the after-math.

well .. i've given better talks, and i think the second one confused and horrified the audience more than anything else,

but at least they're over now,
and i can go back to work;

it's what i've been telling myself, anyways.

flattery will get you everywhere.

man, sometimes i love reading paul graham:

      Outside of math there's a limit to how far you can push words; in fact, it would not be a bad definition of math to call it the study of terms that have precise meanings.

but sometimes..

      [4] Philosophy is like math's ne'er-do-well brother. It was born when Plato and Aristotle looked at the works of their predecessors and said in effect "why can't you be more like your brother?" Russell was still saying the same thing 2300 years later.

Math is the precise half of the most abstract ideas, and philosophy the imprecise half. It's probably inevitable that philosophy will suffer by comparison, because there's no lower bound to its precision. Bad math is merely boring, whereas bad philosophy is nonsense. And yet there are some good ideas in the imprecise half.

ouch. i may have said similar things myself, but usually when i'm angry or trying to exhibit wry wit. myself, i tend to take the historical perspective and view math as a subset of philosophy.

it has an added bonus, too: if mathematics is philosophy, then there is no reason why it should be useful, except to prepare the mind for other processes of thought. if it is useful, fine, but that's not why we do it.

next week's song and dance.

well, this should be ..interesting, for me. below, i copied a few day/time/titles from this week's U of M mathematics seminars bulletin..

(you can download it here)

.. and among them include:

Monday, September 24
3:10-4:00pm Student Analysis Seminar --- janus geminus (UM) Fractals and Measure Theory --- 3866 EH

...
Wednesday, September 26
3:10-4:00pm Geometric Function Theory Seminar --- janus geminus (UM) Derivations and Currents on Metric Spaces --- 4096 EH

i guess my time has come, after all. i'm speaking at the `grown-up' seminar. before i was mildly petrified at the thought, but i think i'm okay with it now.

two talks in one week..

the last time it happened to me, i spoke one monday, was stranded at various airports (due to inclement weather) the next day, made it to the conference by the third day and then spoke again. flying back that weekend, i resumed the talk at U of M that next monday.

i'm surprised it didn't turn into disaster.

maybe i make much of this. after all, a visiting prof here (r. barnard) has given three talks in 8 days, and a fellow student is also doing double-duty:

Tuesday, September 25
3:10-4:00pm Student Seminar on Representation Theory/Lie Theory --- Marc Krawitz (UM) TBA --- Room TBA

...
Friday, September 28
3:10-4:00pm Student Geometry/Topology --- Marc Krawitz (UM) The fundamental group of a compact semisimple Lie group is finite --- 3096 EH

---

as i've been telling everyone, "i'm paying the piper early."

a few days ago i ran a search for job listings on the AMS website, and realised how soon some application deadlines are.

i don't think i have my act together for the NSF postdoc fellowship. it's too early, i haven't asked for recommendations yet .. and how can someone know who their "supervising scientist" will be, before the postdoc begins?

well, maybe next year.

at any rate, i gave myself this advice: better to talk now, so that i don't have to talk later..

..@ U of M, i mean;
there's another talk coming, in november.

that should be great fun!

.. because i envision days of frustrating fiddly application stuff, days of frustrations in trying to write up math, and more days of frustration with creating new math (which might not want to be created).

progress, measured by pages.

maybe i misjudge: it's easier to say that i've been more productive on non-computer mornings and days, because i am a compulsive "jotter" ..

"writer" is not quite the right word, because i feel it should mean someone who composes and edits texts which will eventually be complete and contain deep ideas. i haven't proven myself capable of the word, and that is the truth.

i can say that my daily quota is 3-5 sides of paper (possibly from the recycling bin) full of notes, but this includes smallish diagrams, attempts at proof, recapitulation [1] of yesterday's work (and days before, if i'm still trying to prove the same thing!), and then there is some extra exposition (in order to remember the intuition, and how to proceed).

plus, i'm wordy, which confuses everyone, including me.

but count the pages: over a week, that's at least 15 pages, or even 30! it's very good for self-esteem, i say!


in contrast, if you manage another 1/3 of a page of LaTeX on a computer, it seems to tell you little: it does not count the volume of words which has been cut and pasted and deleted. often only the nonsilly part is what survives the "save" command, and one does not keep much extraneous data.

