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The more you know, the more you realise you don't know

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
edited March 27 in Work & Study
I've been doing maths all my life and loving it. When I hit A level I realised there was a lot more to it that I didn't realise... and now hitting university I feel like a complete pleb. Have you noticed as you learn more about a subject, you only feel like there's so much more left to be learnt?

Or am I actually regressing mentally, so soon I won't be able to do simple addition :) (although, I have been wondering in my mind, what is the general proof for 1 + 1 = 2)
Post edited by JustV on

Comments

  • JsTJsT Posts: 18,268 Skive's The Limit
    Yeah, I never realised there was so much to business studies until I started uni!

    Argh!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    i hope that cant happen with my subject - music. Its not like facts and stuff, more like practise until you are the best!! Wooo i cant wait till music college!!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    (although, I have been wondering in my mind, what is the general proof for 1 + 1 = 2)

    well there's two 1's in the number 2, you have to count two numbers to get to the number 2..if you add 1+1 you get 2..simple. :p

    does maths get a bit philosophical then?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I've been doing maths all my life and loving it. When I hit A level I realised there was a lot more to it that I didn't realise... and now hitting university I feel like a complete pleb. Have you noticed as you learn more about a subject, you only feel like there's so much more left to be learnt?

    Or am I actually regressing mentally, so soon I won't be able to do simple addition :) (although, I have been wondering in my mind, what is the general proof for 1 + 1 = 2)

    there is a proof and it's one or two pages long I reckon. Saw it once.

    You're not alone dude. When I started having Maths in Uni i was OVERWHELMED!!! My math teacher teaches in LIGHTSPEED, just everything very general and abstract and WE have to calculate the maths examples then at home. Every few lectures we start a new topic...

    and at home you sit for HOURS and it's twisting your brain.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Thats coz maths is a massive complicated subject with loads to cover, and I still want to go to uni and get a maths degree!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    .
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    i've just found this out at biology A level

    it makes gcse science seem like primary school level
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    does maths get a bit philosophical then?

    Oh don't get me started on that. Mrs T, being a mathematician has been wound up countless times by me arguing that Maths is entirely based on arbitrary assumptions.
  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    I'm finding the same with programming.
    Remember though, it's not meant to be easy; even Einstein, I'm sure, had to try hard in order to understand physics the way he eventually did. And he was a genious.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    We were proving that if you add up all N that it comes to infinity. This basically means:

    1 + 2 + 3 + ... + n-1 + n = sigma crap

    where n is infinity then the sum is infinity. I can understand if you keep adding nunbers it will just get higher and higher to infinity but the proof is mindboggling. I like applied.. I can follow where he goes with that, though he uses about 4 substitutions per proof, and these are straightforward ones like for compound interest he uses four blackboards worth of writing. *cries*

    I'm hoping that soon enough my maths mind will kick in and I'll start to be able to understand what they're writing about.. at the rate they're going I'm trying to take notes so much that I'm not listening to what they're saying.

    Learning maths at uni is like learning another language as well as a subject, because you can't write in normal anymore, have to use the correct notation, and it's fairly difficult. Am not faring especially well, me :(
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I forget what course you're studying, but maths students will eventually have to learn proper "proofs" and learn about rigorous mathematical "proof" for 1+1=2. (atleast I would assume it's a standard part of most maths courses)

    physicists dont worry about such silly things, so I wouldn't know :p
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    We were proving that if you add up all N that it comes to infinity. This basically means:

    1 + 2 + 3 + ... + n-1 + n = sigma crap

    where n is infinity then the sum is infinity. I can understand if you keep adding nunbers it will just get higher and higher to infinity but the proof is mindboggling. I like applied.. I can follow where he goes with that, though he uses about 4 substitutions per proof, and these are straightforward ones like for compound interest he uses four blackboards worth of writing. *cries*

    I'm hoping that soon enough my maths mind will kick in and I'll start to be able to understand what they're writing about.. at the rate they're going I'm trying to take notes so much that I'm not listening to what they're saying.

    Learning maths at uni is like learning another language as well as a subject, because you can't write in normal anymore, have to use the correct notation, and it's fairly difficult. Am not faring especially well, me :(


    how you can understand maths is beyond me.

    and i can't believe i just read that at 7:50 in the morning. :crying:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    this sounds really interesting. i might take this up
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    We just discussed every function there is.

    going from
    sin x and cos x (sinus and cosinus)
    over to arcsin x and arccos x
    Hyperbolic funktions: sinus hyperbolicus x and cosinus hyperbolicus x
    to Arsin x and Arcos x.

