Date: December 24th, 2008 7:27 PM Author: angry bat shit crazy theatre
lulz
Math 55 does not look like America. Each year as many as 50 students sign up, but at least half drop out within a few weeks. As one former student told The Crimson newspaper in 2006, “We had 51 students the first day, 31 students the second day, 24 for the next four days, 23 for two more weeks, and then 21 for the rest of the first semester.” Said another student, “I guess you can say it’s an episode of ‘Survivor’ with people voting themselves off.” The final class roster, according to The Crimson: “45 percent Jewish, 18 percent Asian, 100 percent male
Date: December 24th, 2008 8:59 PM Author: poppy idiot
Think of the weirdest, most introverted kid in your high school, add 30 IQ points, put him in a room of 20 other doods just like him who aren't wearing deoderant. Start doing math. Never stop.
Date: December 24th, 2008 9:06 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
To be fair,
My quantum mechanics class involved tougher math than this. My point is it is sad that half the people who self-selected into can't complete the course.
Edit: I've always been skeptical how many people who majored in TTT majors at Harvard are actually smart and how many were just the best students at some shit podunk HS and paid out the ass for SAT prep.
Date: December 24th, 2008 9:11 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
One widely held belief about Einstein is that he failed math as a student...Einstein laughed. “I never failed in mathematics,” he replied, correctly. “Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.”
Date: December 25th, 2008 4:04 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Einstein did applied math, not the abstract math harvard profs are working on these days. Scientists still turn to mathematicians to help with their research. I'm sure Einstein could have learned it, but if you pit the knowledge he had vs. a harvard profs in pure math, it won't be close.
Date: December 24th, 2008 10:18 PM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
I didn't go to harvard, but I'm reasonably familiar with the contents of the class, and it's unlikely that any physics class aimed at undergrads was tougher than 55, let alone an intro qm class.
Date: December 24th, 2008 10:22 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Prolly depends what the QM class covers. Everything they learned in 55 was a prereq for QM, plus you had to self-learn additional math on top. It's not like the harvard class was getting in polynomial rings, Galois theory, or integration on Euclidean n-spaces (or these kids would have a B.S. after 1 year).
Date: December 24th, 2008 10:25 PM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
i'm not referring to the syllabus - it is the difficulty level of the problems they tackled. I know kids who would have destroyed any undergrad physics class elsewhere and said that 55 was the most intense experience of their life.
Date: December 24th, 2008 10:30 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Like I said, it depends on the physics program. Asking someone to calculate psi for an electron in a hypothetical 7 dimension box is gonna be harder than the problems they are doing. It is one thing to say the material is hard, it is another to say the professor choose to use hard test questions.
Date: December 24th, 2008 10:34 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
What did you major in? I have a feeling you have no clue what you are talking about. Since I learned both the math and QM, you must be flame - this isn't even close. We are talking about basic math in the harvard class.
Date: December 24th, 2008 10:36 PM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
i majored in math and physics.
edit: this is not an intro math class. this is a class where most math grad students at most phd programs would struggle. you have no clue what you're talking about.
Date: December 24th, 2008 10:39 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
And so did I. I'm just not sure why you think this Harvard 55 class is so special. Most of the class is a small step above linear algebra and multivariable calc. Granted it appears that people take it as freshman, but that doesn't mean the math is harder.
Edit: Now I'm calling flame dude. I know people who took this course. To say phd mathematicians would struggle is a joke.
Date: December 24th, 2008 10:43 PM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
i'm also curious how you would think a class where (approximately) the 20 best math undergrads at harvard struggle couldn't possibly be hard. that's basically 1/4th of the putnam top 50 each year taking the class.
Date: December 24th, 2008 10:49 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
I know Harvard has the most top50 in Putnam results. But using the Putnam results is like using some Moot court competition (OMG, Stetson has the best litigators in the country!). Not that many people actually do it, plus it is based on 6 questions (edit: sorry, 2 parts of 6 questions).
Edit: Further, here are actual test questions. These don;t require a once in a generation mind to solve.
Shanille O'Keal shoots free throws on a basketball court. She hits the first and misses the second, and thereafter the probability that she hits the next shot is equal to the proportion of shots she has hit so far. What is the probability she hits exactly 50 of her first 100 shots?
