impendia

72 ms·

721.
by impendia 13y ago
Another fun (and seemingly nonsensical) thing you can prove if you use the Axiom of Choice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach-Tarski_paradox
722.
by impendia 13y ago
Brief answer: the author invokes the Axiom of Choice, so the three equations will be really screwball and there will be no way to write them down explicitly. This is, in some sense, regarded as cheating. (The Axiom of Choice is generally
723.
by impendia 13y ago
> There is a dramatic misalignment of what you think you're doing there and what your students think they're doing there. The purpose for doing a Ph.D. is to produce original research. Motivation can vary: intellectual curi
724.
by impendia 13y ago
I am a math professor. My first Ph.D. student got a job outside of academia and I was happy to support him fully and unreservedly. But: >students still come out with a very narrow window of extremely specialized knowledge Duh. >Additi
725.
by impendia 13y ago
> Spivak's Calculus is used as a first-year calculus textbook at lots of schools Umm... where? Not at Stanford, where we used a mainstream, much easier book. So does Princeton. Harvard is famous for having developed a "touchy-f
726.
by impendia 13y ago
> Indeed, some publishers, seeking to protect their own investment in scholarly work, have authorized third-party agencies to find articles posted in violation of their contractual rights and to issue Digital Millennium Copyright Act tak
727.
by impendia 13y ago
Maybe Harvard. But I am employed as a math professor at a Research I state school, in which context you are quite mistaken. Research is most important, but good teaching is also important. "Universities don't care about teaching&q
728.
by impendia 13y ago
I taught an upper-level undergraduate course in math (combinatorics) at Stanford a few years ago. There were 18 students, and I gave all of them A's or B's. They deserved it. I was inspired by what they accomplished. I would have
729.
by impendia 13y ago
Terry Tao is exceptional, perhaps the best known mathematician. I speculate (although I can't really know, most salaries are private) that there are less than 100 academic mathematicians making > 200K. This, in a field that's
730.
by impendia 13y ago
Unlimited money? In academia? Umm... no. Even for the very best people, at the very best places, salaries tend to top off below $150K. In places with high costs of living, this isn't a cushy life.
731.
by impendia 13y ago
I am on the hiring committee at a university mathematics department. As such, I read a bunch of rec letters. All of them are positive and praise the applicants. But, some of them say things like "Candidate X ingeniously solved Problem
732.
by impendia 13y ago
I did this, with great success, when I was applying to math graduate schools. I was in an unusual situation -- had been out of school for five years, and so did not have any useful contacts. So I browsed the personal home pages of graduate
733.
by impendia 13y ago
Sure. {n, n + 2, n + 4} is a 3-tuple that is not admissible: One of n, n + 2, and n + 4 will always be divisible by three, so the tuple has no chance to ever represent three prime numbers for one value of n. (Except for n = 3.) Conversely
734.
by impendia 13y ago
The purpose of working in number bases other than 10 is to reinforce the meaning of place value, and to implicitly teach students that the way we write numerals is (1) very logical and sensible, but (2) an accident of biology. What we shoul
735.
by impendia 13y ago
"Elementary Number Theory" by Underwood Dudley is great. Also, I enthusiastically second tokenadult's recommendations of all of Stillwell's books, which has quite rightly been voted to the top.
736.
by impendia 13y ago
I have observed this behavior very often in others. For example, recently I showed up to a yoga class, and there was construction going on the street outside, so that it was mildly inconvenient to get to the parking lot. The yoga instructor
737.
by impendia 13y ago
I recommend Gateway and Gateway II, based on Frederik Pohl's science fiction series. There's graphics and sound, but the interface is classic text adventure.
738.
by impendia 13y ago
Some people just want to be in the middle of the action. They just walk around SF and decide that they have to live there. I worked for three years at Stanford. Once, after I'd been living in Menlo Park for about a year, I flew back
739.
by impendia 13y ago
My impression is that cities are chaotic, unpredictable, and fast-paced, while suburbs are designed to be predictable and to feel safe. Working in a startup is also chaotic, unpredictable, and fast-paced, so it seems natural that people dra
740.
by impendia 13y ago
> I genuinely have no idea what the fuss is about. In my entire life, I have never been bothered by a low battery smoke detector alert. I take 5 minutes and change the batteries in my detectors twice a year This requires being very organ
741.
by impendia 13y ago
> Making obnoxious sounds is a feature not a bug. Making them only once every thirty minutes is a bug not a feature. I was awakened in the middle of the night by one of my smoke detectors beeping once because its batteries were low. But
742.
by impendia 13y ago
Am I the only one who is instinctively skeptical about any discussion of "adulthood", "responsibility", and "maturity"? Although some aspects of adulthood are obviously good (paying your bills on time), these w
743.
by impendia 13y ago
> I should be grateful that at least I have a job in this economic climate, You should be grateful. > and that all jobs have some disadvantages. This is very much also true. But neither of the above implies that you shouldn't mo
744.
by impendia 13y ago
> My suggestion is anyone being sued connect with the individual suing them and work out terms - everything is negotiable. You are condoning extortion. Perhaps, indeed, the individual should negotiate terms -- but for the same reason tha
745.
by impendia 13y ago
This is comparable to the hourly rate for lessons I took for fun or otherwise for personal benefit. Swing dance lessons, improv comedy, etc. I'm not seeking to learn RoR, but your rate strikes me as extremely reasonable. tptacek sugges
746.
by impendia 13y ago
Legal and ethical issues aside, if there are indeed excellent older people who are being passed over, then businesses have an opportunity.
747.
by impendia 13y ago
> This really should be called the quality of our relationships rather than this so called "quality of people", whatever that means. +1. I have met plenty of wonderful people with whom I have somewhat strained relationships. Th
748.
by impendia 13y ago
I'm convinced that part of it is easy. To do it optimally is NP-hard, but one doesn't need to find a perfect solution. The problem is that solutions are always a little bit ill-defined and won't be 100% captured by any gene
749.
Share HN: Some schleps in academia that might be fixable with software
8 points by impendia 13y ago|4 comments
750.
by impendia 13y ago
> a printed sheet of paper, written by someone else would have a bigger impact on the students attending the lecture. Citation needed.

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