Bsdndprplplld - You Can't Comb A Hairy Ball

this looks so great! I need to check this out as well

25 VIII 2022

I found the most beautiful math book I have ever seen

it covers the basics of algebraic topology: homotopy, homology, spectral sequences and some other stuff

one of the authors (Fomenko) was a student when this book was being published, he made all the drawings. imagine being an artist and a mathematician aaand making math art

just look at them

other than those drawing masterpieces there are illustrations of mathematical concepts

I'm studying homology right now, so it brings me joy to know that this book exists. I don't know how well it's written yet, but from skimming the first few pages it seems fine

I just finished watching a lecture about exact sequences and I find the concept of homology really pretty: it's like measuring to what extent the sequence of abelian groups fails to be exact

I'm trying to find my way of taking notes. time and again I catch myself zoning out and passively writing down the definitions, so right now I avoid taking notes until it's with a goal of using the writing as a tool for acquiring understanding. I'm trying to create the representations of objects and their basic relations in my mind at first, then maybe use the process of note-taking to further analyze less obvious properties and solving some problems

I will post more about it in the future, we'll see how that goes

also I don't get what "bad representation" is supposed to mean. given a number of symptoms and creating a character that has those symptom, it is almost certain that there exists an autistic person who will relate to that character, which is what the representation is for, no?

I've seen people making fun of the main character in the good doctor and saying that he's a bad representation, but the whole "I am a surgeon" situation is the most relatable thing I have ever seen in a show, so to me it's doing its job as a representation

how can someone simultaneously claim the existence of a "bad representation" and that every autistic person is different? it doesn't make sense to me

You can ask for more diverse autistic representation in media and criticize the current without making fun of the "stereotypical" traits autistic characters show because, you know, many of us do have these traits. And we're not faking it, and we are not stereotypes, and our traits and interest are not something to be ashamed of.

some experimentation with colors, i tried the inverse:

looks neat tho i think i won't stick to that, as my previous notes are black on white and the inverse is taken by changing the template and the marker color uhh they're gonna be incompatible

in my country having a diagnosis is highly confidential, too. there is no such thing as "the government knowing about your diagnoses" unless you get evaluated for disability documentation (I have no idea how to translate this to english), which is your choice. besides, who knows when the diagnosis will be useful? waiting for a diagnostic appointment takes several months and is very expensive, so taking an opportunity to sort this thing out when it's possible is good. depending on where someone lives, it can be very harmful to say that having a diagnosis somehow creates disadvantages

at my university the support program for people with asd has been introduced two years ago. it took me almost a year to get everything done, a year of unnecessary suffering. treatment for depression with or wihout adhd can be completely different and having it on paper that in your personal circumstances ssri might not work can save so much time. when someone suspects adhd and the situation calls for introducing medication, it's nice to be able to try right away, not wait several months for a diagnosis. those are just some practical examples of how you never know when diagnosis might be useful

and the validation reason, yeah, that too, it's beneficial to have someone work with you through that stuff. moreover, with professional support there comes someone suggesting solutions and forms of help that one might not even thought of. there are shitty doctors, but there are good ones too, and I think we should talk more about how to find the right ones instead of demonizing getting help

By the way. Before you rush to get a professional diagnosis for a Brain Thing you should really weigh your options. Like do you just want to "prove it" or will this actually give you access to treatment you can't have otherwise? Are the treatment options available worth having the government know you're neurodivergent? Because sometimes it's better to keep things off the record because unfortunately we still live in a very deeply ableist society and you might not want to have more real material oppression stacked against you than you have to

mathematicians, constantly: god I’m so tired of people telling me how much they hate math whenever i mention what im into

me: yeah it’s fucked up. i do probability theory, what about you

them: oh man I hate probability theory

I think "high value person" can be interpreted as "someone who is liked by everyone and perfectly adheres to social norms" but also as "someone who wants to find their core values and to this end tries many different approaches" and many other things. some of the things listed are pretty good, such as "take care of themselves" or "doesn't equate their worth to sex", some are unnecessary: "perfected first impressions" or "ALWAYS well-dressed". naah, who cares lol

the thing with self-improvement or other forms of conscious existing (I just invented this term, by that I mean something like chosing which parts of oneself to keep and which to change) is that one must start somewhere. it's nice, in general, to have social relationships, sex life or hobbies and I see this list as a guideline for increasing the probability of achieving those and other things in a certain way

in my opinion it's really important to keep in check with oneself, ask if the cost of being likeable and elegant is worth it. some people derive pleasure from wearing nice clothes and make-up, I am not one of them and for me that would be too much of a sacrifice. I guess most people would hate to have my lifestyle: I basically do math all day. it is my decision to so, it's fun, and I hate it when someone assumes that it's bad just because they wouldn't enjoy it

hence I see this controversial list as goals of someone who genuinely wants to be perfect. and yeah I do think that most of those things are completely unnecessary, I don't consider this set of characteristics as a "high value person" but maybe some people do. a part of self-improvement for me was realizing that I don't care about most things and this post reminded me that there might exist people who care about everything. have they not yet realized that they actually don't care? idk, maybe they do care

but yeah if someone came to me and said that this list objectively defines a high value person then I would laugh lol I will respect everyone's values if they respect mine

you know girls can tell when you look at their boobs

i don’t care how quickly you glance, 1 second is like 5 seconds in boob time

so, for relativistic boobtime, where t is the observer, and t’ is the time measured at the boob. t=t’/sqrt(1-(v/c)^2) solving for t=1, and t’=5, we get that the boobspeed, v, is represented by v=+/- (6*10^8)sqrt(6)i m/s

boobs travel at 1.5 gigametres per second in the complex direction.

