jvvw

9 ms·

61.
by jvvw 2y ago
I agree wholeheartedly about the beauty of doing mathematics. I will add though that the author of this article, Kevin Buzzard, doesn't need to do this for his career and from what I know of him is somebody who very much cares about ma
62.
by jvvw 2y ago
Another PhD in maths here and I would say not to worry. It's the process of doing and understanding mathematics, and thinking mathematically that is ultimately important. There's never been the equivalent of the 'bench scient
63.
by jvvw 2y ago
This sounds interesting. As a mathematician (in the sense that I have a PhD in group theory), is there a good guide to music theory for mathematicians? There seems to be lots of stuff along the lines of 'if you understand music, here i
64.
by jvvw 2y ago
Mathematicians regard 'symmetries' as algebra (as in group theory etc rather than high-school algebra) rather than geometry and I suspect this is about the use of the word geometry in part.
65.
by jvvw 2y ago
When I read the article when it came out, I was a bit annoyed that it singled out Oxford as it's the same at all the universities. It's also been that for a long time - I earned comparable amounts as a DPhil student and post-doc t
66.
by jvvw 2y ago
There is an updated version by the way. Don't know if that bit has been updated. I still think doing your whole food shop at M&S is 'higher class' than doing it at Waitrose, but it's weird because of the M&S Simp
67.
by jvvw 2y ago
I've done lot of volunteering programming with children and also have an 11 year old. Three obvious options: Unity, Scratch and Python with PyGame. Unity sounds like the best fit to me - some code but a lot of interface. Code Club has
68.
by jvvw 2y ago
I got a photo of my great-great grandfather as a result of a DNA match as well as lots of other information about him - so I suppose it depends if that sort thing interests you or not.
69.
by jvvw 2y ago
I assumed that everybody did this when trying to solve a maths problem they are stuck on (thinking university type level maths rather than school maths) and when I was teaching I would always get people to go back to the definitions. I wasn
70.
by jvvw 2y ago
I walked it the year before last and it is indeed! It's interestingly varied, remarkably quiet and a nice length and amount of effort.
71.
by jvvw 2y ago
I confess I also read this thinking 'this person hasn't tried learning Finnish'. It's also trickier with more unusual languages because there aren't resources out there to the same extent as for more widely-spoken l
72.
by jvvw 2y ago
One of the things that puzzles me is when I see say Anki flashcards for mathematics things that I never learned like that. I never intentionally learned anything in mathematics in that was and it feels very 'wrong' to me when I se
73.
by jvvw 3y ago
Likewise. It's also really useful having some self-catering facilities with children and other self-catering options are often unavailable totally or only in week blocks outside Airbnb in many places. Plus the cost is often the same or
74.
by jvvw 3y ago
Is this partly about norms I'm different countries? If I were renting a holiday cottage in the UK (airbnb or otherwise), I'd expect to do the washing up and take our rubbish, and possibly strip the beds. I wouldn't expect to
75.
by jvvw 3y ago
Parents definitely still take young children to the local playground - at least where I am in the UK!
76.
by jvvw 3y ago
I never felt I properly understood a proof unless I understood it both intuitively and formally. The formalism is to make sure your intuitions are water-tight. But there are proofs you can accept are formally correct without intuitively und
77.
by jvvw 3y ago
I felt really sad reading this. I did mathematics contests at school - a team contest where our school's team reached the final and maths olympiads, where I did well enough to go to the IMO selection session. I loved them and have lots
78.
by jvvw 3y ago
I think the model that the film industry has where films have a director and producer is an interesting one, and one that might be interesting to see followed more in software. The 'vision' for a product is a different skillset fr
79.
by jvvw 3y ago
And some universities still award a DPhil rather than a PhD (in the UK I believe Oxford and Sussex do - I have an Oxford DPhil and I always have the very mild quandary of whether to call it a PhD or DPhil - everybody knows what the former i
80.
by jvvw 3y ago
I was really puzzled by Duolingo for ages - I just found all the animations etc. painful and other apps seemed to much better for language learning. And then my kids (10 and 12) started using it and absolutely loved getting streaks, lingots
81.
by jvvw 3y ago
My sister is a translator, a field where AI has already had a huge impact. She can still get high-end translation work (she has 25 years experience, a Masters in translation and is an extremely good writer in English) - some people do need
82.
by jvvw 3y ago
Didn't realise at the time but you have made me appreciate that that was one good thing about the British system - I was 24 when I submitted my PhD which is fairly typical so still time before such decisions (it was another 11 years be
83.
by jvvw 3y ago
My children have found most of the Studio Ghibli films unsettling and slightly scary. They watched them I guess when they were in the 6-10 age range and saw My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away, Ponyo, Howl's Moving Castle etc. They refu
84.
by jvvw 4y ago
I've seen some children move onto Unity for the 3D graphics. Physical computing can sometimes give an incentive for Python when its the only lanaguage available. We've done some stuff with Minecraft Pi at code clubs I've been
85.
by jvvw 4y ago
Can you leave with a Masters after two years then? I was vaguely aware that Grad School in the US wasn't quite equivalent to here. I went straight from my undergraduate to my PhD, but I guess because of the earlier specialisation that
86.
by jvvw 4y ago
As somebody from the UK, six years feels such a long time. Our PhDs are usually three years, although there's more specialisation earlier on at the undergraduate levels, and people might have done masters first, so you are launched str
87.
by jvvw 4y ago
One of our friends who is a graphic designer mentioned that he thought was going to be out of job in the next couple of years. My husband made the point that he was pretty sure that given whatever AI tools exist in the next couple of years,
88.
by jvvw 4y ago
We have sort-of done this (salary disparity means that we are on more than half what we originally were). I do find it hard though in many ways. I've done intellectual things all my life, got a PhD in maths etc. and now I'm basica
89.
by jvvw 4y ago
I'm in the UK, and not concerned about our children's educational/career prospects. As well as being ridiculously expensive, London isn't great for schools unless you pay for private or carefully live right next to one o
90.
by jvvw 4y ago
I've worked as a developer/engineer both in private sector and in a research department at a university (but not AI/ML). There are a couple of problems with working in an academic context. First, as you say the incentive stru

More ›