Thinking About How When My Oldest Brother Took Japanese Classes His Professor Was Like Your Pronunciation

Me: *Removes my cat from my lap to do something else.*

My cat: Father is…evil? Father is unyielding? Father is incapable of love? I am running away. I am packing my little rucksack and going out to explore the world as a lone vagabond. I can no longer thrive in this household.

I got a proof wrong on an exam. No points. 

Then, I thought about it for fifteen minutes outside of the exam, wrote it down, nailed it. 

I showed a classmate and told him what happened. He looked frustrated. He’d clearly had this happen before, too (haven’t we all?).  He said, “Don’t you hate it when that happens?”

I almost said yes. What the h*ck!? No. No, I do not hate it when I can fathom a deeply abstracted concept in mathematics. I never hate that. I the opposite of hate that. Expecting myself to immediately understand topics like this is unrealistic. I’m proud of being able to do it at all. Who cares if I did it in the exam or within the next hour? I DID IT. It’s mine now. I can do it whenever I want. Missing points on that problem doesn’t take the knowledge out of my brain. How dare I be taught that my knowledge is useless because I didn’t have it right at that moment. It’s just as good now. 

Education is not about the arbitrary numeric number ascribed to your ability to do things quickly in an arbitrary, restricted time interval. Education is about being able to do progressively more things, to understand progressively complex things. 

Tenacity and challenging yourself far beyond your limits is a hundred times more important than getting good grades. Because, when you’re one of .4 percent of the population who possess complete knowledge on a very complex topic, nobody cares how long it took you to do it, or how well you did it the first time you tried. 

Grades don’t discover new mathematics. Mathematicians do (even the ones who failed a basic topic in mathematics because their base way of thinking was too complex). Grades don’t advance medical research. Scientists do (even the ones who had to apply for their PhD programs 3 times in a row before they got accepted). Grades don’t make science fiction into real-world technologies. Engineers do (even the ones who dropped out of school because they wanted to build things, not talk about building things). 

Knowledge is power. Skills are power. Grades are constructs. Never trade actual understanding for a semblance of understanding. 

“Netflix and chill?”

No, PDF and cry

My favourite fucked up math fact™ is the Sharkovskii theorem:

For any continuous function f: [a,b] -> [a,b], if there exists a periodic point of order 3 (i.e. f(f(f(x))) = x for some x in [a,b] and not f(x) = x or f²(x) = x), then there exists a periodic point of ANY order n.¹

Yes you read that right. If you can find a point of order 3 then you can be sure that there is a point of order 4, 5, or even 142857 in your interval. The assumption is so innocent but I cannot understate how ridiculous the result is.²

For a (relatively) self-contained proof, see this document (this downloads a pdf).

(footnotes under read more)

¹ The interval does not have to be closed, but it should be connected. (a,b), (a,b] and [a,b) all work.

² Technically the result is even stronger! The natural numbers admit a certain ordering called the Sharkovskii ordering which starts with the odd primes 3 > 5 > 7 > ... , then doubles of primes, then quadruples of primes and so forth until you get no more primes left, ending the ordering in 2³ > 2² > 2. Sharkovskii's theorem actually says that if you have a periodic point of order k, then you have periodic points of any order less than k in the Sharkovskii ordering. It is frankly ridiculous how somehow prime numbers make their way into this mess.

Every now and then I remember that Malbolge exists and I get to spend the better part of an hour cry-laughing at the world’s worst programming language

already starting off strong, but it gets worse

Wow! Sounds easy and intuitive to use! What’s the “crazy operation” you ask? We’ll get to that later. For now let’s see what a program in this language looks like :)

Thanks! I hate it!

it’s so difficult to work with that the first program was written by another brute force search program

mmmmm delicious base-3 arithmetic, what could go wrong? (For reference, that means this program forgoes the usual “0/1″ values of binary code in favor of a much more fun “0/1/2″ set of values)

ah.

Here’s how the language actually figures out what to do. It’s got 8 “simple” commands that can be executed easily by *checks notes* running the code itself through the modulo operation and taking the result.

As a bonus, on top of all that every single character in your code will now alter what every single other character does. So I hope you’re alright with cracking a cipher every time you add a new letter to your program!

oh god oh fuck.

behold, Malbolge’s primary arithmetic operation and what you’ll be using for most of your math while programming with it :)

This looks specifically designed to be the least logical math operation you could make, and knowing what the rest of Malbolge is I’d wager that’s precisely what happened. I never want to ever use this and it’s my favorite thing I’ve ever seen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbolge

Anyways here’s the wiki page if you wanna read through it more deeply, I’m gonna sit here holding in my laughter staring at the hello world program again.

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?

Me: I should write something

me : … or I could spent 78 hours straight making a miniature library with a working LED chandelier

11 II 2023

in two days I have my last exam and I have absolutely zero motivation to study for it

yesterday I had an oral complex analysis exam and I did very well, the professor said that I will most likely receive the top grade. my partial scores from this course add up to 80%, so if the oral one was for 100%, it yields 84% total. that sounds like a top grade to me although we haven't received the official report yet

I also had an algebraic methods exam a few days ago and it went ok, I completed 4.5 out of 6 problems. I probably have no chance for a top grade from this course because the professor is very strict with how many points qualify for that and I am not even close to what the best people had. this is why I have zero motivation to study for the oral exam from this course, if there was a chance to score a 5 (the top grade) then I would care, but if my options are 3.5, 4 or 4.5, I don't really see the difference

well, the difference lies in maybe applying for a scholarship after this academic year, but honestly that "goal" is just here to distract myself from feeling judged all the time. somehow I don't care about money as much as an abstract number supposedly rating my abilities so thinking of it as "try harder so you might get paid for it" feels less pressing than "try harder so you'll have higher abstract numbers and you can feel good about yourself"

jesus I fucking hate grades, I wish it was kept secret from me how much points I actually have, only receive feedback on the correctness of my solutions and the information if I am passing or not. I can never be satisfied with I am doing. last year I would see it as a success to score 4's at everything, now it feels like a failure because I already scored some 5's, so that's my new bottom line. and I know that if I did ace everything, I would be happy for about 5 minutes and then move on to picking up twice as many courses for the next semester because "it would be too easy otherwise"

grades, no matter what I'm getting, fuck with my self esteem so deeply. it brings out the worst insecurities, fears and memories, this is when I am thinking my darkest thoughts. I have no one to talk to about this and I am angry at myself for perceiving it this way. I wish these things didn't matter to me but they do, I don't even know why, it feels like a trap

I don't want people to tell me that "I'm great no matter what grades I'm getting" or that "I will do it, because I'm smart". I actually don't know what I want, and it sucks to put my friends into the situation where no matter what they say it's "the wrong line". ughhh I want this semester to be over so I can go back to only caring about learning as much as possible

my thesis advisor (I think that's what you call the thesis boss) sent me a paper to read and I'm curious what topic he picked for me. I will gladly read it right after I'm done with exams

types of mathematical terminology

descriptive

honeycomb

gradient

quiver

computable

less descriptive

centroid

chaos

end

flag

not descriptive

ring

allegory

surreal

group

you know this person, right?

euclidean

abelianization

grothendieck

cartesian

took some non-english word and hoped for the best

eigen

algebra

shtuka

nullstellensatz

i made up a word!

ergodic

functor

adele

logarithm

idk, just give it a generic name

regular

well

admissible

well-admissible

like, specifically, it’s a vague thing

flasque

lax

fuzzy

pseudo

one symbol and a word

*-algebra

D-module

K-theory

†-compact (although that’s going to usually be written “dagger compact”)

just random letters

rg

cwf

Fσ

erf