Let k be a positive integer. The n-th derivative of 1/(x^k-1)
has the form P_n(x) / (x^k-1)^{n+1} where P_n(x) is a polynomial.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:11 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
I just posted the test, look at it. If you want to argue this shit is really hard for a Harvard freshmen, I'll grant you that, I'm impressed. But you are claiming that this shit is hard for someone with a phd in math.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:15 PM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
note that the two questions you listed are are the first questions from each session, which are invariably trivial.
once again, by suggesting that the putnam is not a good test of mathematical ability for the top undergrads, and that the top undergrads don't take the putnam, you reveal your ignorance.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:12 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
By no means. Its what a 6 hour test? Shit is rough. The LSAT would also be a bigger joke with more time. Just because a test is hard doesn't mean the material is hard.
Date: December 24th, 2008 9:07 PM Author: poppy idiot
It's mostly math concentrators with a couple physics guys thrown in. Many go on to math grad school - maybe 1/3 of the class I was in did so. A few are studying econ now. Probably a couple in finance, but I'm not sure.
Date: December 24th, 2008 9:31 PM Author: poppy idiot
I went to school very young and I probably wasn't fully prepared for it. A few weeks into my first semester my sister was killed and I never really recovered, so I dropped out. I went back two years later.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:11 PM Author: ocher native
lulz liquid swords.
"I DON'T GET WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE DIFFICULT ABOUT THIS CLASS. I took QUANTUM FUCKING MECHANICS at San Francisco State and didn't know a single person who took the Putnam so clearly I'm qualified to comment!"
You just don't get it, dude. These guys are freaks (I knew a couple of people who took 55) and they struggle. It's not your Calc II class that you took at some CC. They cover the material in completely different ways.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:19 PM Author: ocher native
If you read back through his posts it's clear that he's one of those "you learn the same stuff no matter where you go to college!" trolls with a vested interest in believing that he's just as smart as kids who went to Harvard because he managed to struggle through QUANTUM MECHANICS somewhere. And that he's clueless.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:26 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
I knew one other the person's name in my physics graduating class. I rarely went to class nor did I hang out with these people. I'm sure people took the putnam, I don't know anyone who did. But I do know a lot of extremely brilliant people including my friend who is finishing his phd in math right now at a top school who didn't take it.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:31 PM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
assuming you truly went to MIT and majored in math, here's a statement that is true with P>0.9 in any given year: of the top 20 math students at mit, >=15 of them take the putnam
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:17 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
My qualifications are above. I didn't say it wasn't a tough class you douchebag. I said it is in no way, shape or form more challenging then graduate level math, nor upperlevel UG classes at a good school.
Edit: The class is hard because these kids are freshmen, and most of them self-taught themselves math to this point.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:20 PM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
what are your qualifications? I'm not going to try to disparage you based on them, I'm just curious how someone who's done a reasonable amount of math may think the putnam is straightforward without being gabriel carroll or reid barton.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:23 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
The school you called yours equivalent too with the same majors. I never called the Putnam straightforward, just not a great indicator of who the best minds are. I'm not claiming I'd place in the top50 of it, certainly not as a freshman.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:48 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
About 3, and the 4 of us were not the superstars of the class. I think you are thinking I'm claiming that this harvard class is a joke. I couldn't have done it as a freshman. The only thing I've claimed is that this class is not phd level work, nor work that an upperlevel math major couldn't do.
Edit: I'll cave in on the putnam shit. Maybe I just don't know enough about it and I'm sick of arguing about it.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:50 PM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
i'll clarify my previous statement, wrt 55: most students who end up as math phds couldn't do it their freshman year. also, most math majors at mit would have problems with it, even as seniors.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:54 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Fair enough. That is what I've been saying all along, the impressive thing is that these kids are freshmen. Also, I didn't go to MIT, but something on that level, I'm paranoid of being outted.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:56 PM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
still, wrt your statement that an undergrad physics class would be harder, i disagree. I doubt any physics class aimed at undergrads in the country is as difficult (in the sense of requiring mathematical brilliance).
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:58 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
I had a choice of 2 QM classes (one called "baby QM" which was really normal QM, and the other was a mix of UG and Grad students). I think this is fairly common at the higher levels of most hard science disciplines. I know thermo was the same way too, although i was in law school by then so I took the baby one realizing I wasn't going to grad school anymore.
