impendia

89 ms·

871.
by impendia 14y ago
I personally know Brian Conrad (quoted in article). He has an encyclopedic knowledge of algebraic number theory and algebraic geometry, I would say that he's in the top ten people worldwide who could reasonably assess whether Mochizuki's pr
872.
by impendia 14y ago
I am jealous as hell. :) To answer your question, the most useful two pieces of advice I've received are: (1) Your attention is enough . Just be interested in her, pay attention to her, enjoy the experience. (2) Don't be afraid of rejecti
873.
by impendia 14y ago
> I didn't mean for a minute to imply that he was one Ok, fair enough. But I am trusting my gut instincts here. Not so much having read the paper, but reading the way Ellenberg, Conrad, and Tao discuss the paper. To argue by analogy, if
874.
by impendia 14y ago
This is unfair. Yes, his website looks ridiculous, but it is not part of the culture of academia to care much (and I think such websites are especially popular in East Asia). Very few academics spend much time or effort on the design of the
875.
by impendia 14y ago
He presumably translated his own webpage into English. This should not be taken for evidence that he's a crackpot.
876.
by impendia 14y ago
For those who don't know, Jordan Ellenberg (the author of this blog) is a relatively famous and extremely well-regarded math professor at the University of Wisconsin. I was fortunate enough to have him on my Ph.D. thesis committee. Terence
877.
by impendia 14y ago
Scientist ? I put in a page or so from a scientific paper I recently wrote and got 0.19.
878.
by impendia 14y ago
I get the impression that the demand for city life is increasing . (Backed up by research by Richard Florida and others.) One hundred years ago, industry located near natural resources or methods of transport. Large rivers, the Great Lakes
879.
by impendia 14y ago
Lowering house prices in Silicon Valley by 70% would be trivial: Let developers build what they want to build, where they want to build it. Those with $1MM+ houses, however, oppose this for obvious reasons.
880.
by impendia 14y ago
> that the tech scene is actually spread out across the whole peninsula, Is it? I was under the impression that it started around Redwood City or Menlo Park and went south from there... and that there was also a lot in San Francisco. Ar
881.
by impendia 14y ago
From his "about" page on his MathOverflow profile: "Mathematics is a process of staring hard enough with enough perseverence at at the fog of muddle and confusion to eventually break through to improved clarity. I'm happy when I can admit,
882.
by impendia 14y ago
Amusing side note: I clicked on their job ad, apparently they score 10/12 on the "Joel Test", which according to the link indicates "serious problems".
883.
by impendia 14y ago
I'm afraid I heard this secondhand a long time ago and don't know all the details. I could be wrong about that.
884.
by impendia 14y ago
I teach in a university mathematics department. I don't doubt that stories like this are real, but very few of my colleagues collude with, or indeed have much patience with, the publishing industry. Indeed, the opposite is common. Walter Ru
885.
by impendia 14y ago
Mine doesn't. At least not without explicit written permission, and if I tried to pull such a dick move (as a professor) then my chair would quite rightly tell me to go to hell. http://www.sc.edu/cte/guide/policies/index.shtml#selfauthore.
886.
by impendia 14y ago
I'm guessing "Linear Algebra Done Right" by Axler; I haven't read it yet but I heard good things about it and currently have it on order from Amazon. Hoffman + Kunze is the classic. For now, I don't know a book in the subject I really lik
887.
by impendia 14y ago
> Do you have any other good reading material for someone like myself? I'm afraid I don't personally (I'm into abstract and theoretical math, which I'm guessing is not your cup of tea). But I should dig something up before I teach the s
888.
by impendia 14y ago
I agree, this is an excellent example.
889.
by impendia 14y ago
Definitely agreed. As a math professor, I think you can get by without defining vector spaces -- I think it is a little bit difficult to come up with examples, other than R^n or C^n, which seem motivated and interesting to the beginner. The
890.
by impendia 14y ago
Linear algebra is frequently taught very poorly. I think most university courses in the subject are kind of watered down and reduced to algorithms you can memorize -- which, ironically, makes them tough going for the strong students.
891.
by impendia 14y ago
"Nobody ever brags about not knowing how to read, but people brag all the time about not knowing how to do math." This is not just math, it's virtually every subject you learned in school. Imagine the following at a cocktail party: "I had t
892.
by impendia 14y ago
>State police said she admitted to changing the grades, but thought her actions were merely unethical— not illegal. Riiight. I suppose that if 5% of people could possibly believe that, then .95^12 = .5403... could be worse.
893.
by impendia 14y ago
I would go farther than this. At most institutions I have been involved with in some capacity (I am now a math professor), there has not been any distinction. But furthermore, the requirements for a degree are often pretty minimal, often so
894.
by impendia 14y ago
It is good to fail at things. When you fail, smile, because you realize that you pushed your boundaries, you grew, and you learned something. And then either try again or try something else.
895.
by impendia 14y ago
I can't seem to edit my post, but thanks to everyone who replied, upvotes all around.
896.
by impendia 14y ago
Along these lines, let me ask advice from HN. I am buying a home in need of some repairs, and my real estate agent recommended a contractor whom he has personally used a lot. The contractor inspected the home and prepared a competitively pr
897.
by impendia 14y ago
When I was 25 or so, I realized that just because someone told me to do something in a loud, assertive voice, didn't mean I had to do it. I didn't even have to explain myself! I could just not do as I was told. By the time most people get t
898.
by impendia 14y ago
I'm not sure what "its kind" is, but self-help books go back a long way. Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People", recommended by PG, was written in 1936. "The Power of Positive Thinking" dates from 1952, etc. But I certainly ag
899.
by impendia 14y ago
Something a bit sad about how the map is dominated by a few huge circles, and the circles in "flyover country" are small indeed. Suspecting wrongly that the mapmaker had goofed, I checked: the amount of funding is indeed proportional to the
900.
by impendia 14y ago
Anyone for whom this story seriously hits home, but who has success stories to share?

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