I am compulsorily a member of the graduate student union. It looks increasingly likely that we will go on strike later this month. In my opinion, both the union side and the employer side are fractionally reasonable, but mostly just irritating.
The union emails regarding the prolonged bargaining/strike action are so numerous that they squeezed through even A.'s anti-union email filters. This is okay, because it resulted in some hilarious strike chant suggestions.
Envision: a group of 20 grad students (mostly political science, although I can't imagine why) in front of a university administration building. A. holds a bullhorn and leads them in call-and-response:
"You don't know how good you've got it!"
"WE DON'T KNOW HOW GOOD WE'VE GOT IT!"
"You don't know how good you've got it!"
"WE DON'T KNOW HOW GOOD WE'VE GOT IT!"
"You don't know how good you've got it!"
"WE DON'T KNOW HOW GOOD WE'VE GOT IT!"
A member of the crowd takes the bullhorn and begins a different chant.
"What is a farce?"
"THIS IS A FARCE!"
"What is a farce?"
"THIS IS A FARCE!"
"What is a farce?"
"THIS IS A FARCE!"
"What is a farce? -- no, for real, my English TA is on strike, I need help with my homework!"
This post's theme word is coprolalia, "involuntary swearing or the involuntary utterance of obscene words or socially inappropriate and derogatory remarks." Best to avoid coprolalia in proximity of a microphone.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Framing mathematics
No, not framing it for a crime. I just read the article A Revolution in Mathematics? What Really Happened a Century Ago and Why It Matters Today by Frank Quinn (math professor). It establishes a surrounding explanation for how modern mathematics came to be structured as it is. In the process, it contrasts two ways of thinking about mathematics: the "old" style, and mathematical sciences, wherein math relates to observable facts and is intuitive (but often yields incorrect results), and the "new" style, which he calls the "core" of mathematical research, wherein math is the study of abstract rules which do not relate to reality (but whose results are provably, rigorously correct).
It is fascinating.
I had never paused to consider the evolution of my discipline. Yet Prof. Quinn highlights and summarizes my experience of grade-school math education: everything seemed much clearer and more reasonable when -- finally! -- worked as abstract symbols according to rules. This is how I learned geometry (my first proofs!), trigonometry, and calculus. I cannot imagine attempting to learn calculus through intuition. What terror! (Does this infinite series feel like it converges? What's your hunch about the derivative of f(x)?) And of course now in retrospect I think of the math I learned earlier -- multiplication, fractions, arithmetic -- in the more advanced terms I learned later.
The article was summarized for me by this: "the old dysfunction was invisible, whereas the new opacity is obvious." Yes, math is opaque; I've studied for years and this is the first thing I'd admit. And my topics are squarely in the "new/core" section: I've done research in precise definitions, logical proofs, completeness. Carefully justifying each step is a technique that I use in my dreams. Math for me has always been its own arena of knowledge, one of three (the humanities, sciences, and math), each with its own methods. Even though we use the science word "discovery," a mathematical discovery is nothing of the sort. And as a grad student, I am amazed at what other grad students do as "research."
This post's theme word is anemometer, "an instrument for measuring the speed of wind." This magical anemometer predicts the trends in sociology research!
It is fascinating.
I had never paused to consider the evolution of my discipline. Yet Prof. Quinn highlights and summarizes my experience of grade-school math education: everything seemed much clearer and more reasonable when -- finally! -- worked as abstract symbols according to rules. This is how I learned geometry (my first proofs!), trigonometry, and calculus. I cannot imagine attempting to learn calculus through intuition. What terror! (Does this infinite series feel like it converges? What's your hunch about the derivative of f(x)?) And of course now in retrospect I think of the math I learned earlier -- multiplication, fractions, arithmetic -- in the more advanced terms I learned later.
The article was summarized for me by this: "the old dysfunction was invisible, whereas the new opacity is obvious." Yes, math is opaque; I've studied for years and this is the first thing I'd admit. And my topics are squarely in the "new/core" section: I've done research in precise definitions, logical proofs, completeness. Carefully justifying each step is a technique that I use in my dreams. Math for me has always been its own arena of knowledge, one of three (the humanities, sciences, and math), each with its own methods. Even though we use the science word "discovery," a mathematical discovery is nothing of the sort. And as a grad student, I am amazed at what other grad students do as "research."
This post's theme word is anemometer, "an instrument for measuring the speed of wind." This magical anemometer predicts the trends in sociology research!
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