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:07 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
You were expected to teach yourself a lot, including the math. Thermal was a 400 level class, I'm pretty sure everyone took it as a senior.
Edit: I def know I took it senior year. Maybe it wasn't a 400 level class, but I'm pretty sure thats when people took it. Is that strange? I'm going through other websites now. Seems like thermal is a senior year class at harvard too.
I also think the class was for grad students who had to fulfill a requirement but didn't need to really get into the material for whatever they were focusing on. More like a review class.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:48 PM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
it is in fact a good indicator of the best minds. you might want to take a look at the putnam fellows through the decades and check out what they are doing now.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:24 PM Author: light meetinghouse
lol at people who think any freshman level class is all that hard, plus H is not exactly where the best math minds go. 50% of people drop out of the orgo classes at H too, but I wouldnt call the material they cover any different from the crap they teach at in an orgo class at Fresno State. Math and science weed out lazy people and there is nothing more to it.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:28 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Actually Orgo varies. I have a friend who went to PSU, the orgo class is a joke - pure memorization. The reason this harvard class is hard is because it compresses a lot of material into a shorter time. Not because the material is that much harder.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:33 PM Author: light meetinghouse
I'm a third year associate, I dont even remember how to solve quadratic equations. My math skills have degenerated to the level of a 6th grader. Law school rots the brain.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:50 PM Author: yapping marketing idea
i thought i took advanced math classes in high school so i don't get where, as a freshman, you would learn the notation used in these problems, let alone a strategy to solve this shit, let alone the right answer with 3 hours of class time a week.
i'm just ignorant. were these kids like going to math camp and shit?
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:03 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
This was part of my putnam argument. Some of the great minds develop later b/c they can't afford to or don't go to these summer classes nor is their a college near their house where they can take classes to replace HS math. No one at my HS did this, yet one is now at the top of the game.
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:45 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
What are these completely different ways you speak of? Is it all done in a made up space language? Has Harvard been keeping secret the true way to do math? Or is it that they struggle because they are taking the class their first year of college?
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:44 AM Author: shimmering mexican stage
I like algebra best - I did a third year research paper on automorphism towers - but I didn't even get to rings and fields till third year, second year was intro to groups and then third year was more advanced group theory, rings and fields and then galois theory and the solvability of polynomials.
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:40 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
No, it isn't. Harvard claims it is and claims it is by far the hardest UG math class. Its more like 2.5 years years compressed, but not 4 if you look at MIT, CIT, or even fucking Lafayette.
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:43 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Way to come into this thread late. I'm not pensive, if you look at other threads I post in. And what does me being able to solve them many years removed from doing any math but law & econ have anything to do with what the course covers?
Date: December 25th, 2008 2:03 AM Author: Boyish awkward friendly grandma
"Does it cover advanced algebra - groups, rings and fields, galois theory etc, as well as complex analysis, number theory, and transfinite arithmetic?"
It's an analysis and linear algebra course. It covers analysis and linear algebra.
But the subject matter is not really what's special about the class. The difficulty of the problems is. In my honors class (which the professor claimed to be harder than math 55) we got unsolved problems every week mixed into our problem sets.
"No amount of advanced HS study or self-study is the equivalent of two years solid advanced math at a university prestigious for its math courses."
This is complete bullshit. I had self-studied way beyond the college level before I entered college.
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:49 AM Author: henna library tank
lul, nice completely uneducated comment about the subject. just say you want to discuss your halcyon days majoring in math at michigan or wherever, nobody will be mad.
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:53 AM Author: shimmering mexican stage
Is Michigan prestigious for math? I went somewhere known for its math courses but I don't have to be a wanker about my first year accomplishments to prove I was good at math.
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:02 AM Author: henna library tank
lolwut? 'known for its math courses?' i picked an unprestigious public because you clearly didn't know anything about 55 when you got into the thread, and it's familiar to most elite math people.
i'm just teasing you dude - you're known on the board for loving to indirectly discuss your prestige/intelligence/success, so digging at your pride is easy.
and wanker? the anglophelia in your writing is always amusing.
I think you mean, familiar to most American elite math people.
I'm reading the course guide for 55 now, its interesting to see what it does and doesn't cover.
