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Reply 80
Been tired and a bit brain foggy recently. Split between doing more FA1, finishing my essay, or doing extra textbook exercises. Mainly doing the middle thing but I still don't feel productive. Haven't found a URSS supervisor either, up in the air whether I'm going to do it, bleh. Don't want to burn out either. I'll write a summary of my second term modules later. And now tags because I keep on forgetting/not wanting to annoy people for every update. Hope everyone's doing ok.


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Reply 81
On second term modules:

Logic and Verification - Not going to lie, I did gravitate towards this as an "easy" option. Did not want to cop out and take the piss-easy Logic I module offered by philosophy though. I've done propositional logic in two modules so far (Sets and Numbers and ST116), so this'll be my third time covering it so a lot will be familiar. That said, there's bits that are totally new to me, (disjunctive/connective normal form, annotating resolution/deduction proofs) so the logic part should be interesting. The second part of the module uses Prolog and is about formal verification of software systems. Know nothing about it yet, sounds fun. It's 25% coursework so it should be cushiony.

Algebra II - I think I've actually finished this module before but that was ages ago when I thought I'd go into algebra. I ended up enjoying it up to the bit on ring theory when it all got very dense and very dry. Now looking back I doubt I'll get into it. Especially since Algebra I was more or less the most bored I've ever been doing maths. Hopefully I'll be able to jog my memory for the most part - I managed to do most of the first two assignments without much looking back on my notes. Will definitely have to re-cover the clunkier proofs. People say Algebra II is a hard low-performing exam and not representative of lectures but honestly looking at past papers I don't think so, it seems to be very bookwork heavy/relatively straightforward proofs/computations, found that very strange. I think if I knuckle down I should be able to get a decent result out of it. The first part of the module speedruns the first year algebra module, pretty much rendering it redundant (idk why), with a few bits about classifying groups along the way. Then you go onto isomorphism theorems, group actions, then ring theory (bunch of first year recap, ideals, domains and polynomial rings). Doesn't sound dense, but certainly is.

Partial Differential Equations - Apart from knowing how to compute Fourier series, I don't really know what to expect out of this module. Hoping not too computational. A lot of analysis in research is of PDEs (there are 2 sequels to this module, theory of PDEs in third year and advanced PDEs in fourth), and hopefully this module will let me decide whether I'll want to take PDEs/analysis generally further. Really not familiar with any of it but it looks like we cover a few solution techniques (which includes fourier series) to solve four classes of PDE. (transport, wave, heat, Laplace, all physicsy)

Introduction to Number Theory - I did about half of this course last [academic] year but gave up in like March or April. Hoping I'll get into it more this time around, and that everything I've already done will come back to me reasonably quickly. First chapter covers a lot of elementary theory (divisibility and such), ring theory, moving onto linear congruences in the second chapter (with stuff like Legendre symbols, Chinese remainder theorem). Third chapter is all on quadratic reciprocity (bit of a shorter one, only 5 or so pages), fourth chapter looks at geometry of numbers, theorems on representing numbers as sums of squares, Legendre's equation, FLT for n = 4. Idk if the fifth chapter is examinable (would guess ont) but it covers RSA, the Miller-Rabin primality test and a statement of the prime number theorem. Analytic number theory is still on my "maybe" list for fourth year since it ties in extremely closely with complex analysis. I don't think I like algebra enough to do algebraic number theory in third year and the course looked fairly dry.

Norms, Metrics and Topologies - Reasonably confident with most of this (my second year essay uses it heavily) but still room for improvement via textbook exercises. The exercises set last year as part of the course were a) optional and unmarked b) extremely uninspired (in an almost limitless topic with so many interesting ideas to explore !!) so I think looking elsewhere is the way to go. Not sure whether I'll go back to Munkres or find another text. Oddly the exam is 3 hours despite being no different in format (that I know of) to other 2nd year exams so hopefully this'll be a good one. Course introduces topological spaces, and covers continuity, compactness, connectedness, completeness. (the idea of topology is to generalise work done in real analysis to more general spaces) No quotient spaces for some reason which is fine with me since they're a bit tricky conceptually. Can't remember if BCT stuff is in there or not.


On top of this I need to do a final subpart of the last computational physics assignment.
your second term modules sound interesting! hope you're doing alright at home :hugs:
Reply 83
Original post by absolutelysprout
your second term modules sound interesting! hope you're doing alright at home :hugs:

All good - hoping the best for you too
Reply 84
Imagine thinking you're safely below the page limit and then realising you were using 10pt not 11pt font so are actually on 15 pages without an intro/bonus problems at the end, couldn't be me.

luckily there is a fairly easy solution - cut out the more boring proofs, find a book that has the proof in and just defer to that. (ie. "for a proof see xx pg yy) Or just say that book has the proof in, but I haven't quite sunk to that low yet.
(edited 3 years ago)
Reply 85
Imagine thinking you're safely below the page limit and then realising you were using 10pt not 11pt font so are actually on 15 pages without an intro/bonus problems at the end, couldn't be me.

luckily there is a fairly easy solution - cut out the more boring proofs, find a book that has the proof in and just defer to that. (ie. "for a proof see xx pg yy) Or just say that book has the proof in, but I haven't quite sunk to that low yet.


