Re: Math
Inspired by Jasun, I will math-blog.
In keeping with my resolutions, I shouldn't spend too much time math-blogging rather than math-doing. Succinct entries give the appearance that I'm time-efficient, but in truth I agree with Mark Twain's observation that it takes tremendous time to achieve brevity.
I like math, although in its world my peers are teenagers while I'm a tot. So far the pleasure of math is like that of learning a language. I sit in on a "splitting of groups and manifolds" class and feel as I did wandering Bangkok sidewalks, a fraction of aware and with no real purpose but to explore and to enjoy the small glee offered by occasional comprehension. In the basic classes, my elementary proofs are like the childish conversations I managed with pride, and I stutter over simple things. I desire a mathematician's foundation of knowledge in the way I wanted in my grasp those basic units of communication: yes, no, me, you, go, eat, want, like, thank you. Deeper conversations still a distant dream, but also motivation: it must be a beautiful body of literature and ideas that I shuffle towards, however slow.
I pretended that I could be practical and am paid here to be so, but maybe I was wrong and I can't after all. The real me has lived 95% for pleasure and calls the remaining portion regrets and inattention. I'm crashing a party in these alpha classes and I fear I'll be found out, found a fool and run right over. That's the truth. Now I feel neglectful and should read some more math.
No, one last note, on the real fear. Do I just like being an amateur, in learning's earliest stages? Others have confirmed my ability to read, interperet, and write about literature in English--take this as evidence for facility with that language. But I have given up being a writer or poet, and have no inclination to be an English graduate student, let alone profess the subject. (Figuring that out is part of my excuse for the four years between undergrad and here.) What's so different about math?
I don't know but I'm hanging in there.
- - - - -
ps anyone care to comment on the healthfulness of self-absorbed blogging? perhaps i should set a quota, say, one per month? ok, how about i'm not allowed to compose contemplations until after February 15th. with this note here i hope i can stick to that.
In keeping with my resolutions, I shouldn't spend too much time math-blogging rather than math-doing. Succinct entries give the appearance that I'm time-efficient, but in truth I agree with Mark Twain's observation that it takes tremendous time to achieve brevity.
I like math, although in its world my peers are teenagers while I'm a tot. So far the pleasure of math is like that of learning a language. I sit in on a "splitting of groups and manifolds" class and feel as I did wandering Bangkok sidewalks, a fraction of aware and with no real purpose but to explore and to enjoy the small glee offered by occasional comprehension. In the basic classes, my elementary proofs are like the childish conversations I managed with pride, and I stutter over simple things. I desire a mathematician's foundation of knowledge in the way I wanted in my grasp those basic units of communication: yes, no, me, you, go, eat, want, like, thank you. Deeper conversations still a distant dream, but also motivation: it must be a beautiful body of literature and ideas that I shuffle towards, however slow.
I pretended that I could be practical and am paid here to be so, but maybe I was wrong and I can't after all. The real me has lived 95% for pleasure and calls the remaining portion regrets and inattention. I'm crashing a party in these alpha classes and I fear I'll be found out, found a fool and run right over. That's the truth. Now I feel neglectful and should read some more math.
No, one last note, on the real fear. Do I just like being an amateur, in learning's earliest stages? Others have confirmed my ability to read, interperet, and write about literature in English--take this as evidence for facility with that language. But I have given up being a writer or poet, and have no inclination to be an English graduate student, let alone profess the subject. (Figuring that out is part of my excuse for the four years between undergrad and here.) What's so different about math?
I don't know but I'm hanging in there.
- - - - -
ps anyone care to comment on the healthfulness of self-absorbed blogging? perhaps i should set a quota, say, one per month? ok, how about i'm not allowed to compose contemplations until after February 15th. with this note here i hope i can stick to that.
posted by fragments of angry candy at 7:27 PM
2 Comments:
argh, epilogue. to clarify on the fears part: i'm no writer because i can't on a regular basis write things consistently interesting to nonnegligible numbers of people. in math, i still have to get fluent and literate. but even if i get that far, i may fail for the same reason i decided i'm no poet.
what is this crazy impulse to call one's fall? :) ok anyway, i'm cheating on my vow. no more on this until feb 15 dagnabbit.
Wow. I feel honored, though by no means am I the first to math-blog (funny verb, that) nor will I be the last.
Personally I feel like a 3rd grader when it comes to mathematics, and too often I'm watching the big kids do cool things. Math adults might as well be huge giants to me, and it amazes me how our teachers and peers can know so much about even a single concept.
Post a Comment
<< Home