(so let me tell you: when working things out "by hand," i often write silly things!)

moreover, your computer remains the same size: mass or volume, it doesn't matter the measurement. it is not like a pile of paper notes, over a week, which forms a pile ..neat or messy, it weighs more. though there is no reason to measure progress by physical size, we humans still do it anyway.

i know i do.




[1] let me disspell illusions; i learned this word from the adviser. i may be wordy, but i'm not that eloquent!

argggggggh.

sometimes i hate computers. they are very useful, but they have this way of making me unproductive while, at the same time, making me appear productive. while on the keyboard, i even feel productive.

ah, the deception.

in hopes that it would make me more accountable mathematically and professionally, today i sought to work on writeups of my research, but in the end i only fiddled and tweaked existing text and formulae and whatnot.

i tried to write up proofs, but ended up in the land of frustrating technical details which should be done thoughtfully and by hand, and not quickly in hopes that one can return to typing.

"should" is the operative word: i should have. but i fumbled around and tried to be clever and think without writing anything down; in the end i achieved very little and pressed the <delete> button a lot.

argh.

---

i missed a friend's talk, because of a scheduling error. rushing out of east hall, i hurried to rackham graduate school, scaled four levels of staircases ..

.. only to find an empty 4th floor;
so much for mentoring training,
and it was too late to hurry back to east hall,
and hear about geometric group theory.

argggh.

---

earlier i found another error in reasoning in my argument of an implication, and i had previously sent it to the adviser (yesterday?). just now, i've fixed it, so now i have to warn him.

just once, i wish that i could write something up properly.
argggggggh.

then again, i suppose it's good news,
that the proof can be fixed with no trouble,

but i wonder if, one day,
i'll run into an(other) error which i cannot fix.

serving two masters.

i guess i think of it more like "guild master" and not "slave-master," which means that i could be an apprentice. maybe postdocs are journeymen, then.

anyways: the adviser is well enough to tolerate my mathematics again, and recently i've begun talking with another member of my thesis committee about my research and its state of affairs.

i spoke with the adviser yesterday,
and i've spoken with the committee member just earlier, today.

it's been interesting, as well as a little difficult. i'm learning how to explain what i've done and what i think to someone "new," from the very beginning. i guess this will make me more accountable, or at least, more understandable.

one person understanding you is a fluke;
two people understanding you is a coincidence ..
so let me get back to you,
when i can convince a third person to listen to me .. q:


yeah.. so maybe there is hope.

doubts and demons.

sometimes i wonder if i should be a mathematician.

sometimes it feels like i'm not cut out for this. i'm too error-prone and too neurotic, too often like this namesake, a "frustrated over-analyst." too often i worry about my work, wonder if i've bungled another proof, made another error, and convinced myself of something wholly erroneous or unfounded.

sometimes i believe i can't do anything right, and sometimes that belief is justified when i find another error or inconsistency in something i've written months ago, an idea that i've run off with and imagined grand, shining towers ..

.. only the foundations are faulty and though imagined, the towers nonetheless fall into a collapse.

---

for some reason today, i feared there was an error in one of my proofs, and i read through my write-up. sure enough, i found one: a flaw.

i thought about it last night, lost my nerve and couldn't sleep well, a half-sleep. i "woke up" this morning at 8am, jotted something down ..

.. and it seems like it works. there might be something wrong with how exactly to say it, but it's clearer now, and the result is still true ..


.. i think,
but i've been wrong before.

it's a terrible thing when a mathematician loses his nerve. at the moment, i can't bear to look at it anymore, but i've been told that i'm finishing soon ..

.. and there's a lot of work to be done,
if that's really the case ..

.. and i haven't even gotten anywhere near writing up the schoenflies stuff (read: salvage from the first thesis problem) or doing professional things, like cv's and teaching/research statements and fellowship grants and the like!

---

i don't know anything; i don't think so, at least.

all these hours, all these days,
is this really research that i've been doing?
valid, careful arguments?

what if it's all wrong, and i've simply not found the one error that i cannot fix? what's to say that i haven't convinced myself of something stupid once again and wasted days or weeks or ..ye gods.. months?


when you don't believe in an afterlife, then the time you have remaining is what matters most. i don't mean moments (because one has to get on with living life and not watching clocks) but i mean longer times that you can forget but still count, like days and months.

yet i'm wasting all this time ..

epilogue to "me, the morning misanthrope"

a few days ago i woke early again (ca. 7:30am) and without really thinking about it, made a pot of coffee and moved to brush my teeth. it was then that i realised that i would have to work at home ..

