Ask a Mathematician!

[warpus]

How are you at combinatorics?

I took a lot of math in university and hated a lot of it (statistics, calculus, etc.) but loved stuff like algebra (I really loved proving things).. Anyway, for some reason I excelled in combinatorics.. I kinda miss it! Do you dabble in that at all?

 

[Crezth]

Studying something as an expert and studying something as a student are two different things.

I wasn't aware that definition contained a distinction.

It's not like Mathematician is a concrete title. As long as he is honest about his status and serious in his study of it, let him call himself what he wants.

 

[bhsup]

Eh, no. Let me see the paper that gives someone the right to call themselves that, otherwise no. Mathematician in training, sure, I'll go for that.

"honest about his status and serious in his study of it" Would you let a 1st year med student call themselves a physician? Let someone studying to become a pilot call themselves a pilot before they get their license? No, of course not.

 

[Crezth]

Eh, no. Let me see the paper that gives someone the right to call themselves that, otherwise no. Mathematician in training, sure, I'll go for that.

"honest about his status and serious in his study of it" Would you let a 1st year med student call themselves a physician? Let someone studying to become a pilot call themselves a pilot before they get their license? No, of course not.

Okay, but "mathematician" isn't a concrete, legal term like "physician" or "trained pilot" or even "lawyer." It's a little abstract and with definitions like "person whose primary field of study is mathematics" the room for interpretation is greater than that with physicians and pilots.

fake edit: especially when AFAIK nobody has ever received a piece of paper that says something to the effect of "Certified Mathematician."

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

I think we're getting a little far afield here. Can we return to the original discussion, that is, math people answering questions? (Math person is a word defined by me to mean "someone with interest and a learning in math far above the average person")

Do you see mathematics as a science or an art form? Or is it neither but somethintg uniqe?

I can't resist giving the Mathematician's Answer to the first question here: yes. Yes I do.

To be exact, I do not consider mathematics a science. Why? Because to me, science depends on one thing: experimentation. But you don't experiment in mathematics, you prove. You prove that if X is true, then Y is true for some conditions X and Y. In effect, math is logic. And considering how beautiful they both can be sometimes (math and logic), I'd definitely put math on the level of an art.

Differential equations have many diverse applications. What about category theory? From skimming the wiki article I think it's for computer science and programming problems.

Yes, it's definitely useful in those, but my friend (a Post-graduate from Belgium; the internet gives you a large network!) says that it's also used to form a basis for the rest of mathematics, though it's entirely possible he's bragging.

How are you at combinatorics?

I took a lot of math in university and hated a lot of it (statistics, calculus, etc.) but loved stuff like algebra (I really loved proving things).. Anyway, for some reason I excelled in combinatorics.. I kinda miss it! Do you dabble in that at all?

Combinatorics is fun! I like to experiment with things like that in my spare time, and although I haven't gone into combinatorics much, the times I have gotten into it were fun and enlightening. Kind of like my dabbling in probability!

EDIT: Gah. Unclosed parenthesis. That'll just tear me apart if I didn't edit it.

 

[bhsup]

fake edit: especially when AFAIK nobody has ever received a piece of paper that says something to the effect of "Certified Mathematician."

I was thinking of something like this (random pick from image search)

 

[_random_]

Are you heartset on entering academia, or have you considered using your degree for other employment opportunities?

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Are you heartset on entering academia, or have you considered using your degree for other employment opportunities?

Ya know, I'm not sure yet. I'm about 85% sure I want to go into academia, but I might want to pay off my debts from a four-year degree first. I try not to set the future too much in stone; that's when karma comes and breaks up all your plans!

 

[pi-r8]

Ya know, I'm not sure yet. I'm about 85% sure I want to go into academia, but I might want to pay off my debts from a four-year degree first. I try not to set the future too much in stone; that's when karma comes and breaks up all your plans!

Good luck. I hope you realize how insanely difficult it is to get a job as a professor these days. Please consider statistics like these and make sure you have a backup plan, like learning computer programming or taking the tests to be an actuary. Note that one of those Berkeley math grads is "employed" as a Starbucks barista.

