Author Topic: Why bother studying advanced mathematics?  (Read 1371 times)

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Nation of One

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Why bother studying advanced mathematics?
« on: February 15, 2016, 10:42:24 pm »
Sometimes I suspect I may be insane.

I am prepared to spend the next 10 years studying Linear Algebra, Multivariable Calculus, and Differential Equations to see how these are interconnected.  If one is young, perhaps they imagine this leading somewhere, but does it make sense to strive day after day, year after year, to gain a deeper understanding of these subjects for no apparent purpose whatsoever?

I don't know the answer to this.  Were anyone to question me as to why I am devoting my life to this pursuit at this stage of my life, I honestly might consider confessing that I am insane.

 :P

I have to consider the guilt and shame many must experience when chasing euphoric blasts of crack co-caine, and while I may feel guilty for collecting used math textbooks at bargain prices, there are those moments of great peace I experience when I settle down and proceed through a text.

The thing is, as you know, there is no racing through a mathematics textbook.  In fact, the more "honest" my engagement with the text is, the slower I will proceed. 

What is the point of all this studying?  There doesn't have to be a point.

All I know is that this is what I am most interested in.  If I were placed in a cell, I would most miss access to such textbooks - as well as computing technologies.

By the way, while searching for texts which combined Linear Algebra and Multivariable Calculus, I noticed a couple books that were recently released by Robert Ghrist that have been optimized for phones and tablets.

Calculus BLUE Multivariable Volume 1: Vectors & Matrices

Calculus BLUE Multivariable Volume 2: Derivatives

These are colorful, and while I first thought it's not really my style, on second thought, they look kind of promising considering I want to develop my appreciation for interweaving linear algebra concepts with multivariable calculus concepts.  What better place to start than vectors and matrices (in 3-D).   One of the basic mind shifts I would like to experience has to do with harmonizing algebraic and geometric representation of phenomena.

I wonder if the reader of such electronic texts is going to need pencil and paper to follow along ... Actually I am curious to see how the author goes about describing the "geometry of determinants".  Insight like that would be just what I'm looking for.  I mean, determinants reveal the characteristics of what the matrix "does" right?

I found an 876 page text called Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Differential Equations selling for $5.   It's from 1986.

And yet, the phone books might give food for thought for one who is on the road like our Holden here.

I am half way through the large Poole text, but, at this point, since I have just been liberated from a kind of hell (for me), I want to be much more spontaneous.   I mean, I want to go through several textbooks simultaneously, each kind of interconnected with the others.

I am sure that what I am "doing with my life" would be considered a waste ... and yet universities all over this world of ours have no problem putting millions upon millions of students in debt for doing just what I do in my leisure. 

On some level what I am doing feels deviant.  One may sympathize with someone who chases chemical euphoria through drugs or booze or sex, but to study mathematics and programming in an obsessive and compulsive manner day after day may seem downright creepy, weird, and horrific - unless, of course, the one doing the studying had some kind of practical goal that involved gainful employment.

I just want to understand more.  Cryptic notation ... I want to understand more of it.

It is a difficult obsession to justify.  Mathematics ... philosophy ...

Why would I want to figure out the determinant of a 4 by 4 matrix?

OK, so my life has taken a dramatic turn.

I am glad I sent The H Files out to Holden just before my downward spiral was "arrested".  Perhaps I won't ever again be talking into a recorder drunk. 

So, if it seems as though my obsession with the kind of math twenty year old math majors and engineers study in the universities is a total waste of time, it would have to depend on the effects this activity has on my psychological state.

For all intents and purposes I am staying alive out of habit and to be a companion to my aging mother.  In the meantime I want to really learn what I studied 16 years ago.  Why?  Why bother?

I don't know why.  I don't have to justify it.  Or do I?

Oh well, that's enough crying for now.  I'm going to compute some determinants of a few 4x4 matrices.  No, I have nothing better to do.

Someone could place a case of Molson Ice in front of me, and I would have to remove it from the domicile.  It is crucial for me to PREFER to compute determinants over taking refuge in alcoholic oblivion. 