.. because sometimes, the coffee tells you where to work.

walking into the bedroom, there remained the detritus of which i spoke before, lying upon the desk. it was my only option: i cannot work on the couch in the living room or couches in general, because i cannot write well while juggling pages atop a sturdy plane, in turn atop my lap ..

(and then, there are pens to worry about!)

even without caffeine, the solution became obvious:
  i took an empty cardboard box,
  shoved everything on top of my desk into the box,
  put the box on top of my bed, [1]
  pulled out my pens and pages and other work materials,

voilà: problem solved.

whistling happily to myself, i headed to the kitchen to pour myself a coffee, ready for a productive morning .. and indeed, it was. (:

[1] that wasn't a mistake. you see, if there is a box on the bed, then i'd have to move it out of the way in the event that i would get back in bed. trusting to laziness, it assured one less means of procrastination.

me, the morning misanthrope [from 4 Sept '07]

in the last year, fall and spring terms, some have pointed out to me that i am difficult to find and never in my office. but recently, my bedroom desk is a mess.

saying that is not quite a non-sequitur.
let me explain.

---

right now, my bedroom is in disarray. my desk is cluttered with moving-apartment debris (like old newspaper), knickknacks, airplane ticket stubs and receipts, and pocket change in a few currencies.

this is no good for the "up-and-at-em" morning mathematician, whom i strive to be. after years of suspicion, i am convinced: mornings are great for getting things done, especially mathematical research things and especially over a cup of coffee or three.

so it doesn't matter that the morning was a dental appointment; seeing such a desk, i'd have biked to the department in hopes of more productive environs and getting a little work done .. well, after visiting the espresso royale first.

but after all, i have an office: personal space, right?
"surely i can work there?"

8am - noon:

i faced queues at the dentist and horrid drilling because of my bad teeth. eventually, they fix what they can, and i slink away, a nonexample to proper dental hygiene.

1-2:30pm:

a postdoc friend peers wisely through the crack between door hinges, spies me at my desk, and asks, "lunch?" [1] and hungrily, i say yes. coffee follows, with another postdoc and a member of my committee. the weather is good, but we complain about it anyway.

3:15-5pm:

fellow student analysts arrive at the office; my officemate betrays my secret, and points behind the door. we are three and we plan an organizational meeting for a student seminar. one asks me what i know about this and that, and i rant without order or purpose for a while.

5-6pm:

there is a welcome back reception, 2nd floor of east hall [2]. i pretend to be a person, and exhibit something resembling normal conversation. apparently i am terrible at remembering female first-year students' names, and when reminded, either suspect incorrectly that they are german or ask strange spelling questions.

7ish-..

i realise i haven't gone to the gym for a while, so i go ..

.. blah blah blah, yakity schmakity:
the rest isn't worth telling.

so i must seize back my effective mathematical mornings, at ANY cost. maybe i am a misanthrope at times, but sometimes one needs peace and quiet to do something on paper that one won't immediately throw away, the next day.

i already miss the caribou coffee, near my former apartment; it was always there if my apartment wasn't quite right for mathematics in the morning, and none of my colleagues were ever there ..

.. well, except for one, when he was visiting for a month. but we ended up talking math then, so it doesn't count.


i've been told that my department is a rare find, that it is social and people actually talk kindly to one another. that's good: i agree, and my colleagues are fine people.

but i hope they are not dismayed if i'm not there, in the mornings.



[1] well, technically his question was longer, but it amounts to the same thing.

[2] i.e. free food and wine. also, there is the phenomenon of cliques, so being social is actually an option.

i guess we analysts can be helpful.

after the meeting.

so as announced previously and elsewhere, i saw the adviser yesterday, for the first time in .. months, and it went reasonably well.

talking to him made me feel ..not "older"
..but perhaps more sobered and "grown-up."

in the last month or two i've felt like an independent researcher, albeit not a very good one; older blog posts are evidence of this.

but i've thought and carried on my research,
minded my errors and flaws in reasoning,
  cursed my follies, then moved on,

reduced to cases, realised there was rigor missing,
succumbed to intuition and pictures,
  occasionally inspired, occasionally deceived.

expecting to discuss it with the adviser
..but never quite sure when, next.


well, apparently my recent ideas are not so crackpot.

---

it was good to see the adviser again.

it's obvious, but i'll say it:
things are not going to be the same,

.. but they will be close enough, for comfort.
he will do what he can, and so will i.