A day from Hell

So, hopefully today is the only day in my life I have to sit through 10 hours of class. 8 hours, I think is not too horribly long, since it is the length of a normal work day. But anything longer than that, and the mind starts completely shutting down. Mine, at least.

So, my first class was CO1A. I'm definitely enjoying this class more than I thought I would, and the professor was a much more awake today. We did combination with repetition, worked occupany problems, talked about Stirling numbers of the second kind, and went through the Multinomial Theorem, a generalization of the binomial theorem. Next week the professor is going to Pisa, Italy, to attend conference, so we won't be having class, and will have to make it up in the future. If I still choose to be in the class, that is.

Then was the Graph Theory- Set Theory block. A friend of mine was going to sit in on GRT and get the syllabus and take notes for me, so I decided to try out set theory. This is taught by Peter Komjath, the same class/professor that Prof Siehler had when he was BSM-ing. I know little about set theory. The aim of the course is to prove "everything" on infinite sets, show the foundation of math on sets, and prove interesting theormes about the reals, etc. We started up with axioms, such as Ax 1 (Existence)- There is a set. We then began to have theorems, our first was: "There is an empty set", and we began to prove these statements. Slowly but surely, we were building, building, building up on our foundations, and we ended class with a neat proof that if A and B are sets, so is AxB, by showing a set which contains (a,b) as a subset.

I think I would like to take this course. I am interested in GRT as well, but next week there will be some time shifts, so I would be able to take both of them, if I want to. I think I enjoy constructions from the basics, and seeing what kind of complexity can be built up from such simplicity.

Later on, I copied the notes from GRT. Unfortunately the class is not very popular, and the professor is supposedly the least-liked among BSM. Almost every one who takes the class has a negative impression eventually, and I suppose the professor is important in a mathematics class, but the subject is important as well. We got our syllabus and our h/w, and defined many basic properties of graphs, such as simple, bipartite, matching, chromatic numbering, and played with incidence and adjacency matrices. It looks interesting, but simply just OK. I don't want to waste my time slot with a poor class, but I think it would be interesting to study Prof Dymacek's speciality as well. I might sit in on class tomorrow, unless I feel really set-theoretical.

Then I got some vegetarian pasta thing with fries for lunch, and went to NUM1A. Having a class with Csaba is so different since you cannot always trust what he writes on the board. We first discussed the notion of primes and irreducability when you only examine 2Z, and he doesn't just tell you the answer- he really makes you think, and when it comes to proofs, the class must be a part in proving them. Sometimes in math I drift off, scribble whatever is on the board, and figure out I can understand it later. This is not true for this class, since at times the notes are worthless, and you must really understand what is going on. After the break we talked about and went through the proofs for divisibility, the divison algorithm, and euclids lemma. Sometimes he is not so thorough with the proofs, but hey, that is what the book is for. Next Wednesday we will not have class since he has a court date since another car ran into his and is claiming it was his fault, so I think I will try the other professor's class then. We will have a make up session later.

Then I went to Mathematical Logic, LOG. By then I was starting to fade. We discussed "What is truth?" - in mathematics, and made many definitions. This class was taught by Miklos Szabo. We pretty much went through my whole 100 level philosophy class in an hour. We defined tautologies, showed Modus Ponens, and we defined provability, and then finally showed the Compactness Thm. Logic uses really cool symbols! But by then I was losing a lot of focus. It definitely seems like a good class, and seems like a great parallel course to take with set theory, since they rely on each other. I will go again next week after studying (and hopefully completely understanding) this weeks notes, and doing the homework (one problem involves the island on which there are only liars and truth tellers!). Unless I am completely lost next week, I think I will take it.

That class ended early at 3:30, and after I spent some time on the internet, and I went in to MAP at 4:15, but apparently I was late. I didn't feel like starting to take notes, especially when I was late and mentally tired. We were talking about logic in lattices, and I was completely uninterested and lost as well. I also didn't really get the connection to Quantum stuff. I kept on looking at my watch, but time seemed to tick by very slowly. I pulled out and ate two sandwiches I had packed in the hope that food would make time go by faster. It didn't. Class ended at 5:55- he had taken more time than he should have. I'm sure it can be interesting, but I had seen what I thought was much more interesting things today. So, although the professor was a great guy, that will be my last MAP class.

Got home at 6:30 after a relatively long and really crowded bus ride back, and I completely crashed at 7- napping for 3 hours, and got up and cooked myself a very late dinner. Finished up my pesto pasta and added some chicken. I thought I was going to go to the pizza place about a block away, but I guess I'll try that tomorrow instead.

So tomorrow is the last of my new classes. I will go to Differential Geometry to see how that is, and I will also go to Character Theory of Finite Groups. I think the chance of me taking these courses are minimal to none, but they deserve a shot, anyway. That means tomorrow I have class from 8-4:30, and afterwards I guess is my naptime again.

Next week should be better, because my course list is already smaller. But I have to narrow it down to five courses- I think anything more is just too much, unless, perhaps, 3 of the five turn out to be reading courses (i.e. meet only once a week). I will definitely take number theory, am very confident about taking set theory and advanced abstract algebra (unless Character Theory somehow blows it away, or some other unthinkable thing occurs), so that only leaves 2 spots open! Perhaps logic and combinatorics/graph theory? But that leaves functional analysis amiss. And THC was enjoyable as well! That might be reading, so could I handle adding that in? I will have another FUN class tomorrow, to decide more on the future of that. I think how the schedule works out is somewhat important as well. I would prefer not to have 8 straight hours of class one day, unless I have one whole day free, for example.

Choosing is hard. Is it better to take an intro course on something you've never seen, or continue on in a subject you've already studied a lot of? Especially after tomorrow, when I shall know about all the courses, and the real future schedule, I must start to choose. Perhaps you can help me as well.