I'm moderately proud of my math accomplishments, especially being of the female persuasion, but if I thought I was truly good at math I'd be doing that instead of law.
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:31 AM Author: henna library tank
that class is supposed to be truly miserable, but lol at anyone suggesting that harvard has even close to a lion's share of the best math minds every year based on fucking putnam scores. more like the most hard-striving kids who are prone to entering putnam because academic competition is a way of life for them. math at harvard is like english at mit - good for you, but you're not fooling anybody.
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:44 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
This has already been debated. I don't agree with the putnam reasoning that it shows the best - I think it is more equivalent to mock trial comps where the brightest law students don't even compete.
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:33 AM Author: henna library tank
now we're in relative argument territory - maybe i'm confused, but i thought you were arguing that putnam attracts not just talented people, but a cross-section of the brightest minds every year, thus demonstrating that harvard actually has a disproportionate number of them rather than just an emphasis on putnam.
and, we could easily say that of math scholars at elite programs, most people even above the median in capability are going to be very successful. in theory, putnam could attract mostly just kids who are operating at the top 25th percentile but not above the 10th in a given year, and go on to be successful. this would seem to validate your point except that there are still quite a few much more talented people who didn't bother with it.
you can prove anything with the type of speculations you're making. putnam people doing well still =/= putnam always attracts the very best. we just know they're pretty good. harvard math is just fine, but evaluating based purely on the turnout for the nerd bowl doesn't really make the ultimate comment on the total quality of the department.
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:36 AM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
i did make that argument. however, the post above was not to bolster that argument. it was to counter the claim that putnam was not a good judge of talent.
next, looking at the list of putnam fellows suggests strongly that these are not the 10-25 percentile of math students at top undergrad programs, or even top phd prgrams
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:38 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
I think I didn't make myself clear then. I didn't mean to insinuate that winning the competition doesn't show you have talent. I was trying to say that their are tons of talented people who don't even take it (although I think you disagree with me on this too).
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:41 AM Author: Arousing Bespoke Famous Landscape Painting
math can be a passion, and if you are in math 55 at harvard, and surviving the course, i think it can only mean you are passionate about math to such an extent that it doesnt matter than you started off as a striver. even mozart began as a performing monkey.
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:44 AM Author: henna library tank
wtf does that have to do with my point? and somebody already pointed out an important fact which is that it's a legendary course and half the dudes just sign up to say they were in there for a week. on top of that, your aptitude may not be proportional to work ethic and/or tolerance for the other people you're in there with.
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:54 AM Author: Amber fragrant half-breed
you're the sort of faggot that thinks hyp/hys people only got where they were bc they could "afford" to take an sat/lsat prep course
if that makes your ttt degree more palatable, then great...the real question is if you're so advanced, why didn't you do better? shouldnt standardized tests be a breeze for a genius like you?
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:18 AM Author: henna library tank
wtf are you talking about? was this supposed to go under a different post? how does this address my comments in any way and how drunk are you?
my post pointed out that he was basically non-sequitur when he started ranting about passion and developing over time or whatever, and also that 55 isn't really a reliable gauge of 'passion' in the first place.
where the fuck are you getting ideas about what i think of standardized testing from? you couldn't be more wrong about all of your toolish assumptions about me, by the way.
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:47 AM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
you have no clue what you're talking about.
harvard doesn't have a majority of the math talent in each cohort, but 1/4 might be a reasonable guess - mit + harvard together come close to getting half the top 50 scores in each years putnam.
also, the top students do take the putnam. not all, but most do. I don't know anyone truly good in math (in the sense of math professor at mit caliber) who didn't take it at least once.
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:57 AM Author: henna library tank
this is hilarious. i love the harvard trolling though dude, nothing wrong with a little crimson pride.
"harvard doesn't have a majority of the math talent in each cohort"
no shit
"but 1/4 might be a reasonable guess"
explain why
"also, the top students do take the putnam. not all, but most do"
how could you possibly know this?
"I don't know anyone truly good in math (in the sense of math professor at mit caliber) who didn't take it at least once"
oh i see, never mind. just take your limited personal experience with the math environment at one school where we've already established that there is a big emphasis on putnam and assume it applies to all the finest math students in the country. makes perfect sense to me.
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:00 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Let's not forget the putnam is only open to American and Canadian students. When foreign students come over here for the grad programs, it makes all american ug math programs look like they taught nothing.
