13 I 2023

i’m starting a collection

i ended up not doing topo yesterday and made an animation of a lipschitz function instead:

i'm kinda proud of it even though it's messy. had so much fun with it. maybe i'll do some more today

but i want to do that topo content i planned to do so we'll see. i also need to do some coding and finish an art comission

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

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?

Lagrange Markipliers or something idk I forgot all my multivariable calc.

5 IX 2022

maybe once a month is a bit too seldom to post? I kinda want to form a habit of romanticizing my academic life, I see all those studyblr accounts with beautiful photos of their desks and notes and I'm pretty sure those images exist in their minds as well

maybe one day I will be considered studyspo lol

I'm just starting to work on some geometry problems for today, haven't yet decided what I will focus on, but there is this one problem that haunted me when I tried to sleep yestarday:

given a triangle ABC with ∠A = 60°, let P be a point in the interior of ABC such that ∠APB = ∠APC = 120°. prove that ∠APX = 90°, for X being the circumcenter of ABC

it's supposed to be solved using spiral similarity, which is a composition of a rotation and homothety. there was another problem that was listed as "spiral similarity exercise", but I proved it with angle chasing exclusively, creating some nasty drawings in the process

other than geometry I'm studying homology, at the moment the basics of homological algebra, such as the first proofs by diagram chasing and exact sequences

I made some notes for exact sequences induced in homology

my perspective on doing math is slowly changing I think, I feel inspired to search for problems that I would like to solve. I noticed that I have this mental block: before I start doing math for real, I need to learn all the theory. which is absurd, you can never learn all the theory

sure, obtaining truly groundbreaking results requires years of learning theory and mastering tools if you want to specialize in algebraic topology and geometry, but the mindset I have creates the comfort zone of "play safe, just read your textbook, no challenges for now" and I'm starting to see beyond that

right now I'm taking my first steps into understanding that reading textbooks and learning how to solve basic exercises is not enough. they are just methods that are supposed to help my creativity and curiosity do their thing. essentially what I've been doing so far is not math, merely the preparation to do math in the future. no wonder I've been feeling so bored recently, all I'm doing is just learning basic tools. the idealist in me is asking to be unleashed

I feel like I'm about to see something much bigger than me

when I (fucking finally) finish this semester I plan to do a deep dive into TQFT and frobenius algebras with this book recommended by my supervisor:

I find the concept to be very elegant. loosely speaking, take a commutative ring R and an algebra A over this ring that satisfies the axioms of the frobenius algebra. it turns out that for any such algebra there is an R-module associated to a certain 3-manifold, in which there are operations (induced by the algebra) on cobordisms between the systems of curves embedded in the boundary of the manifold. this is related to knot theory and apparently to some quantum blah blah, which I don't know much about yet

rb this with your favorite math concepts/books/videos... things u enjoy and that make you excited! (or reply but i want to hear about it and if you rb it then i hear more cool stuff from more people)

my favorite books are the grapes of math and things to make and do in the fourth dimension. i'm also reallyyyy wanting to read number freak and godel, escher, bach. concepts i love are chaos theory, non-euclidean geometry, and dimensions beyond 3rd!

imo euclidean geometry kinda sucks, but if we mean geometry in a more general sense then algebraic geometry is the one

I've decided to start a fight

anyways geometry sucks algebra best math

Just in case some of you don't know about the websites where you can get your textbooks for free