25 II 2023

I had an exam yesterday, one more to go. it was the written part, so 12+ hours of solving problems, exhausting just like before. I completed all of them, but of course I am not sure if my solutions are correct, I will find out on monday. I'm proud of the progress I've made

right now I'm studying for the second part, so the theory-oriented one, I can barely focus because I've already learned those things and now I have to relearn them again

I'm trying to prove all the theorems on my own. partly to see how much I remember, partly to see how much I'm willing to improvize. as they say, if you're using too much memory then you're doing something wrong so I'm hoping to be able to come up with the proofs without memorizing anything new

my technique for studying the theory for the exam is to first test myself on how much I remember by trying to write everything down and note where I'm unsure or don't remember at all. then I read the textbooks starting from the worst topics up to the better ones. when I encounter a long complicated proof I am trying to break it down into steps and give each step a "title" or a short description

for instance, the Baer criterion featured in the photo has the following steps:

only do "extenstions on ideals to R→M ⇒ M injective"

define the poset of extenstions of A → M, A ⊆ B and a contrario suppose there is a maximal element ≠B

use the assumption to define an ideal and a submodule that contradicts the maximality of the extension

it is much easier to fill out the details than to remember the whole thing. this is probably the biggest skill I acquired this semester, next to downloading lecture notes pdfs of random professors I find online lmao

a friend suggested that I could make a post about tips for reading math textbooks and papers. as for papers, I don't have enough experience to give any tips, but I can share how I approach reading the books

a big news in my life is that I got a job. I will be a programmer and I start in march. at first I am going to use mostly python, but in the long run they will have me learn java. I'm excited and terrified at the same time, this semester is gonna kill me

"numbers don't lie" the real numbers are literally a lie group

29 X 2022

another exhausting week finally over! fortunately I have two extra weekend days, so I can rest and do my homework without stressing over it

I found another promising youtube channel about learning. and "insanely difficult subjects" sounds about right when it comes to everything that's happening in math

I wish there was more content about learning math specifically. the tips I see, however good and useful for studying memory-based stuff such as biology or history, don't seem to work for math

for now my best method is to study the theory from the textbook, trying to prove everything on my own or if that fails, working through the proofs, coming up with examples of objects and asking (possibly dumb) questions that I then try to answer. afterwards I proceed to solving exercises

recently I've been studying mainly commutative algebra, in particular the localization

we didn't spend much time discussing local rings so I had to find some useful properties on my own. the whole idea of "local properties" is an interesting one and I definitely want to read more about it

I find it to be much more elegant to study localization through its universal property and exact sequences rather than through calculation on elements. it's funny how you can cheat so many of our homework problems by knowing basics of category theory and a little bit of homological algebra

I wonder if it's possible to learn math using mind maps, never actually tried. here is my attempt at doing that for one of the subjects in complex analysis:

other than studying I had to prepare a presentation for one of my courses

the topics were given to us by the professor so I thought it would be boring and technical, but I got lucky to discuss the possible generalizations of the Jordan theorem

now I'm gonna talk about something more personal

this week has been difficult because my brain doesn't enjoy existing. some days I had so many meltdowns and shutdowns, I could barely think and speak, let alone study difficult subjects in math. it's really disappointing, as I thought it got better after introducing new medication, but apparently I still can't handle time pressure and I break very easily when emotions become overwhelming (which they frequently do). one of the most discouraging parts of a neurodivergent brain is that you can't always say "alright then I'll just work harder" when you see that the situation requires it. you can't, because your brain has a certain threshold of "how much can you take before you snap" and no tips for studying when you're tired can change that. if you try, you'll just have a meltdown and your day is over, the rest of it must be spent regaining your strength and all you can do is hoping that tomorrow will be better

I wish I could always simply enjoy math and see it as an escape route from a confusing world of human interaction and unpredictable emotions, but whenever there is a deadline or grading criteria, I can hardly enjoy it anymore. I know that this is not what it's always gonna be, the further I go the less deadlines and exams we have, so I must wait and one day it might be okey

since june I've been trying to discuss accommodations regarding adhd and autism with my university but the process takes forever and I'm slowly losing hope that I will ever have it easier

nonetheless, I'm willing to do everything to achieve the goal of spending my days alone working on developing some new theory. just a few more years and I might start living the dream