Keeping the vampires away

AAL- first hour we talked about Sylow's Theorems. I knew exactly what was going on, since this was pretty much a repeat of the last bit of last term. For example, we looked at the group of order 77, and we proved that it is cyclic. For a h/w we have to generalize this situation. The second hour, after the break, we talked about the "Correspondence" thm. There were lots of bars, and discussing of images, and I completely lost focus.

Then I went to NUM1B. Csaba couldn't come today, so I went to the other professor. He was a fine profesor, but I think I shall stay in Csaba's class.

Went to the cafeteria and got an excellent lunch of curry pork with cabbage, and rice. Got a coke to help keep me awake as well.

Then I tried out C&P. The class is Conjecture and Proof, a mainstream of this program. Only five people- not including me, were in the class. The normal professor could not teach this year due to health reasons, so they had to do a lot of juggling in the schedule to make it work. Now it looks like the class might be canceled.

The class involved a lot of problem solving. I.e., have a 8x8 chessboard, when you lay 3x1 dominoes on it, how can you cover the board, leaving only one space empty? Today the homework was due and the students were presenting their proofs, and I was sitting and watching. The professor was sitting there, commenting on their proofs, and the such. It seems interesting, but I prefer a class with more structure. I got the homework for next week, and it involved problems such as proving log base 10 (3) is irrational.

Then was character theory. On the way, with a friend, I stopped for a tradition Hungarian snack called Langos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1ngos It sounded like a funnel cake, except without the sugar. I got it- this big deep fried piece of dough, and it was very oily. I started eating it. It had a garlic topping, which was something I did not expect. The garlic flavor was so strong! It was pretty much the exact opposite of a funnel cake. Later the snack gave me indigestion. I don't think I'll be trying it again, unless I go try it with the cheese and ham topping. But I probably won't know how to order it by myself, anyway.

Then came the class. It was absolutely astonishing. We talked about how these characters of the group held all the information of the group. We talked about how the conjugacy classes would create a character matrix which was essential to tell whether or not it is simple, and how the columns and the rows are orthogonal. We also defined what a F-Algebra is. He has been introducing much of the overview of the course, and soon we will start to prove many of the results he has shown us.

The professor is a really amazing guy. I was looking through my real analysis book and in the back- Undergraduate Texts page, there is a text authored by him, Discrete Mathematics. What is really amazing, however, is his placing in the International Mathematics Olympiad. Apparently this is a int'l high school math competition. His freshmen year, he got silver. All remaining years, he got the gold. He is number seven on this list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_International_Mathematical_Olympiad_exceptional_participants. When you are not only brilliant, but a great teacher too, I think that is a rarity. This gives me even more incentive to take CHA.

Got home, took a nap for an hour and half or so, and then did some math studying/ reviewing. Had a simple dinner of a sandwich since I was still pretty full from my day. Tomorrow my first class is at noon! What a wonderful day that will be~