For what it's worth I minored in math so I guess that qualifies me to answer questions in this thread.

 

[Crezth]

Good luck. I hope you realize how insanely difficult it is to get a job as a professor these days. Please consider statistics like these and make sure you have a backup plan, like learning computer programming or taking the tests to be an actuary. Note that one of those Berkeley math grads is "employed" as a Starbucks barista.

This is an excellent suggestion. There is high demand for actuaries (largely because it isn't easy) and it has good job security and pay.

Even if you decide that you really want to pursue a career in academia, it's something that is worth putting in your back pocket. If you can make it through the hell of several years of testing, you're as close to "set for life" as a mathematician can get.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

I'll have to keep that in mind. Thanks for letting me know!

 

[Integral]

re: academia:

I'm a grad student in economics. The prospects for academic employment go down pretty quickly once you leave the top-20, and even in the upper tier academic jobs are difficult to get. I can't imagine that mathematics is any easier.

To be clear: in my field, about half of students drop out with the Master's and of the remainder, half to two-thirds eventually get academic positions. So there is real risk involved, however I think it's worthwhile (otherwise I wouldn't be doing it!).

Math and econ both have good outside options (actuarial, government, statistics, corporate finance). Just keep them in mind.

 

[muhtesem insan]

which do you prefer? Applied or pure mathematics.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

which do you prefer? Applied or pure mathematics.

I prefer pure mathematics. But I recognize that applied mathematics is a LOT more likely to get me a job.

Interesting tidbit: Pokemon was actually what originally got me into mathematics. Besides the number-crunching of calculating stats, there's also the amount of interesting things that can be found by looking into the programming of the game. (Especially since it looks like it's only half-finished!)

 

[nc-1701]

How are you at combinatorics?

I took a lot of math in university and hated a lot of it (statistics, calculus, etc.) but loved stuff like algebra (I really loved proving things).. Anyway, for some reason I excelled in combinatorics.. I kinda miss it! Do you dabble in that at all?

I've done a decent amount with it, but I've never really enjoyed combinatorics.

Are you heartset on entering academia, or have you considered using your degree for other employment opportunities?

I have no intention of entering academia, I want to work for either the NSA or a bank still need a PhD or at the very least a Masters for that though. o academia is a backup/retirement plan I suppose.

 

[Rashiminos]

Is there any particular proof that you admire more than the others?

 

[Integral]

Combinatorics was one of the rare math classes at my uni whose problem sets made seasoned math majors cry.

 

[nc-1701]

Is there any particular proof that you admire more than the others?

Cliche Answer

I really like the proof of their being infinitely many prime numbers, mostly because it is exceedingly easy so I love using it as an example of proofs to non math people. I also like the proof of Euler's Theorem/Fermat's Little Theorem done using Group Theory.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Is there any particular proof that you admire more than the others?

Yes, and it's not the one you're expecting!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number_theorem

Why this proof, you ask? (Well, probably not, but I'll imagine you asking)

Well, simple. It establishes the density of primes, it's a proof that a great many people including my own personal favorite mathematician, Georg Riemann, and I just read a book explaining every step of the history of the proof!

 

[peter grimes]

A couple of questions, anyone may answer (I don't care what people call themselves, it's their accomplishments that matter more):

First, what's your Erdos number?

Second, I'd like to go back to Reimann's zeta function and the zeros. I've read a little about this (Marcus Du Sautoy's Music of the Primes) and I really don't understand it.

The way it was described in the book (assuming I remember it correctly!!), the zeros are areas of a complex landscape that are i distant from the y axis and never cross the line. The problem everyone was working on was finding a prove that no zero was ever off the line through i. Reimann's housekeeper burned many of his personal documents after he died, so any proof that he had figured out must be rediscovered.

Can you explain to me how that graphs of the zeta in polar coordinates relates to my description above? Again, I'm probably mangling parts of this - so I apologize if the question is ill-formed or a frustrating waste of mathematical times