works and days.

On Tuesday night I wrote a post of some length about the first talk for Student Analysis Seminar this term and how it went -- my impressions, hopes, and malaise, all of it. Then I posted it, and ten minutes later, it disappeared.

Fortune of fate, I guess. Perhaps it's better it happened, because now I can say very briefly what I wanted to say:

1. Sh*t. I'm not ready to be one of the "older students." I'm still a newbie and nobody should trust what I say when it comes to rigor and proof.
   
   
2. The audience was comfortable asking questions, and I'd like to thank John and Marie for spearheading the inquiry. I can see why my advisor prefers it when students ask questions and make comments.
   
   
3. I only made it through page 3 of 6 of my notes, and barely got through definitions and several questionable examples. I wonder if it means that I should talk again, next week .. \:
   

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Thesis work plods on, and my own research feels intractable. I'm stuck on a small but important part of the very last argument.

It concerns Sobolev functions, as well as functions of bounded variation (BV for short). The theory of BV functions is nice and well-developed, but to be honest I never thought that I'd actually use them. It's like having your bike stolen: you know it's possible but you never expect it to happen.

Well, there they are: in the work of mine and my coauthor's, and still that one step remains elusive. I'm convinced that it must be true and we're this close .. now if only I can say exactly why there should be no atoms in the derivative measure ..

[sighs]

Time marches on, and it's either time to get back to work or to go home: one or the other ..