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:02 AM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
afaik, most top foreign students already come to the US for undergrad. harvard/mit/caltech etc basically pay for them to come. for example, if the info is available online, check out the chinese math olympians and where they went to college.
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:05 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
That's just bullshit, the majority, let alone "most," do not come here for UG. And what is with you and math competitions. I can understand your argument for the Putnam, but fucking math olympians determining the best math minds, are you fucking kidding me?
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:07 AM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
i'm no math competition booster, but IMO is basically the best gauge of math talent at high school level, which is why I use it in the post above. any alternative metric in mind?
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:10 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
No, it may be the best gauge but that doesn't make it a good gauge. At my HS the people who did it were the people who wanted to pad their resumes. The two kids that I can point two and say were and still all (based on their PhD work) math geniuses, didn't do it.
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:18 AM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
let me get this straight: your school had multiple students who participated in the international math olympiad? note that 6 students take part from the US every year, which means that your school is easily identifiable.
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:21 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
You never said international dude. All you said was math olympiad. Since there are more students in the 55 class, I assume being an international olympiad is not required to succeed in the the class.
Date: December 25th, 2008 5:42 AM Author: Emerald halford reading party
This liquidswords fool should be banned from this forum for posting utter BS. He might as well name his high school since he's claiming two IMO winners and a size over 4500. He probably doesn't even know what the IMO is.
By the way, it's true some ppl don't do the Putnam since it's not real research so they view it as a waste of time. Still, most of the top ppl in math take part because it's a rite of passage (I actually talked to PRL--I'll let you figure out the initials).
Well whatever you're trying to prove, please just give up. Even if you were right, it would just be accidental, because you have no idea what you're talking about.
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:27 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
I'm not trying to prove anything. I've already stated I could have never done this class. You and a couple other people seem to try to bash me to fellate their own self-worth. I find it hilarious and I'll let you keep arguing a point since apparently rational minds can't disagree on this one.
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:38 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
I have no ill will, I tried to end this convo long ago before other people jumped in. I thought we had basically concluded we know very different people - you know people who were good at math and want to get their phd/be professors, and I know people who were good who want to parlay that into a profession like finance or another discipline. I mean, lets not pretend chemistry and physics don't become nothing more than applied math after orgo, and through grad work. Reminds me of my favorite comic -- http://xkcd.com/435/
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:10 AM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
also - i am reasonably confident of my assertion that most of the top math talent is already in the US for undergrad, but i can stand to be corrected by hard data
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:19 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Or we are talking about different people. I'm talking about kids who are smart enough to take this harvard math class, or go to a good UG for math, or go to a good PhD program. You are talking about the top academics in the country.
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:07 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
I have a feeling thats why you have this perception of the Putnam. I have a feeling people likely to become academics are more into these competitions.
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:10 AM Author: henna library tank
sorry dude, you're still claiming that you have some unattainable level of knowledge about how all the best math minds of every class year choose to apply themselves. you just keep expanding the scope:
hot sauce:"all the smart guys i know did putnam, so it's obviously the case across the board"
cool and smart guy: "not really"
hot sauce: "oh wait, uh, well i know like smart guys from ALL the top math programs, with PhDs even, like a bunch of 'em - we all hang out all the time and stuff - and they uh, all like did it, so in fact my anecdotal selection is clearly representative of the truth."
sorry dude, but based on the boneheaded arguments you're putting forth in this thread, i find it slightly hard to buy the fact that you're sitting around with a cadre of the most elite math PhD's in the country all the time, not that it improves your argument any unless you know a a large number of them from multiple class years and are certain they actually are the brightest individuals, but you get a gold star for effort, k?
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:17 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
So you are a math professor who decided to post on the xoxo law board? I'm just really confused. I have a feeling we don't hang out with the same crowd, and prolly have very different perceptions on this shit.
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:27 AM Author: henna library tank
that's what i'm wondering about. i feel duder might be a grad student and is sort of projecting his general perception here, but i find myself rapidly caring less and less.
Date: December 25th, 2008 1:34 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Yeah, I'm pretty bored with this. It all seems to come down to whether we are talking about the absolute very best mathematicians or just people who are good enough to take this class. Some of the people who take that class went on to be quants at i-banks or science majors, hence, they prolly never took the Putnam.
