Recent content by R.P.F.

Yes you should be ashamed. You did not try hard and now you are here trying to blame things on others instead of taking the responsibility yourself. And couldn't enjoy your prom? Well, i could tell you, if you keep this irreponsible attitude, you are probably going to have a lot of failures...

In the past two school years, I never took any night off except for during breaks like fall break or spring break. Even on Friday nights I had to grade homework. There was even once or twice when I sobbed in the library thinking I just want to take one day off. Even in a situation like that...

To the OP: I once got a test score below average but I wasn't very upset because I knew exactly what went wrong: the exam was too time pressured and I couldn't work well in such an environment. I have gotten a lot better at taking time-pressured exams now. I whined about exams too. But I...

I recently started to compare Turing to Von Neumann. They were two completely different kinds of people in terms of personalities and ended up very differently as well. But it is interesting that their offices used to be next to each other.

A good math book is way better than a child. Just saying. :biggrin:

Not sure about you guys, but I change dorm every year. So it is a hassle to move all my books and find storage for them over the summer. I sold all the books I bought for classes not in my major. There were only 43 or 4 of them though. I major in math where a typical textbook costs like $80...

Yes I think you can. I know people who flunked out of school but then got themselves together to started over and end up succeeding. There is one piece of advice that I'd offer: never ever try to find excuses for your failures. Don't blame your parents, your gender, your brain, the...

Girlfriend? I believe it's his mistress.

I definitely love math and would like to do it for the rest of my life if possible. However, even in the most romantic relationship you occasionally get the impulse to run away. After all, I worked 75+ hours a week excluding lecture time for the past three semesters. I figured it would still...

This doesn't make sense. If you love it enough you wouldn't care so much about the money. Plus the money is enough for you to live a comfortable life. People don't go into academia for the money, they go for the stability and freedom after getting tenure. You can be crosslisted in two...

It's good to have the option to take classes outside math, but when you make it a requirement, it can be annoying. It's not fun to shovel a humanities class down your throat when you have a stressful semester filled with math classes.

Are algebraic function fields and valuation theory also covered in the field course? I have to say I'm very jealous. I don't like the gen-ed requirements in the states at all. I pay a huge amount of tuition here in the states and yet couldn't quite get the education I (at least I) want.

Are all the bold parts non-overlapping? I had all those materials in a year-long algebra sequence, but probably not in the same depth as you did, because it seems yours were progressing towards specialization.

Wow. Algebraic geometry as an undergrad? Good for you! And also projective geometry as a single course? Sounds intense. I think the area of modern math that most frequently utilizes projective geometry is the study of elliptic curves. I should emigrate to Belgium right away.:-p

Maybe it's a good idea for the whole office to grab some coffee together once in a while.