Until recently I have been very happy with Deezer elite on my Sonos. It sounds great. Lately though, more and more content is not available on Deezer so I use Spotify. I tried Apple Music in the beginning, and found it wasn't curated as well as Deezer and Spotify. I like both services for discovering new music.
The foibles that the author points out as evidence that the graduate students in biology are most miserable, are in fact the characteristics of weak graduate students in almost any field.
There are some respected mathematicians that will tell you that every equation is a lie. The meaning of the equals sign depends on the context. For example \sum_{n=1}^{\infty}a_n=s means that the limit of an associated sequence of partial sums is equal to s. This story doesn't even some close to revealing the problems with the "equals" sign.
The real problem is that it is a hassle to get any operating system up and running on a machine. Microsoft solved this problem by working with manufacturers to make sure the windows runs on their product. Apple solved this problem by only allowing their operating system to be used on machines that they sell. Until recently there had been no solution of this sort for Linux, so people who ran linux had to be brave enough souls to fuss with the machine so that it acts right after the operating system has been installed. Part of the reason that linux is starting to be used more on the desktop is because manufacturers are selling the machines with linux preinstalled. I am not so sure its about perceived value, its more likely about convenience.
I have been using calculators, and mathematics software from the very moment they became affordable. I bought my first calculator, and HP35 for about $800 in 1974. I used early mathematics software like macsyma and cayley, through maple and mathematics.
Your question is a little unclear. For best, in terms of most powerful, you want to use a laptop where you can program using C, unless what you are doing is graphics oriented, and aided by the many specialized libraries for doing high level mathematics.
If you are doing more exploratory computations then one of the general tools like Maple or Mathematica is good. However, these programs get "friendlier" every year, which means that the front end is eating more and more of your memory, which means the mathematics you can do is less powerful. However, there are ways to get around the front end for both programs.
If you need something that is powerful and hand held, I have always been partial to HP calculators, but I started out on them.
For a student, I suspect that the TI makes sense. Not because of the hardware or software, but because TI has been very aggressive about getting its products into the hands of teachers. This means you are most likely to be able to get meaningful help for how the calculator works. That is way more important than how well the actual calculator works.
The theorem of Abel (or Galois) that is being referred to merely claims that you can't find a general formula built from just the arithmetic operations plus taking nth roots. It has been known for a long time that there is a general formula using elliptic functions.
The student just used the method of formal power series to solve the equation. This approach dates back at least to Cauchy ~1850 and probably can be found in the works of Euler.
I taught a calculus class in a room that shared one wall with a bowling alley. Sometimes the crashes were well placed.. like cymbals in a standup comedians routine. Most of the time it was just hard to concentrate.
I can really appreciate the feelings of executives. Me being a lowly college professor, when I went over to using Unix from Macintosh I made the mistake of asking questions of the computer support group. Never again. It was the first time since I was a freshman in highschool that I had to put up with that kind of derisive,abusive behavior. That was about `95. My solution was to start using Linux, where I had complete control of my machine. I took a lot of hell back then, with my Slackware box on my desk. Eight years later, more and more machines in my department at Linux boxes. In another 5 years there won't be a computer support group.
I am a pure mathematician, however, I use computers to do numerical simulations, and to assist in algebraic manipulation. For this kind of work it is imperative that whatever you are writing in, the language manages memory well and if... then... statements run smoothly.
Mathematica. Although the barriers to start using Mathematica are low, branching statements really slow it down, and its use of memory is to my experience inefficient.
Maple. It uses memory better than Mathematics. The barrier to use is quite high, because it has two heads, a Lisp like head for interactive computation and a C like head for programming, the rules for evaluation are different for the two modes. This makes debugging hard. The front end still uses too much memory for some things.
MatLab. Vectors from hell. This is a great tool for engineering type applications, but for pure math it is too hard to get your conditional going and the data structures really eat memory.
C with libraries. After I get my act together using Maple, if I still can't get the big examples to work I use C along with math libraries, including the ones mentioned but also using pari which does arbitrary precision arithmetic very efficiently. The advantage of C is that it is simple and... you are in complete control of what the machine is doing.