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:18 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Shit, I'm sure no math major from Harvard ever went to an ibank to do some modeling. All must work at hedge funds, especially as their first job out of school.
I said "Some of the people." Not all, not a majority, some.
"If you're going to name a firm for a prospective quant" - I didn't name a firm.
Date: December 25th, 2008 12:35 PM Author: Infuriating alcoholic whorehouse
TIOCTCR.
How is "Who's frosh class is harder?" material for a thread? Lib arts majors wouldn't argue about this, they'd get laid, rather than engaging in some sort of weird masochistic masturbation.
"Oh I learned the X problem sets, but I had to flay myself while doing it so it was more preftigious."
Jesus, and here I thought college was about learning, not about how difficult you can make an intro class, which just seems absurd to me.
Date: December 25th, 2008 3:19 PM Author: charismatic useless indian lodge puppy
That doesn't make it a "frosh class."
It is a special math class for people with very unusual talents and backgrounds, and many of those drop it because they can't hack it. Comparing it to Frosh Math 101 at Buttfuck State is beyond retarded. The main point of a class like 55 is to select for people likely to succeed in physics and math research at the international level.
It has literally nothing in common with freshman calc other than the fact that both are taken by 18 year olds.
Date: December 25th, 2008 3:22 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
"That doesn't mean it isn't insane compared to freshmen calc at other schools."
Nice edit. No one said it was comparable to calc. But a class taken by freshmen is a freshmen class. Maybe we can say it is a special-frosh class. I can say most students can't hack chem101, but it is still a freshmen class. I can say optics is harder then any liberal arts sophomore year class, but it is still a sophomore course.
Date: December 25th, 2008 3:27 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
So your arguing that this may be the hardest frosh class in the country? Dood, not a single person in the thread disagrees with you. That's not profound. Did you think we have no clue what this class is, did you not read the thread, did you not see the problem sets that were posted? Or are you worried about your ego?
Date: December 25th, 2008 3:31 PM Author: charismatic useless indian lodge puppy
blackening seems not to get that it is not a "frosh class," ie an entry-level class. It's equivalent to upper division at most places just in terms of material covered, not to say depth and rigor of coverage.
Date: December 25th, 2008 3:40 PM Author: charismatic useless indian lodge puppy
The two aren't exclusive. He thought the thread wasn't worth arguing because he thought that math courses were roughly comparable across schools, like liberal arts courses, and thus not worth arguing about.
Date: December 25th, 2008 3:43 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
No, he thinks the whole premise about arguing over classes is stupid. English dood, learn it. See that part about not being material for a thread and now other majors wouldnt even care?
How is "Who's frosh class is harder?" material for a thread? Lib arts majors wouldn't argue about this, they'd get laid, rather than engaging in some sort of weird masochistic masturbation.
Date: December 25th, 2008 3:38 PM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
here is a point of disagreement, amongst others
you think that your qm class is harder, in some sense, than 55. I don't think it is, in the following sense: a given student who has taken your qm class will find 55 much harder than your qm class, even if he takes it after the qm class.
Date: December 25th, 2008 3:41 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Yeah, that is one point of disagreement, but QM is not a freshmen class at any school. We were arguing this point. Most other people in this thread are arguing whether 55 is hard, the hardest, whether they should be given a blowjob for attending the same school as people who took 55 etc.
Another legitimate discussion is how many avg seniors or grad students (is avg meaning avg among MIT students or avg for the country) would struggle. But this is also not being discussed.
Edit: You could also say a 55 student would find Qm tougher since it is applied math and you need to know something about it to do the math. Neither person could do either by just walking into the class with a pure 55 background or a pure QM background.
Date: December 25th, 2008 3:49 PM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
i wasn't assuming it was a freshman class. As long as it was a class that, say, 10% of physics undergraduates at your school were capable of handling, it would be easier than 55.
part of why people are piling on you in this thread is your contention, after taking a look at the problem, that the putnam and the 55 problem sets were doable by you - in a week, if I recall your claim. My inference is that this reflects a lack of mathematical sophistication on your part.
Date: December 25th, 2008 3:52 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Your telling me that you couldn't do one of those 55 problem sets in a week? I made it clear not now, but your saying that at the end of your 4 UG years you couldn't do them? I'm not claiming you need to get a 100%, because the kids in 55 don't either.