Reduce the font size of all full stops so that the spacing is reduced there :colone:
Reply 86
apparently the rule about margins isn't really enforced so narrowing them gets me back to 11 pages. broke some of my formatting but fixed it now.

on another note:

Spoiler

(edited 3 years ago)
Reply 87
I'm transferring some of the work I've done on my essay to PW, proved a few lemmas that were missing. (PW is strange in that some very simple theorems are missing but some unusually advanced stuff [that doesn't have the proper foundations, often] is there) Still a lot of redlinks on Lemma 2.

Only productive thing I'm doing at the moment - pretty large thing to talk about on my PS though. Particularly if I get to doing Manifolds during the summer, because DG on there is lacking. Algebraic Topology too. [only 20 entries under manifold, 10 under Algebraic Topology, a lot of which lack proofs]
(edited 3 years ago)
Reply 88
Went back to uni yesterday, wouldn't have been able to stand the isolation of staying home indefinitely with a lower bound of mid Feb. i might have been slightly unfair on parents but they seemed sympathetic.

the proof mentioned above is basically done? one or two gaps to fill which I intend to ignore in my essay lmao. trying to get an almost finished draft to my tutor today.
(edited 3 years ago)
Reply 89
Mentioned applying elsewhere for a masters and my personal tutor jumped into "you could apply for Part III" so that's out there now.

He offered to (forgot his exact words) do something to foster my ambitions and said he'd be happy to set up one on one sessions to that effect. Not quite sure what he meant and when I asked he went off on a tangent. (his on the philosophy of education are interesting nonetheless, as you'd expect from someone who's been in the industry for over 50 years) He gave some pretty comprehensive feedback on the first bit of my essay, still waiting to get the rest back, and said that he could help improve my presentation skills by setting up mini-presentations during tutorials. Very nice guy and it's amazing how much he cares about people reaching their potential.
Mentioned applying elsewhere for a masters and my personal tutor jumped into "you could apply for Part III" so that's out there now.

He offered to (forgot his exact words) do something to foster my ambitions and said he'd be happy to set up one on one sessions to that effect. Not quite sure what he meant and when I asked he went off on a tangent. (his on the philosophy of education are interesting nonetheless, as you'd expect from someone who's been in the industry for over 50 years) He gave some pretty comprehensive feedback on the first bit of my essay, still waiting to get the rest back, and said that he could help improve my presentation skills by setting up mini-presentations during tutorials. Very nice guy and it's amazing how much he cares about people reaching their potential.

Great to hear how good your tutor is. Might as well apply for Part III then given he thinks you're up to it. Would recommend doing those mini-presentations as it's a must have skill for later on in mathematics and quite a lot of other things outside it.
Reply 91
Original post by zetamcfc
Great to hear how good your tutor is. Might as well apply for Part III then given he thinks you're up to it. Would recommend doing those mini-presentations as it's a must have skill for later on in mathematics and quite a lot of other things outside it.

Have to admit I wasn't really erring on it, it's pretty solid in my mind by now :tongue: Rightly or wrongly I can be pretty headstrong. Though if he'd said I had no chance there's not much I could do about it, he has to give a reference after all. Reassured that it'll (probably) be fairly positive.

Yeahh especially because I have an assessed presentation later this term for my second year essay, think that's towards the end of the term. Yet to be seen if it'll be over MS Teams or not.

I've had people say I'm great at explaining things, and other people say the opposite, so I'd be interested how I get on. But I think given prep I can do a decent job. Tend to misspeak when I'm put on the spot.
Have to admit I wasn't really erring on it, it's pretty solid in my mind by now :tongue: Rightly or wrongly I can be pretty headstrong. Though if he'd said I had no chance there's not much I could do about it, he has to give a reference after all. Reassured that it'll (probably) be fairly positive.

Yeahh especially because I have an assessed presentation later this term for my second year essay, think that's towards the end of the term. Yet to be seen if it'll be over MS Teams or not.

I've had people say I'm great at explaining things, and other people say the opposite, so I'd be interested how I get on. But I think given prep I can do a decent job. Tend to misspeak when I'm put on the spot.

Don't we all :biggrin:, though I'm sadly more prone to freezing which isn't great lol
Reply 93
Feeling a bit foggy. I can still work, but motivation is dwindling and I don't feel comfortable in myself. Don't know why, I think it's just hormones.

Done first algebra assignment, fairly straightforward.

Mostly done number theory, not due until Friday after next. Not too bad. Remaining question is a bit awkwardly formulated but I'll get to it. Not the type of question I like - counting combinations basically.

