Maths Uni Chat

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Reply 5660

Jake22

Original post by DCmole

To be honest, maths is just a tool for physicists so all of your degrees are useless.

The only tool I see is one DCmole.

You sir, are one of the most abject weapons known to society.

Reply 5661

boromir9111

Original post by Jake22

The only tool I see is one DCmole.

You sir, are one of the most abject weapons known to society.

lol......a bit random :tongue:

Reply 5662

Jake22

Original post by boromir9111

lol......a bit random :tongue:

Stupidity begets stupidity.

Reply 5663

Oh I Really Don't Care

Successfully caused professor Du Sautoy to become uncomfortable; he's actually a fairly small guy and my smile slowly escalated into laughter (over the distance of roughly 20 metres) due to my amazement of how different television portrays someone. He seemed to think I was just looking at him before beginning to laugh in his face which he definitely did not like.

Reply 5664

boromir9111

I remember watching his program about history of mathematics like 2 summers ago now......was pretty interesting.....

Reply 5665

v-zero

Original post by Simplicity

v-zero and Boromir9111 you do know that the scenes never happen in real life? John Nash didn't give a speech getting nobel prize nor did he come up with Nash equilibrium in a bar.

To be fair, I rank the film worse than Good will hunting. Several things are wrong with it. No mention of John Nash being horrible, racist or antisemtic. No mention of him being homosexual or being bullied at uni. He didn't see visual hallucinations nor did the bath scene happen.

Nothing was true about the film. I mean literally nothing. :angry:

I suppose the go scenes are sort of correct.

No ****.

Reply 5666

Hedgeman49

Original post by boromir9111

I remember watching his program about history of mathematics like 2 summers ago now......was pretty interesting.....

You're kidding me right? Complete pile of ****. "Oh look, the Egyptians used to count on their fingers, and so did the Persians, la de da"

Reply 5667

boromir9111

Original post by Hedgeman49

You're kidding me right? Complete pile of ****. "Oh look, the Egyptians used to count on their fingers, and so did the Persians, la de da"

Oh, that was pretty boring :tongue:

but then it went to talk about math proofs like Riemann hypothesis, Fermat's last theorem.......was pretty interesting in that respect although it was kinda brief lol....

Reply 5668

Meteorshower

I think the guy is boring as anything, and does very little to engage those who don't know much about mathematics.

Reply 5669

assmaster

Original post by DeanK22

Admitting you do maths on a date? Usually ask what they're studying then say history else English.

I might start doing this in general.
Whenever I say I study Maths, people smile at me like I'm joking, then I wait and they slowly but awkwardly realise I'm not taking the piss. Then they overcompensate by going "oh wowowowow I was so bad at school" before finally settling on saying their honest first reaction; a back-handed compliment ("you don't look like you do Maths").

Reply 5670

Slumpy

Original post by assmaster

I don't think anybody's ever told me I don't look like I do maths :frown:

I'm going to assume they mean you're obviously a girl though.

Reply 5671

boromir9111

Original post by Slumpy

I don't think anybody's ever told me I don't look like I do maths :frown:

I'm going to assume they mean you're obviously a girl though.

Should get out the room more often buddy then people will lose that assumptiom :tongue:

Reply 5672

Oh I Really Don't Care

Original post by assmaster

That's a nice idea. Every new person I see thinks I study media (srsly) so literally laugh when I say maths. You should start wearing tee's with Baye's theorem on the front (these definitely exist, with the maths society at Oxford happily producing a large set.).

People just can't relate to maths though; if they are mathematically inclined, it's usually just not a big deal, but there is (and always will b, probably) an awkwardness about studying mathematics for the majority of the population that isn't found in other subjects.

Reply 5673

Simplicity

Since I look Indian I look like I do Maths. So never get that in general. I suppose it's worse if you are oriental and bad at Maths.

Slumpy

I'm going to assume they mean you're obviously a girl though.

I'm surprised girls can do Maths. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Health/story?id=424260&page=1

DeanK22

That is so cool, also very rude. Du Sautoy is small, I never noticed it. Might have to re watch a history of maths again to see if this is true.

Hedgeman49

You're kidding me right? Complete pile of ****. "Oh look, the Egyptians used to count on their fingers, and so did the Persians, la de da"

Maths has to start somewhere. The last two was interesting.

DCmole

To be honest, maths is just a tool for physicists so all of your degrees are useless.

Reply 5674

harr

Girl at bop: "What are you studying?"
Me: "Maths."
Girl: "I'm so sorry."

Then she walked off.

"I was never any good at that" has to be the most common reaction.

I've also been asked how you can have maths lectures.

Reply 5675

around

I get a lot of 'you must be really clever' comments, which I'm never sure how to respond to.

also, yeah, i've never been confused for an english student (would that i were)

Reply 5676

Meteorshower

I love it when people ask me what subject i'm doing when i'm at a debating competition or something, no-one excepts a physicist/mathematician there :p:

Reply 5677

Hedgeman49

When I tell people I do maths I either get:
"Oooooh, you must be clever then!" (generally middle-aged women)
"I was rubbish at maths when I was at school..." (same demographic)
"Oh good, I like maths. Are you onto quadratics yet?" (men)
"Huh? You're not weedy enough to be a mathematician." (assorted)

On the subject of Du Sautoy, he's a total hack. He makes out like he's God's gift to maths when actually his research output is pretty modest compared to others. He just happens to be one of the more televisable mathematicians.

Reply 5678

Simplicity

Just had the most bull**** exam ever.

The first question was wrong, had a mistake that totally wasted fiften minutes of my life thinking it's wrong. So that's like 5 marks down the drain.

Then, on complex bit there was another mistake that probably going to cost me the marks in that question.

Which, I'm not that fussed. But, I would thought that the examineer would do the questions before hand and not make obvious mistakes. Also, they put some nasty numbers in it.