of the module, which is how an algebraic topology problem turned into a nasty cominatorics problem eh

today I completed the first "serious" task for my IT job, which was translating the code from java to python. I have never seen java before, but it looks a lot like c++, so I managed. I wrote 500 lines of code but I haven't tested it yet so debugging might be very painful. lol I guess that means I shouldn't say I completed the task

I am wondering if I should go to a conference, I have until the end of the month to submit a presentation. I am not sure if I can handle a trip to another city, it would be in a month, so there is no way to predict how I'll be feeling. this week I am giving a presentation about some knot theory (skein modules, bracket and jones polynomial) and it's a good pick for the conference too, which makes it a really touch choice as the hardest part will already be done. idk I guess I'll toss a coin, like I did about the IT job lmao

other than that, big thanks to everyone who interacted with my post about book recommendations! there are many great suggestions, it turned out much better than I expected tbh, I thought I would get like 2 or 3 notes. I will post a list of the books mentioned in that post, so it will be easier to find for anyone interested

A monoid? Oh, you mean a monad on a one point set in the bicategory of spans of sets?

What's the beef between engineers and physicists and even mathematicians.

Why physicists mock mathematicians: Because playing 51 dimensional chess against your own brain seems silly to us when there’s a whole cosmos to explore.

Why mathematicians mock physicists: The universe can only be understood because some nerd spent the time playing 51 dimensional chess and in the process they created some useful stuff for the physicists to steal and abuse the hell out of.

Why everyone mocks the engineers: π=e=3 is an abomination before God and those pencil pushing dorks make more money than us so we feel the need to vindicate our $75000 student debt.

omg this + bonus points if this is yet another "autistic genius" representation. don't even get me started on how harmful both of those things are for various reasons

Fuck the way media talks about “child prodigies” and “geniuses” especially in fields like music and mathematics.

Like they are gods whose level of understanding we could never reach.

How come we rarely hear about all the people who started young and then fizzled out? How come we never hear the stories of people who started late in life and made a huge difference.

Why do we only hear about their natural aptitude and not the hard work and misteps they took to get there.

For gods sake…

Terry is just a guy!

I think "high value person" can be interpreted as "someone who is liked by everyone and perfectly adheres to social norms" but also as "someone who wants to find their core values and to this end tries many different approaches" and many other things. some of the things listed are pretty good, such as "take care of themselves" or "doesn't equate their worth to sex", some are unnecessary: "perfected first impressions" or "ALWAYS well-dressed". naah, who cares lol

the thing with self-improvement or other forms of conscious existing (I just invented this term, by that I mean something like chosing which parts of oneself to keep and which to change) is that one must start somewhere. it's nice, in general, to have social relationships, sex life or hobbies and I see this list as a guideline for increasing the probability of achieving those and other things in a certain way

in my opinion it's really important to keep in check with oneself, ask if the cost of being likeable and elegant is worth it. some people derive pleasure from wearing nice clothes and make-up, I am not one of them and for me that would be too much of a sacrifice. I guess most people would hate to have my lifestyle: I basically do math all day. it is my decision to so, it's fun, and I hate it when someone assumes that it's bad just because they wouldn't enjoy it

hence I see this controversial list as goals of someone who genuinely wants to be perfect. and yeah I do think that most of those things are completely unnecessary, I don't consider this set of characteristics as a "high value person" but maybe some people do. a part of self-improvement for me was realizing that I don't care about most things and this post reminded me that there might exist people who care about everything. have they not yet realized that they actually don't care? idk, maybe they do care

but yeah if someone came to me and said that this list objectively defines a high value person then I would laugh lol I will respect everyone's values if they respect mine

– so what do you do in math?

– algebraic topology, you?

– ugh I always hated algebra. I do probability theory

– ugh I was never any good at probablity theory

Real’s Math Ask Meme

What math classes have you taken?

What math classes did you do best in?

What math classes did you like the most?

What math classes did you do worst in?

Are there areas of math that you enjoy? What are they?

Why do you learn math?