I will have to use my "loser" status in "the social order" to my advantage as a student of mathematics. 

Also, my age will protects me from employment.  I'm just a lifelong student ... a Dostoyevskian character, really. 

The computer algebra software, Derive, that we used in 1994 no longer exists.  Now a Derive-like kernel is built right into the TI-Nspire CX CAS graphing calculator.

Why not continue my education in private?

I really don't have anything else I would rather be doing.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I am so Hikikomori!

Of course, just because I focus on certain areas these days does not mean I am any less interested in Number Theory or Abstract Algebra.  I had fun working with the Chinese Remainder Theorem from September through November, and I intend to return to the code eventually.   

The thing is, we only have so many hours available since we have to eat and sleep.  Fortunately I escaped many harnesses since I have not reproduced.  It's all quite a paradox, but not quite a mystery, as far as how I have come to have time to love mathematics again at this point in time.

And so I say PEACE to you, Holden.   :)
« Last Edit: February 16, 2016, 01:27:11 pm by H »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Holden

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Re: Why bother studying advanced mathematics?
« Reply #1 on: February 16, 2016, 02:49:34 pm »
Quote
I don't know why.  I don't have to justify it.  Or do I?

I think we should not give a conscious meaning to our unconscious acts.In most cases we do not consciously choose what to do and how to behave.Black is the most essential of all colours. If I may say so,  one must admire black. Nothing can debauch it.
Quote
Fortunately I escaped many harnesses since I have not reproduced.


Thinking is like a fountain. Once it gets going at a certain pressure, well, it almost impossible to turn it off. What odd things come up with the water!The river in front of me is black. I think it contains many things.

Quote
One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.

Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,
Than, moonless, one's own self encounter
In lonesome place.

Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,
Be horror's least.

The prudent carries a revolver,
He bolts the door,
O'erlooking a superior spectre
More near.”

― Emily Dickinson,



This whole sexuality business is weirder than I thought it would be-now I know why Lovecraft never mentions it.What I am writing,this and the previous posts, is primarily about my OWN pathological condition.
« Last Edit: February 16, 2016, 02:59:18 pm by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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Re: Why bother studying advanced mathematics?
« Reply #2 on: February 16, 2016, 10:58:27 pm »
Have you read the chapter in Volume 2 of The World as Will and Representation, The Metaphysics of Sexual Love?

I don't have a smart phone, but it looks like there is a phone version of just that chapter alone (disguised as a book)?   What's this?

Here is Volume 2 of the Payne translation:  PDF file

It starts on page 531, which in the PDF file, which is 2 pages per 1, it starts on page 272.

Ye wise men, highly and deeply learned,
Who think it out and know,
How, when, and where do all things pair?
Why do they love and kiss?
Ye lofty sages, tell me why!
What happened to me then?
Find out and tell me where, how, when,
And why this happened to me.

~Burger
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Re: Why bother studying advanced mathematics?
« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2016, 01:11:37 pm »
Thanks for the link.I think I read it sometime back,but will read it again.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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Re: Why bother studying advanced mathematics?
« Reply #4 on: February 21, 2016, 08:10:59 pm »
I am an eternal student of mathematics searching for mathematical enlightenment.

I try to learn from the "masters" from a distance ... the Church of Reason does not own the knowledge it claims to sell.
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

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Re: Why bother studying advanced mathematics?
« Reply #5 on: March 20, 2016, 11:06:08 am »
While I am moving through at a snails pace with about 5 different textbooks, spending a couple weeks at a time on one subject in a cyclic pattern, I have decided to remain devoted to the texts I have chosen. 

I want to leave a link here to a text that I found in PDF format as I may want to go through this older text in "the future". 

Tom M. Apostol - Calculus Volume 2:  Multivariable Calculus and Linear Algebra, with Applications to Differential Equations and Probability

The textbooks I have will keep me occupied for a log time.  I just want to remind myself of the hundreds of PDF file texts ... The only drawback to those: no solutions manuals.   :'(

Some solutions: from Yale

solution set 1

Midterm 1

Midterm 2

practice final exam solutions

« Last Edit: March 20, 2016, 12:02:49 pm by H »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~