Saga In Black And White

Today I'm taking a break from life.

Place:Annecy

Day 1

Assignment: Classwork of Vector Calculus

[11.32 am]I have ODE lab viva soon and I am terrified but hopefully, it will be over soon. I have given myself the task of completing 20 problems of vector calculus.

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[3.20 pm] I did start but there has been a dip in my motivation.So I guess I will just take a nice bath, cook some snacks for myself and my parents and then sit and study again.

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[9.45 pm] I am done for the day.Today I did some problems on vector calculus.I don't know why but I felt tired in the evening and just could not sit and solve stuff so I did not force myself.There is some kind of peace in calculating the angle between two very complex surfaces don't you think? Only if I had more energy to go through it.But now I remember also loving the concept of directional derivative.It is not done yet so gotta continue tomorrow.

222 days left to go..

🌱Day 2 of Summer Studying Challenge🌱

🌸July 2 2021🌸

🐼Do you have a specific goal for this summer ?🐼

I want to become more confident in my abilities by the end of the summer^^

🐻Today I did the following stuff🐻

Completed Assignment 3 of Vector Calculus

Completed chapter 2 of Linear algebra.

Completed chapter 1 of real analysis.

Duolingo French.

🐿Happy Summer 🐿

25/05/2021

I'm gonna try and take this day slowly.Yesterday I could not do anything at all because my anxiety decided it wanted to take over my day.So today I'll try doing the following stuff

Duolingo (I'm learning French) ☑

Groups Revision ( 5 subtopics)

10 Problems

Group theory Problems

Catching up with Differential Equations ☑

I know its a lot but not pressuring myself to complete it.Just an outline and ample amount of stuff to choose from.

I am currently studying Analysis 1.In that they proved that the square root of 2 is an irrational number using the approximation of supremum concept and I'm floored.The proof itself makes use of 2 concepts (the completeness axiom and the law of trichotomy).I'm just in love with that proof right now.

Above are some pages from my journal.

Hope you are having a goody goody day 🍰

Hello! I really like your blog and it somehow makes me feel good and safe, your notes are really pretty! When I look at them they seem so interesting and I wish to understand them but the problem is I haven't even started university (I have just finished high school) and I'm kind of scared thinking it would be too difficult for me to grasp. It is just so different from high school math but at the same much more fascinating. Do you perhaps have any advice on how to introduce myself to it, where to start? Or should I just wait for the classes to start and then study?Best wishes to you!! Thank you

Hey @dantesdream !

I just want you to know that mathematics is difficult at the University level but it is not more difficult than any other university course.It is just different.📚

So how is mathematics different and why you shouldn't get discouraged by it?

There is an entire book written on it.It is called 'Alex's Adventures in Numberland' written by Alex Bellos.There is one particular page that I really like.It talks about how are brain perceives the world around us on a logarithmic scale but mathematics is linear and that is why we have to put the extra effort into it (To convert logarithmic to linear) but according to me this extra effort is far less than wading through hundreds of textbooks often contradicting each other that many other university courses require. Here is the cover page of the book I recommended if you would like to read it.

Apart from having a positive attitude towards it I think it'll be great if you could start studying it before your university begins.

So from where should you start?

If you know where you'll be going for your university studies then you can check if your university has uploaded their notes online and start accordingly.Some old students also usually post their notes,so see if you can get your hands on them.If these two options fail then there are two more.Oxford university has made all their mathematics notes avalilable.You can start with their Introduction to mathematics and complex numbers course (I'll put the link at the end).A student from Cambridge University named Dexter Chua also has made his notes available.You can start with Numbers and sets if you use his notes (Again I'll put the link at the end).

Oxford notes:

https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/overview/undergraduate

Dexter's notes:

https://dec41.user.srcf.net/notes/

You should be fine with these but the beginning steps into mathematics needs a little more help.You can use the book called as 'How to prove it:A structured approach' by Daniel J. Velleman.If you can read this with the first course that you are taking (your university notes or Oxbridge notes) then I think you'll enjoy the course more just like I did.Here is the image of the book

If you want to know more then I'm just a message away so feel free to ask your doubts.

And thank you for all your compliments hehe ^_^

I got a proof wrong on an exam. No points. 

Then, I thought about it for fifteen minutes outside of the exam, wrote it down, nailed it. 

I showed a classmate and told him what happened. He looked frustrated. He’d clearly had this happen before, too (haven’t we all?).  He said, “Don’t you hate it when that happens?”

I almost said yes. What the h*ck!? No. No, I do not hate it when I can fathom a deeply abstracted concept in mathematics. I never hate that. I the opposite of hate that. Expecting myself to immediately understand topics like this is unrealistic. I’m proud of being able to do it at all. Who cares if I did it in the exam or within the next hour? I DID IT. It’s mine now. I can do it whenever I want. Missing points on that problem doesn’t take the knowledge out of my brain. How dare I be taught that my knowledge is useless because I didn’t have it right at that moment. It’s just as good now. 

Education is not about the arbitrary numeric number ascribed to your ability to do things quickly in an arbitrary, restricted time interval. Education is about being able to do progressively more things, to understand progressively complex things. 

Tenacity and challenging yourself far beyond your limits is a hundred times more important than getting good grades. Because, when you’re one of .4 percent of the population who possess complete knowledge on a very complex topic, nobody cares how long it took you to do it, or how well you did it the first time you tried. 

Grades don’t discover new mathematics. Mathematicians do (even the ones who failed a basic topic in mathematics because their base way of thinking was too complex). Grades don’t advance medical research. Scientists do (even the ones who had to apply for their PhD programs 3 times in a row before they got accepted). Grades don’t make science fiction into real-world technologies. Engineers do (even the ones who dropped out of school because they wanted to build things, not talk about building things). 

Knowledge is power. Skills are power. Grades are constructs. Never trade actual understanding for a semblance of understanding. 

22/05/2021

Can I please disappear somewhere ?

Group theory is getting to me.Its like I know the theory but I need to apply and apply and apply and apply it till it clicks.I don't mind it but damn it's too much.I have given it a dead line of May 30 and I don't think I can complete it by then so maybe I have to extend my deadline which I don't like but yeah thats life and my brain will be happy with decision also I guess.So sorry for the rant and I hope today treated you so so well.

Apart from going insane with Group Theory I did some other stuff as well

Revised Stats

Revised chem and completed session 8-10 PowerPoint slides

Duolingo

But on a positive note my day did have some ups.I spoke with my boyfriend for like an hour and that literally was the best part of the day.2 of my friends had also video called me so I had a nice time there too.I did some cooking today for my mum and dad and they seemed to like it🤭

At the end of the day I am thankful that my blessings are greater than my problems💞

“I think, if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.”

- Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

El Capricho Park (Parque El Capricho) , Spain

I really want to get into math. What book do you recommend reading!

Great question! Here are some fun ones that are still informative and that really opened up my eyes to what math truly is:

How to Solve It  by George Polya. This is a classic and the title speaks for itself: it is about how to reason mathematically.

Hyperspace by Michio Kaku. This one is mathy and sciencey. It is very geometrical and shows how our view of geometry has changed throughout history and how it has influenced science. Kaku is my favorite author.

Proof and Refutations by Imre Lakatos. Another classic. This one has to do with how mathematical proof advances our mathematical knowledge, in other words what professional mathematicians do. It is also surprisingly funny.

Other recommendations?