Mathematicians, Constantly: God I’m So Tired Of People Telling Me How Much They Hate Math Whenever

13 III 2023

I remember putting it in my bio a while ago that I dream of doing actual research one day. well this is already happening, as I mentioned in some post, my advisor found an open question for me to write my thesis about

the progress for now is that I'm done with most of the reading I need to do to tackle it and I'm slowly moving forward with thinking of ideas for the solution (or at least a partial one)

this is what I want to do for the rest of my life: reading papers and trying to write my own ones

ofc I don't know if I manage to solve the problem or achieve anything at all with it but the process itself is fun

other than that I've been catching up with homeworks and assignments from work. fortunately I found an MIT lecture recordings for statistics so hopefully I might not die from boredom

watching probability and stats lectures from MIT has been my relationship's idea of netflix and chill for a while now, gotta cultivate the tradition

the algtop professor asked us to write down a full detailed solution for an exercises we did in class, because the person presenting was unable to explain it so I sent him mine

I don't know yet if it's correct but I'm pretty sure it is. I wrote this down partly because who doesn't want extra points and partly because I didn't have a chance to present it, the person who did was faster

I like how my life is right now, I want to keep it that way

→ 25 VIII 2021

ok so it's been very busy for me for the past few days. we made the yt video with bf and i finally moved out from my parents

concentration: 4 (recently)

i did some topo but not in a very by-the-book way, more like just reading some interesting stuff in various places. homotopy is super fascinating and visual, i love it. other than that i read about other basic concepts such as compact spaces, connected spaces and axioms of countability. i used to read about the aforementioned axioms a while ago and think "why would you even define something like this why does it matter" but after reading topology by jänich i have the intuition that the first axiom is strongly related to the convergence of sequences, hence knowing that the space is first-countable might be useful for evaluating things like the continuity of mappings and compactness

now, i also have a book called elementary concepts of topology by alexandroff and i can't stop reading it, i'm on the page 20 out of 60 since yesterday. and i think i might finish it today but i'll see. i also want to study 1-dimensional manifolds today or tomorrow

30 VII 2021

did some stuff today. found out my cat would die tomorrow if it wasn't for an operation he had today, that didn't feel good but also oh god was he lucky

sleep: better but still trash. yesterday fell asleep between 3 and 4, today planning to go to bed at 3 so in a few minutes

concentration: not as great. couldn't focus because my cat was fucking dying

bo phone time: decent

did some topo today, i think i managed to understand the idea behind the quotient spaces and i really liked it. can't wait to dive deeper tomorrow. other than that i wrote a method that takes a parametric function and provides a partition dividing the curve into k intervals. also i'm almost done with the art comission

sooo tomorrow i plan to finish the code, i want to achieve the functionality that takes a parametric function and draws it with a dashed line. that's why i needed the partition, it's gonna look fucking beautiful. and i need to complete the comission. i hope there will be some time left for quotient spaces, i am very hyped. oh and i forgot i'm drinking tomorrow. so i guess no topo for that gal. eh

yes, this, but also among other stem courses in a typical school, math is taken the most seriously. idk about other countries, but in poland in highschool people study chemistry, biology, physics and geography only if they decide to take the advanced final exams in these subjects. with math, everyone has take the standard level exam, so it can't be ignored like other subjects

up to highschool everyone has to complete their share of stem courses, but with the subjects other than math, the teachers often allow students to pass by memorizing the theory or by making some extra projects to earn points. with math you can't do that. when someone struggles with physics, the teacher sometimes says "alright, next year you won't have to study physics, so just learn those formulas and definitions and write them down on a test and I will let you pass". in math this is not an option, the student will have to take n more years of math courses

also, math mainly requires learning new skills, not just new information. many people never memorize the "dry theory" in highschool, because you have access to a reference table of formulas during exams and your job is only to know where to use those formulas – no need to memorize anything. but this does not come naturally to everyone and I think a huge part of the problem is teaching people how to work on their problem solving skills. I tutored a few students who believed they were bad at math and their mindset was "I can solve this type of problem because I know how to substitute into this formula, but when the problem is slightly different I panic, because the teacher never showed us how to solve it", which can be fixed by practicing a wider variety of problems and practicing the awareness of one's thinking process

people do not understand that problem solving is a skill on its own and I blame schools for that, because what we are offered is the image of math being about re-using the same kind of thinking processes but with different numbers. heck, when I was in elementary school I thought this is what math is about and I hated it because it's so boring and repetitive. I can imagine, when someone believes that this is what math is supposed to be and then they see the "more real math", which is about creativity, they panic (and rightfully so, they've been lied to)

my unpopular opinion is that not everyone can be good at this, just like I will never be good at understanding literature – my brain just sucks at processing this kind of stuff and I have aphantasia which doesn't help at all. but what makes it even worse for those people is the belief that it should be about repeating the same patterns over and over, so when they see that it's something completely different, it must be very frustrating – the reality is inconsistent with their beliefs