What do you like about math?

Least favorite notation you’ve ever seen?

Do you have any favorite theorems?

Better yet, do you have any least favorite theorems?

Tell me a funny math story.

Who actually invented calculus?

Do you have any stories of Mathematical failure you’d like to share?

Do you think you’re good at math? Do you expect more from yourself?

Do other people think you’re good at math?

Do you know anyone who doesn’t think they’re good at math but you look up to anyway? Do you think they are?

Are there any great female Mathematicians (living or dead) you would give a shout-out to?

Can you share a good math problem you’ve solved recently?

How did you solve it?

Can you share any problem solving tips?

Have you ever taken a competitive exam?

Do you have any friends on Tumblr that also do math?

Will P=NP? Why or why not?

Do you feel the riemann zeta function has any non-trivial zeroes off the ½ line?

Who is your favorite Mathematician?

Who is your least favorite Mathematician?

Do you know any good math jokes?

You’re at the club and Andrew Wiles proves your girl’s last theorem. WYD?

You’re at the club and Grigori Perlman brushes his gorgeous locks of hair to the side and then proves your girl’s conjecture. WYD?

Who is/was the most attractive Mathematician, living or dead? (And why is it Grigori Perlman?)

Can you share a math pickup line?

Can you share many math pickup lines?

Can you keep delivering math pickup lines until my pants dissapear?

Have you ever dated a Mathematician?

Would you date someone who dislikes math?

Would you date someone who’s better than you at math?

Have you ever used math in a novel or entertaining way?

Have you learned any math on your own recently?

When’s the last time you computed something without a calculator?

What’s the silliest Mathematical mistake you’ve ever made?

Which is better named? The Chicken McNugget theorem? Or the Hairy Ball theorem?

Is it really the answer to life, the universe, and everything? Was it the answer on an exam ever? If not, did you put it down anyway to be a wise-ass?

Did you ever fail a math class?

Is math a challenge for you?

Are you a Formalist, Logicist, or Platonist?

Are you close with a math professor?

Just how big is a big number?

Has math changed you?

What’s your favorite number system? Integers? Reals? Rationals? Hyper-reals? Surreals? Complex? Natural numbers?

How do you feel about Norman Wildberger?

Favorite casual math book?

Do you have favorite math textbooks? If so, what are they?

Do you collect anything that is math-related?

Do you have a shrine Terence Tao in your bedroom? If not, where is it?

Where is your most favorite place to do math?

Do you have a favorite sequence? Is it in the OEIS?

What inspired you to do math?

Do you have any favorite/cool math websites you’d like to share?

Can you reccomend any online resources for math?

What’s you favorite number? (Wise-ass answers allowed)

Does 6 really *deserve* to be called a perfect number? What the h*ck did it ever do?

Are there any non-interesting numbers?

How many grains of sand are in a heap of sand?

What’s something your followers don’t know that you’d be willing to share?

Have you ever tried to figure out the prime factors of your phone number?

If yes to 65, what are they? If no, will you let me figure them out for you? 😉

Do you have any math tatoos?

Do you want any math tatoos?

Wanna test my theory that symmetry makes everything more fun?

Do you like Mathematical paradoxes?

👀

Are you a fan of algorithms? If so, which are your favorite?

Can you program? What languages do you know?

uhh probably the worst math feeling is when you're so excited about proving something and you talk about it to someone who does math with you and they say oh but it's trivial

I hate it when I am blessed with a new tumblr feature without my consent

Weaving Stereographic Projection

I made a stereographic projection by weaving paper strips!

Here's a Julia package for the computation of the shapes of the paper strips.

GitHub

GitHub - hyrodium/ElasticSurfaceEmbedding.jl: The weaving paper strips: shape optimization by geometric elasticity

The weaving paper strips: shape optimization by geometric elasticity - GitHub - hyrodium/ElasticSurfaceEmbedding.jl: The weaving paper strip

Japanese blog post about this: https://note.com/hyrodium/n/n7b7cf03a7d91