My graphs for the very last part of computational physics are wrong, I will try to fix it tomorrow. Suspect a silly mistake.

I have given a seconds more thought and I'm scared I'm burning out. I really hope that is not the case since I need to kick into gear soon. Maybe I'll rest until then? :/
(edited 3 years ago)
Reply 94
Feeling better - the weird computational physics graph was due to a parameter being off by about 5×10215 \times 10^{-21}, (!!!!!) my interval for a root-finding algorithm was too wide, weird how these things can be that sensitive. That's computational physics wrapped up. Hoping to get a high mark, only need 21/30 to get 90 in the module. Only counts for 6.25% of the year, but it's a decent boost. About 18% of my year is coursework, so if I can get a decent proportion of those marks, that should be a decent safety net. Wish exams ran last year, interested how that would've worked out.

A sketch of the state of things for term 1 modules:


Geometry - Never learnt a lot of this module properly. The content seemed very very skinny. A whole week of lectures was dedicated to proving Cauchy-Swartz for time like and space like vectors in hyperbolic space. No projective geometry. Planning on starting to go through this soon.

Analysis III, Statistics - no issues.

Multivariable Calculus - need to go over bookwork and the Hessian.

Algebra I - recap bookwork, actually get to learning classification of finite abelian groups.


I will start proper revision of all but stats (which is a June exam, rest are April) in a few weeks I think.

And term 2:

PDEs - it's as computational and applied as I feared, rip. Hoping it'll be ok regardless.

Algebra II, Number Theory - So far very familiar from learning them last year so should be able to crunch through these in not too long.

NMT - no issues, might need refreshing on bookwork.

Logic and Verification - just working through it as I'm going along, pretty decent so far.



Lol no idea if I'm gonna be able to squeeze Intro to Top and such into this, maybe it's something for the summer to do stuff like this then build up PW for it rather than now.

On the note of an actual safety net - don't think it'd help me at all. I'm solidly into a first (without trying to sound cocky), and even if I got the average from last year carried forward (or worse, [better] my average in this year so far, that would just be ridiculous), any admissions tutor would quickly see through it when looking at my transcript. Support it for those who need it though.

Having weird immersive vivid dreams that finally involve university (many of them up to this point were still at home). I also have this weird thing where I'm remembering previous dreams while dreaming, though they may have just been previous parts of said dream separated by waking up. Interesting anyway, dreamt I was a pack-a-day smoker. (don't smoke at all)
(edited 3 years ago)
Reply 95
Got 100% in the last computational physics assignment, so got 98.7% in that module. (think the 1 mark I lost was due to something silly list axis labelling) Unfortunately only 7.5 CATs but it's a good dent. (not massive though, still need 82.95% in the rest of the year for 85% overall)

Exams getting uncomfortably close, stress is creeping up. I said I'd start around now so probably should think about it in a week or two. **** doing further reading until the summer, I don't think I want to take the risk of diverting that much time :/

Personal tutor simultaneously said that the content of my draft was excellent but that my use of i.e. was illiterate xd

Logic & Verification test on the 15th, unprepared.
(edited 3 years ago)
Reply 96
Facking hell nice job with computational physics, I tossed up doing that next year but just probably isn't for me.
Reply 97
Original post by Sinnoh
Facking hell nice job with computational physics, I tossed up doing that next year but just probably isn't for me.

Ngl I did need my friend's help with one or two of the problems, but it was a pretty cool module. (few niggles like unclear formulations/problem statements) At least now I have a decent amount of programming on my transcript.

Have you already decided what you're doing next year? : o I'm fairly sure but not 100% on the last one or two. (not sure if I'm going to do the second PDEs module yet)
Reply 98
Ngl I did need my friend's help with one or two of the problems, but it was a pretty cool module. (few niggles like unclear formulations/problem statements) At least now I have a decent amount of programming on my transcript.

Have you already decided what you're doing next year? : o I'm fairly sure but not 100% on the last one or two. (not sure if I'm going to do the second PDEs module yet)


Decisions aren't for a while yet but I'm pretty set on 3 out of 4/5 modules (lasers, astrophysics and plasma physics). I've had too many bad experiences with computing projects to voluntarily carry on with it.
Reply 99
Original post by Sinnoh
Decisions aren't for a while yet but I'm pretty set on 3 out of 4/5 modules (lasers, astrophysics and plasma physics). I've had too many bad experiences with computing projects to voluntarily carry on with it.

Oh :s Ours were quite nice and not as nasty as they could've been.

I think I'll do functional analysis I & II, both algebraic topology modules, complex analysis, manifolds, measure theory and then hopefully Riemann surfaces if it runs next year. (isn't this year despite having run for like the last 20 yrs :/ if it isn't run I'll try to do it as a reading module) Maybe Theory of PDEs (Intro to PDEs sequel) as I said or set theory too, not sure.