I am sure it doesn't cover the entirety of the "oof I always hated math" phenomenon, but it certainly does explain some of it, especially in the context of the education system in my country

As I said in a previous post, I have deep sympathy for the frustration of people who are good at math when they see math so almost universally hated by children and adults

And again and again, they try to explain that math is very much within everyone's reach and can be fun and, at least in western countries, education was to blame, messing up this very doable and fun thing by teaching it wrong

But I still gotta wonder - why math? If it is really just education messing this up, why does it mess up so much with math, specifically? I'm sorry but I still cannot shake the sense that even if it's just bad teaching, math is especially vulnerable to bad teaching.

Or is it maybe just that math is the only truly exact science, so there is no margin of error, so unlike every other field where you can sortof weasel around and get away with teaching and retaining half-truths and oversimplifications and purely personal opinions, math is unforgiving with the vague and the incorrect?

28 V 2022

topology and analysis tests are over, both went I think alright

if I don't get 100% from topo I'm going to be very frustrated, because I studied hard and acquired deep understanding of the material – so far as to be able to hold a lecture for my classmate about any topic

analysis ughhh if I get ≥40% I will be overjoyed. but that's just the specifics of this subject, you study super hard and seem to be entirely ready, you solve all of the problems in prep and then best you can do is 40%. my best score so far was 42%, so anything more than that will be my lifetime record lmao, I want this so bad. I solved two problems entirely I think, which should give 40% already, and some pieces from two more, chances are I get 50%, which would be absolutely amazing

here are some pictures from me transforming math into an art project

stokes theorem

topology

I was thinking about how annoying I find what people say to me when I tell them that I'm not happy with how I'm doing at math. their first idea is to tell me how great I am and how all I do is good enough and shit like that. it doesn't help, it just feels like I am not being taken seriously. when I barely pass anything, am I really supposed to believe that everything is actually good? it feels like they skip getting to know my situation and just tell me what they would tell anyone, automatic

when I try to calm myself down and think something that will keep me going I don't try to force myself to be happy, fuck that, not being content with one's achievements is very fine, I believe not being happy all the time is fully natural and all that positivity feels so fake

instead what seems to work is asking myself where the rational threshold of being ok with how I'm doing is. the thing is I will never be satisfied, whatever I have, I always want more. but I can set the limits in advance and that stops me from falling into self-loathing loops

although what has really changed the game for me was getting a few good grades, finally I am achieving something, anything. people tell me that I should learn to be alright without this external reliance on achievements but how am I supposed to do that when the source of my low moods is precisely getting less than I want? I don't understand why I should brainwash myself into thinking that this is actually not what I want. the trick here is to separate the goal-orientedness from the sense of self-worth. the groundbreaking realization of mine was figuring out that I believe I deserve more than I get, that's why I am unhappy. so now that I am getting what I think what I deserve I obviously feel much better

just had a reflection about perfectionism. today I had an exam for which I was prepared very well, but my stupid brain happened and I didn't get the highest grade. my boyfriend was comforting me and he asked since when I want to ace everything, this question made me think

indeed, I don't want to ace everything. I am taking 4 courses this semester, one of which I don't care about enough to strive for the best grade, one of which is way too hard to aim that far, two of which I thought were achievable. and now I didn't achieve that. it feels different to set unrealistic goals and then never achieve them than to set very realistic ones and still fail, that's what I realized today

I am not a perfectionist. I used to be, years ago, and then I learned to set realistic goals. now I'm thinking, isn't perfectionism a kind of a coping mechanism? deep down you know your goals are impossible, so it's not really surprising when you fail. you are never satisfied, sure, but maybe it does feel more safe this way than to not know if you will be satisfied or disappointed. if that's the case then setting realistic goals is absolutely not the way to heal perfectionism

no fuckin way

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The beautiful modernism of Oliver Byrne’s, The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid, 1847

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.