I don't know about the physics, but spin networks are a really cool computational technique for organizing information about representation theory. It warms my heart to see the popular press take an interest in it. It remains to see if any of this stuff will every pan out experimentally. They are trying to make predictions on a global scale of 10^{-33} which is way beyond any measurements that have been taken up to this point.
String theory is really questionable. As I understand it, they talked and talked and talked, and then way after anyone would wait to make physical predictions, they predicted the half life of some common particle. The Japanese government then spent 15 million dollars to build these tanks underground to check the prediction, and found out the string theorists were off by a factor of 100. Then the string theorists say, WE FORGOT THE D-BRANES!, thats the ticket. The last 7 years have been a quest to figure out what the heck a D-Brane is. No one knows, but they figure that out, and maybe they can make a second physical prediction that is not even close.
For some reason the advanced power management doesn't work, (it did with 8.0). Also, although the wireless stuff recognizes my wireless card, there are links missing for it to make in internet connection. Too bad. Also its hard to put Latex on the computer anymore, you have to hunt it down, and emacs did not install automatically.
I am a math professor at an enormous state university. Guess what? Not only do I care about my students - I also have something to say.
I went to a private college. It took me about a term between the time I got interested in math till I figured out that my professors were much more into performing in front of an audience than they were into math.
For imature people, private schools are the way to go, but if you are driven and you really want to know about math, there is no substitute for ESU.
I have been a college professor for close to twenty years. I have never, ever heard of anyone ever being sent away from a math class because they weren't registered.
Thats right, just show up.
A degree is secondary to an education. Go ahead, drop in. Let the professor know why you are there, and he will be overjoyed to have someone who is interested.
Slashdot Mirror
Until recently I have been very happy with Deezer elite on my Sonos. It sounds great. Lately though, more and more content is not available on Deezer so I use Spotify. I tried Apple Music in the beginning, and found it wasn't curated as well as Deezer and Spotify. I like both services for discovering new music.
The foibles that the author points out as evidence that the graduate students in biology are most miserable, are in fact the characteristics of weak graduate
students in almost any field.
There are some respected mathematicians that will tell you that every equation is a lie. The meaning of the equals sign depends on the context. For example \sum_{n=1}^{\infty}a_n=s means
that the limit of an associated sequence of partial sums is equal to s. This story doesn't even some close to revealing the problems with the "equals" sign.
Linus Pauling's "The Nature of the Chemical Bond"
James D Watson " The Double Helix"
F. Carl Gauss "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae"
Henri Poincare "Méthodes nouvelles de la mécanique céleste"
Pierre-Simon Laplace "Mécanique Céleste"
Joseph La Grange "Mecanique Analytique"
Isaac Newton "Principia Mathematicae"
Herman Weyl "The Classical Groups"
Samuel Eilenberg, Saunders Maclane, "Algebraic Topology"
Alain Connes "Noncommutative Geometry"
The real problem is that it is a hassle to get any operating system up and running on a machine. Microsoft solved this problem by working with manufacturers
to make sure the windows runs on their product. Apple solved this problem by only allowing their operating system to be used on machines that they sell.
Until recently there had been no solution of this sort for Linux, so people who ran linux had to be brave enough souls to fuss with the machine
so that it acts right after the operating system has been installed. Part of the reason that linux is starting to be used more on the desktop is
because manufacturers are selling the machines with linux preinstalled. I am not so sure its about perceived value, its more likely about convenience.
I have been using calculators, and mathematics software from the very moment they became affordable. I bought my first calculator, and HP35 for about $800 in 1974. I used early mathematics software like macsyma and cayley, through maple and mathematics.
Your question is a little unclear. For best, in terms of most powerful, you want to use a laptop where you
can program using C, unless what you are doing is graphics oriented, and aided by the many specialized libraries
for doing high level mathematics.
If you are doing more exploratory computations then one of the general tools like Maple or Mathematica is good. However, these programs get "friendlier" every year, which means that the front end is eating more and more of your memory, which means the mathematics you can do is less powerful. However, there are ways to get around the front end for both programs.
If you need something that is powerful and hand held, I have always been partial to HP calculators, but I started out on them.
For a student, I suspect that the TI makes sense. Not because of the hardware or software, but because TI has been very aggressive about getting its products into the hands of teachers. This means you are most likely to be able to get meaningful help for how the calculator works. That is way more important than how well the actual calculator works.
