Recent content by weld

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mathematicians_by_field Take a look at that link. There's tons of combinatoralists, topologists, number theorists, mathematical analysts and probability theorists, but not so much of others. What's up with that?

Agreed. That's pretty terrible mwonk. If you don't mind me asking, how much do you make? What's the payment range for assistant profs, full profs and research profs at your uni?

N9, that's interesting. Do you know any other places than NSA which do a lot of cryptography?Also, would you say experimental physics work is boring compared to theoretical? What's the general consensus? I have the impression that experimental is full of boring, mundane gruntwork but I might be...

Thanks N9! Also, mathwonk, most math professors have to teach 3-4 classes a year, right? Do you know any places where it's normal to only have to teach 1 or 2? What about other hard sciences professors, do they generally teach 3-4 as well? Are there any exceptions in hard sciences where one...

Sure, but you have to add academic freedom to the list; I doubt they'll let you research anything you want to. It has to be stuff that is critical to national security, or at least could be critical down the road. Mostly cryptology and computer security stuff as far as I know; of course I could...

Hey Zapperz, what does doing experimental work involve? Is it aesthetically satisfying? What would the average physicist say in that regard? Cause I think it sounds kind of boring, tinkering with machines, running experiments over and over again, just to verify a hypothesis. It get worse when...

That's interesting Bourbaki. Would you say a NSA employee is essentially a researcher without busywork (teaching, applying for grants, sitting in committees etc)? Also, do you think they research things other than cryptography there? Also, what are the cances of gaining employment at a place...

Thanks for the helpful reply mathwonk! :D You also have to enjoy teaching because the percentage of time you have in academia to think about research is MUCH less than 90%. Teaching, tutoring, advising, grading, writing notes, serving on committees, hiring, voting, writing dossiers for other...

A very interesting link you provided there Bourbaki. Thanks. I'll definitely look deeper into the pyschology underpinning math. If you have any other good sources regarding math and psychology I would be happy to see them. Anyways, yes, I'll probably search around the web to find those much...

I'm firing off new questions whether you like it or not. What I really want to know is what you hear from your peers regarding employment opportunities, mathwonk. Which math subfields generally have more postdoc and tenure positions? Which generally have more applicants, that is competition for...

And also, when researching in theoretical mathematics, since you don't have a lab, do you still have duties such as administration, grant writing, etc? Do you end up spending more time on teaching due to the absence of lab? I really would like to know this. Also, anyone got an opinion on...

And also, when researching in theoretical mathematics, since you don't have a lab, do you still have duties such as administration, grant writing, etc? Do you end up spending more time on teaching due to the absence of lab? I really would like to know this. Also, anyone got an opinion on...

How tough is competition to become a perma faculty member at a third tier uni or better? Are there tons of brilliant postdocs to compete with? How many, 2, 5, 10, 50? How brilliant, just good or very good? Also, how much time in % do you estimate is spent on doing non-research as a postdoc...

How tough is competition to become a perma faculty member at a third tier uni? Are there tons of brilliant postdocs to compete with? How many, 2, 5, 10, 50? How brilliant, just good or very good? Also, how much time in % do you estimate is spent on doing non-research as a postdoc? Such as...

Now first off I would like to ask to whoever put those tags: was that meant sarcastically? Secondly I'll ask a question along the same line as the one about abstractness: What field of science would overall be the most complex, and which ten (If you can list that many) subfield in math...