    Cyclometrical- and Areafunctions (-> arsinx, arcosx)
    Logarithm functions (log and ln).
    exponential and potential functions
    f(x) = a^x | f(x) = x^b and with e^x (e being the euler'sche number)

    rational functions (dividing one polynome through another)


    We add together infinite progressions (yes, you can do it),
    we approximate functions to a certain degree (so they are easier to grasp).
    We have to write functions as a progression to approximate them, or add all elements together.

    We completed already, symmetrical operations and permutations of molecules, complex numbers, probability theory.

    ugh, If I only know. the only thing I know that I got 39 A4 pages of handwriting after 4 weeks, and the lecture ends in january.

    It's tough, but I knew that beforehand.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yes, I'm doing History and Politics. It's impossible for me to be learned on all the aspects of these subjects, it's like when you open one door you're faced with another 7. I like it though, interesting as fuck!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    My degree does the same, there was one point in my life when I thought stuff flowed through pipes and that was that.

    Oh to be back in those good old days!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Are you doing plumbing or colonic irrigation studies? I see even Cambridge is going for vocational courses these days...


    I love my subject in that maths has no bearing on it in any way. That and I like the way that with Russian, you can kinda make it up as you go along and chances are you'll be right.

    As for all that maths crap earlier - :eek2:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    StrubbleS wrote:
    We just discussed every function there is.

    going from
    sin x and cos x (sinus and cosinus)
    over to arcsin x and arccos x
    Hyperbolic funktions: sinus hyperbolicus x and cosinus hyperbolicus x
    to Arsin x and Arcos x.

    Cyclometrical- and Areafunctions (-> arsinx, arcosx)
    Logarithm functions (log and ln).
    exponential and potential functions
    f(x) = a^x | f(x) = x^b and with e^x (e being the euler'sche number)

    rational functions (dividing one polynome through another)


    We add together infinite progressions (yes, you can do it),
    we approximate functions to a certain degree (so they are easier to grasp).
    We have to write functions as a progression to approximate them, or add all elements together.

    We completed already, symmetrical operations and permutations of molecules, complex numbers, probability theory.

    ugh, If I only know. the only thing I know that I got 39 A4 pages of handwriting after 4 weeks, and the lecture ends in january.

    It's tough, but I knew that beforehand.

    You make my head hurt and you make me want to :crying: with all that maths langague. And I did some of that stuff at A level.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Are you doing plumbing or colonic irrigation studies? I see even Cambridge is going for vocational courses these days...

    I believe they like to call it Chemical Engineering, more commonly referred to as plumbing though!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    my dads girlfriend did a maths degree, she's in the middle of a masters now - i dunno how she did it, GCSE maths was bad enough for me! I certainly don't miss it!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Ballerina wrote:
    my dads girlfriend did a maths degree, she's in the middle of a masters now - i dunno how she did it, GCSE maths was bad enough for me! I certainly don't miss it!

    i've done my maths gcse 4 times and still not managed to get a C.

    then i went out with a maths teacher. :o
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    My god!

    I actually understood my lectures today :D :hyper:

    Mind you, none of them were calculus. I think calculus is evil. I admire Newton, but seriously, couldn't he have made it easier :(. In my world, we would use numerical methods and computers to do everything. Trial and improvement, I say, what's the use of exact answers when you can have ridiculously quick, ridiculously simple, ridiculously accurate approximations?

    Damn that man.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    My god!

    I actually understood my lectures today :D :hyper:

    Mind you, none of them were calculus. I think calculus is evil. I admire Newton, but seriously, couldn't he have made it easier :(. In my world, we would use numerical methods and computers to do everything. Trial and improvement, I say, what's the use of exact answers when you can have ridiculously quick, ridiculously simple, ridiculously accurate approximations?

    Damn that man.

    I'm wondering if it's the way it's taught at York. Everyone I know that does maths there, which is a fair few, have problems with it. Whereas when I did maths at Newcastle it's was the topic I found easiest. :s But hang in there with it and you'll get it, uni isn't meant to be easy.
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