I have been running Linux on my Thinkpad T41p since I bought it. I don't have a windows partition either.
I am currently running SUSE 9.3 on it.
As they used to say about used cars, "It runs great".
The wireless works fine, it goes to sleep, and I have emacs and latex. What more could you ask for?
The theorem of Abel (or Galois) that is being referred to merely claims that you can't find a general formula built from just the arithmetic operations plus taking nth roots. It has been known for a long time that there is a general formula using elliptic functions.
The student just used the method of formal power series to solve the equation. This approach dates back at least to Cauchy ~1850 and probably can be found in the works of Euler.
I taught a calculus class in a room that shared one wall with a bowling alley. Sometimes the crashes were well placed.. like cymbals in a standup comedians routine. Most of the time it was just hard to concentrate.
Buy a picture of Nancy Reagan and look at it every time you get the urge.
I can really appreciate the feelings of executives. Me being a lowly college professor, when I went over to using Unix from Macintosh I made the mistake of asking questions of the computer support group. Never again. It was the first time since I was a freshman in highschool that I had to put up with that kind of derisive,abusive behavior. That was about `95. My solution was to start using Linux, where I had complete control of my machine. I took a lot of hell back then, with my Slackware box on my desk. Eight years later, more and more machines in my department at Linux boxes. In another 5 years there won't be a computer support group.
I am a pure mathematician, however, I use computers to do numerical simulations, and to assist in algebraic manipulation. For this kind of work it is imperative that whatever you are writing in, the language manages memory well and if... then... statements run smoothly.
Mathematica. Although the barriers to start using Mathematica are low, branching statements really slow it down, and its use of memory is to my experience inefficient.
Maple. It uses memory better than Mathematics. The barrier to use is quite high, because it has two heads, a Lisp like head for interactive computation and a C like head for programming,
the rules for evaluation are different for the two modes. This makes debugging hard. The front end still uses too much memory for some things.
MatLab. Vectors from hell. This is a great tool for engineering type applications, but for pure math it is too hard to get your conditional going and the data structures really eat memory.
C with libraries. After I get my act together using Maple, if I still can't get the big examples to work I use C along with math libraries, including the ones mentioned but also using
pari which does arbitrary precision arithmetic very efficiently. The advantage of C is that it is simple and... you are in complete control of what the machine is doing.
Hope thats helpful
I don't know about the physics, but spin networks are a really cool computational technique for organizing information about representation theory. It warms my heart to see the popular press take an interest in it. It remains to see if
any of this stuff will every pan out experimentally. They are trying to make predictions on a global scale of 10^{-33} which is way beyond any measurements that have been taken
up to this point.
String theory is really questionable. As I understand it, they talked and talked and talked, and then way after anyone would wait to make physical predictions, they predicted the half life of some common particle. The Japanese government then spent 15 million dollars to build these tanks underground to check the prediction, and found out the string theorists were off by a factor of 100. Then the string theorists say, WE FORGOT THE D-BRANES!, thats the ticket. The last 7 years have been a quest to figure out what the heck a D-Brane is. No one knows, but they figure that out, and maybe they can make a second physical prediction that is not even close.
Time to walk away kids.
I have already loaded it onto my laptop.
For some reason the advanced power management doesn't work, (it did with 8.0). Also, although the wireless stuff recognizes my wireless card, there are links missing for it to make in internet connection. Too bad. Also its hard to put Latex on the computer anymore, you have to hunt it down, and emacs did not install automatically.
I don't know...
What is wrong with you? It seemed like an interesting question and all you can do is post flame bait.
I am a math professor at an enormous state university. Guess what? Not only do I care about my students - I also have something to say.
I went to a private college. It took me about a term between the time I got interested in math till I figured out that my professors were much more into performing in front of an audience than they were into math.
For imature people, private schools are the way to go, but if you are driven and you really want to know about math, there is no substitute for ESU.
I have been a college professor for close to twenty years. I have never, ever heard of anyone ever being sent away from a math class because they weren't registered.
Thats right, just show up.
A degree is secondary to an education. Go ahead, drop in. Let the professor know why you are there, and he will be overjoyed to have someone who is interested.