Date: December 25th, 2008 3:58 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Answer the question dood. You've made yourself out to be a phd student rubbing shoulders and working with some of the brightest academic minds in the country. You are saying you couldn't do a 55 problem set in a week?
Edit: Sophistication vs. raw talent? I'm not sure what you are getting at. You need a certain level of raw talent to progress your level of sophistication, and more talent means you can do it quicker. But raw talent doesn't answer questions.
Date: December 25th, 2008 4:02 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Also remember these kids are learning it as they do it. I find it hard to believe that someone with your talent couldn't learn the pieces they need to as they work on it over the week.
Date: December 25th, 2008 4:07 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Lol, that's what I've been saying all along. The impressive things are these kids are freshmen. The kids who complete this class have more potential then I did. However, that doesn't mean that given the extra 4 years I had to develop, I couldn't do 55. This work isn't beyond my max ability, its just these kids have a higher potential and they learn it much quicker (kind of goes hand in hand).
Remember, this is also xoxo. When we talk about the avg law student we are talking about MVP or the median at CCN. We don't say avg is median at Wayne State or whatever is halfway down the rankings.
Date: December 25th, 2008 4:10 PM Author: pearl degenerate place of business
no - i claim (without being close to certain - you might simply have been too lazy to look at the problems carefully) that this is beyond your max ability given 4 years of undergraduate study.
Date: December 25th, 2008 4:12 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Hard to say, maybe I'm overestimating my abilities. The only way to resolve that is to spend some time shaking the rust off and then seeing if I can do a set within a week (maybe I'm just not seeing how intricate some of it is). But since I'm busy, I don't really have time to do this.
Date: December 25th, 2008 4:25 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Like I was mentioning, everything is relative on this board. They have a very good math program. I think you read it as a put down. Its not like we are discussing penn state's math program here. It's like how people say Virgina Law is TTT, compared to Yale yeah, but its still leaps and bounds above Penn State.
Date: December 25th, 2008 2:07 AM Author: Arousing Bespoke Famous Landscape Painting
ty. i find it hard to believe that people who supposedly have taken higher math cannot fathom how a course that has *merely* linear algebra and analysis as its topics can actually be more rigorous and abstract than an average upper level math course at a top college.
Date: December 25th, 2008 2:09 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
The problem sets are all online. Are they harder then what you'd learn in an average class, certainly. Is it impressive that the kids are doing this as freshmen, certainly. But I just don't understand the claim that seniors at MIT or phd math students couldn't do it.
Date: December 25th, 2008 2:20 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
Wow you're fucking stupid. Now go read the rest of the thread
Reply
Date: December 24th, 2008 11:50 PM
Author: sriracha
i'll clarify my previous statement, wrt 55: most students who end up as math phds couldn't do it their freshman year. also, most math majors at mit would have problems with it, even as seniors.
Date: December 25th, 2008 2:28 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
No fucking really. The students in the class struggle with it too. That's why I said it is impressive as freshmen, but not lets pretend that this is so complicated that the students who take it are math prodigies nor that it represents the hardest math done at an UG level.
Date: December 25th, 2008 2:32 AM Author: obsidian toilet seat
He was correcting his earlier statement containing couldn't. There is plenty of shit in this thread that either implies that this class is beyond everyone but these students.
The amount of editing in this thread makes it hard to quote without reading it from top to bottom. Then again, I'm not sure you have any clue what is going on. You've neither said anything intelligent nor funny.
Date: December 25th, 2008 4:26 PM Author: obsidian toilet seat
No fucking clue. But if you want to be indispensable in CS, learn some older mainframe programming languages like Fortran. The people who know them are getting old, and the young kids aren't learning them anymore since they opt for shit like java.
Date: December 25th, 2008 4:05 PM Author: curious principal's office
I could probably handle this class pretty easily. I took precal at a CUNY and although I only got 70s on the tests the class average was about 35 so I finishedwith an A+.
Date: December 25th, 2008 5:27 PM Author: Big main people
I did pretty well in the AMC contests in high school, but compared to Reid Barton, I'm a fucking retard.
One of my math professors mentioned him back when I was in college. He referred to him as the "most brilliant young mathematical mind of the last 30 years."