What has mathematics done for you?
Did it help you keep you away from depression?
Does it keep your worries at bay?
Does it keep your mind at bay?
Do you find that you've become more peaceful with yourself?
Do you giggle at times you've gotten it wrong? or just laughing at the fact that proof was easy/fun/splendid?
What has mathematics done most for you?
Interested in hearing your replies.
Thanks :)
Do not ask what can mathematics do for you,
instead ask yourself, what can You do for mathematics!
>>7682439
Are you really a mathematician?
>>7682410
>What has mathematics done most for you?
Irritation, depression, and even outright rage has stemmed, at least indirectly.
I know the basics. A bit of algebra and small bits of what calculus can be supported by that framework hacked in here and there. But as a whole, I never really learned it. Most of my thinking about "math" and "numbers" has been philosophically oriented.
Nothing gets more tiresome than disagreements with people who are more mathematically minded. Their tendencies when framing and modeling the world are all fucked up. They place massive amounts of faith almost blindly into bad ways of predicting and describing natural processes, and worst of all, it simply doesn't work.
I don't like feeling this way, but I really am becoming more polar in my viewpoints. People who've spent a good deal of their life on math practically act brainwashed. They're frequently myopic, overly confident, and wilfully ignore "quantization error" when its existence doesn't suit them, despite that they should understand it best. And don't even get me started on probability and statistics. What utter abuse. Fucking braindead delusion. "Durr it's blatantly in front of my nose and the likelihood that trusting this path of least resistance will result in error is quite low, but this equation says the true nature of reality must be something else, so I'll use this broken logic and ignore everything else! I've tapped the mind of God!!"
I'm learning calculus and want to learn some trigonometry. I really don't know how it happens. Is this what they are all along, or was it done to them. Just don't know.
>>7682410
God dammit can you stop posting this woman's picture, I'm tired of being reminded of my old university that I hated.
>>7682410
Maths are my current job.
No it didn't. I started my first breakdown because of the stress during my 2nd master.
During work, my mind is entirely focus on what I have to do, so yes, it keeps the shit at bay. Problem is, when you go back home with your brain tired af, shit come again and you can't properly deal with it.
Absolutely not. Part of what I have to design are retardedly frustrating (theta functions, multivariate polynomial systems,...) and I'm finding myself mad on more than one occasion.
When I get it wrong I have been conditioned by my "peers" to feel stupid. When I see a beautiful proof argument, usually I'm like a kid discovering dinosaurs.
Maths have given me a job, which I quitted, a second job that will lead me to a job I'm more suited for, headaches and insomnias. Would still choose maths anytime in college, only this time I would start working sooner instead of waiting my first master to begin.
>>7682725
Adding infos :
Ok I seem pretty mad about maths, why would I continue ? Because of the neverending challenge and improvements on my mental abilities it gives me. The happiness I feel when I finally understand nicely a situation, the feeling of designing your own proof. It's also hard to describe the feeling you can have when you start to picture the highly non-trivial algebraic shit in your mind and actually starts to work according to your intuition and not according to stupid calculus drills. I would dare to say that proofs are 90% intuition : you know it will work before even writing it. Obv I'm not talking about supremely complex shit as Perelman, Mumford, Serre, Grothendiek's work to name a few, where a whole new level of comprehension is needed before getting to the intuition level.
in a sophomore studying computer science and i've come to realize that i'm absolute trash at writing code. as of late i've been enjoying my math classes a lot more and have been thinking of switching majors.
could anyone tell me what mathematicians actually do? i feel stupid asking, but i really have no idea.
>>7682737
nothing
also OP, can you please stop posting this stupid gorgeous bitch
>>7682737
this essay has a good description of what pure mathematicians do
https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
>>7682749
thanks, i'll read this in the morning
>>7682449
Mathematics had ultimately frustrated you? Yeah, that does happen sometimes, but how do you feel when you get the proof or question right? Most people would feel great about it. Richard Feynman said along the lines of "the pleasure of finding things out" which is what I'm trying to entail to you.
Mathematicians tend to have rigid minds because a lot of them like to base their evidence or proof perse that's it either "true" or "false". Many of them are not too open, this probably goes for other philosophers, and logicians out there.
It's good to hear, you enjoy learning the basics of mathematics.
>>7682704
Lol, can you remind of why you hate her so much?
And why don't you like your uni?
>>7682704
>>7682410
>Did it help you keep you away from depression?
Nope. I'm still a depressed as fuck piece of shit, contemplating suicide every day. In fact the atmosphere in my math classes makes me even more depressed. I'm surrounded by infantile nerds and emotionless autists. Extremely hard to find people worth socializing with in the math department.
>>7682755
>but how do you feel when you get the proof or question right? Most people would feel great about it.
I'm kind of burned out. The pleasure is similar to that of surviving for days without food, water, or sleep in subzero temperatures. It's somewhere between "I don't feel and it feels great" and "I'm not dead." My interest in mathematics is centered around its utility. It needs to stay that way.
In the back of my head the old drive to figure out what makes it all function, and the temptation to create, is still ticking away. All "solving" is a superficial illusion. It's not an iterative series of discrete stages, nor is it smooth and gradual change. Everything changes, but really, nothing changes. Motion itself is an illusion, till you're finally dead.
Math has afforded me an understanding of relative values sufficient to recognize that this thread is not worth my time.
>>7682755
I don't hate her she was alright, helped me out with my homework a couple times. Pretty surprised she became a meme, she was teaching first year maths for chemists when I knew her which is basically A level maths. Gotta start somewhere I guess.
I hated my uni because it was full of stuck up assholes.
>>7682743
>gorgeous
Yeah that's another surprise, she was covered in acne when I knew her. Anyway as I said good for her, she's a nice person.
>>7682439
Yes, Mister President!
Fear. Extreme abject terror. Every time teacher asked a question I would shrivel, try to make myself invisible. That derisory pause between my answer and the teacher moving on to the next pupil for the answer lasts for 30,000 years. Every classmate knows in that time the entirety of my shame and inadequacy and my sad, hobbled, crippled life direction.
>>7682410
>What has mathematics done for you?
Depression and despair.
this post confirms that mathematicians are fags.
>>7682972
I thought only engineers were fags
>>7682410
Math has taught me to think logically, and helps to calm my mind.
>>7682449
>I'm learning calculus and want to learn some trigonometry
Found the source of your frustration. You're doing it backwards.
