impendia

55 ms·

541.
by impendia 8y ago
Is he definitely going to the Big-10 university? I almost hate to ask this, but is attending an elite private university an option? It is very much possible to get an outstanding education at public universities. I went to the University of
542.
by impendia 8y ago
> public libraries are little more than homeless shelters This was totally false at each of the five public libraries that I've visited over the last two years.
543.
by impendia 8y ago
Oh. I'd played both (15 years apart) and didn't notice any differences... guess I just overlooked them! I stand corrected.
544.
by impendia 8y ago
> Presumably the arithmetician will answer that its factorization is the empty set. Arithmetician (Ph.D. in number theory) here. This answer is completely correct. As another reason why the factorization of 1 should be the empty set: sup
545.
by impendia 8y ago
I loved this game, and Ur-Quan Masters is a 100% faithful remake for anyone wanting to give it a try. My favorite moment: when the Ilwrath tell you exactly from where, and on what radio frequency, their evil gods communicate to them. You im
546.
by impendia 8y ago
I don't know anything about Apostol's Mathematical Analysis . My guess would be that it demands a fairly sophisticated background of the reader, and does an excellent job of covering calculus from an extremely rigorous point of v
547.
by impendia 8y ago
That's another thing I observed teaching calculus: a lot of students who have problems, are having their difficulties with the algebra they supposedly know, and not so much with the "new" material. In theory, we expect studen
548.
by impendia 8y ago
Math professor here --- Quality of teaching might have something to do with it. But, also, calculus is much harder to understand at a rigorous, formal level than at an informal level. On one level you can try to understand what the main con
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by impendia 8y ago
Neither calculus nor Epp's book require any prereqs beyond high school algebra. Studying algorithms would definitely be easier if you'd gotten through Epp first. For linear algebra, it depends heavily on your choice of book. To re
550.
by impendia 8y ago
As mentioned in other answers, Thompson's Calculus Made Easy is an excellent informal book for calculus. Spivak and Apostol are nice at a much higher (rigorous and proof-based) level. Most mainstream calculus books suck; they tend to
551.
by impendia 8y ago
Math professor here. A book which I have found excellent is Epp's Discrete Mathematics with Applications. The book is very patient and explains things really well -- stuff like formal logic, induction and recursion, proofs, probability
552.
by impendia 8y ago
> What's your hourly rate? This is not how I think about my job. Rather, the university pays me a salary, and expects me to engage in "scholarship" and "professional service" -- and I get to decide where I think
553.
by impendia 8y ago
by "not accepted" I mean "not published in the particular journal I was asked to review for".
554.
by impendia 8y ago
Often (but definitely not always), requests to peer-review are accompanied by statements like "We consider our Journal X to be on par with Journals Y and Z, and aim to be extremely selective. Please only recommend publication if blah-b
555.
by impendia 8y ago
> No reviewers are ever paid either That's almost true. Elsevier once surprised me with a $100 Amazon gift card, which they said was in recognition for a particularly good job of peer review that year. I'd laugh at the prospect
556.
by impendia 8y ago
I'm a math professor, I can answer this. We tend to think of journals as being run by their editorial boards -- i.e., by scientists in our field. The publishers are in the background, not taking a very active role, simply skimming off
557.
by impendia 8y ago
A half-remembered, and possibly apocryphal, story which another mathematician once told me: Langlands was once invited to lecture in France, and he chose to give his talk in French. Evidently his accent was not all that good, and the audien
558.
by impendia 8y ago
Working mathematician here -- 1. Langlands is indeed a great mathematician, whose work has been enormously influential. 2. Most of us aren't all that eccentric. He wrote his paper in Russian , a language which he (presumably) does not
559.
by impendia 8y ago
The arXiv does serve as an online preprint vetting community, and it would provide you a venue in which to publicly disseminate your work. (You might need either a university-affiliated email or an endorsement, though -- not sure exactly.)
560.
by impendia 8y ago
(Source: am a university professor) Do you live near a research university, which employs anyone working in aerospace engineering and/or fluid dynamics? Alternatively, do you ever have the occasion to visit your old university? I'
561.
by impendia 8y ago
I started piano lessons two and a half years ago, essentially a beginner, at the age of 38, and have been keeping them up. I love it and expect this to be a lifelong hobby. I'm mostly going to echo the advice given by several others. F
562.
by impendia 8y ago
I'm a professor in pure mathematics (at a university with a Ph.D. program), in the United States. I'm a little bit biased, since I went through the system, but that said -- > Would that basically be the equivalent of what a PhD
563.
by impendia 8y ago
Thanks, I'll have a look! This looks a bit too high-level to inform my undergraduate teaching, but certainly I could learn something from this.
564.
by impendia 8y ago
I recently purchased a grand piano, and in the process I visited a lot of piano stores and got a very good sense of what is available and for how much. Large piano stores in the US will typically have some vintage Steinways for sale, whethe
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by impendia 8y ago
Can I ask you (and keldaris) what precisely you mean by geometric algebra, and how you would propose to teach it? I'm a math professor. To me "geometric algebra" refers to any use of geometry in mathematics to illuminate alge
566.
by impendia 8y ago
A couple of ideas: - Expose yourself to people whom you consider smarter, more talented, or more accomplished than yourself. Ideally in person; you might also read biographies of people who accomplished amazing things. - Take up a new hobby
567.
by impendia 8y ago
Or, roughly equivalently, "our notation for writing down integers makes sense".
568.
by impendia 8y ago
> The exam will wash out the 50-70% of people who are needed as temp TA labor but whom the department has no intention of advising through to a Ph.D. At which department? Speaking as a math professor in an American research university --
569.
by impendia 8y ago
I second psyklic's recommendation of Spivak and/or Apostol if you want to "learn calculus the hard way" -- e.g. if you want to learn calculus in a rigorous manner that prepares you well to keep going. An informal, brief
570.
by impendia 8y ago
The Riemann zeta function is the function zeta(s) = 1 + 1/2^s + 1/3^s + 1/4^s + 1/5^s + 1/6^s + .... For example, zeta(2) = 1 + 1/4 + 1/9 + 1/16 + 1/25 + 1/36 + ... = pi^2/6. As a parti

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