Math Help

[gvidas]

Well, what excites me is that elsewhere on that site they have coursework for all kinds of things. But there's also video lectures and notes and etc for calculus, which for a while now I've had the nagging realization I should try to learn. Linear algebra, yeah, whatever; but the rest is gold. And the premise of the entire project is beautiful.

[xoxoxoBruce]

MIT decided to put this stuff online as a community resource a year or two ago. Learn all you want for free, it doesn't cost them much. They don't have any trouble filling all the slots they have, with students paying big bucks to get the sheepskin to go with the knowledge.

[Pete Zicato]

Will: ... And Two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fuckin education you coulda got for a dollah fifty in late chahges at the public library

[Char*Pntr]

Bookmarked. One thing I love about this board, is I never know what to expect when I get here - it seems to cover a little bit of everything! (I just spent some time relaxing reading the "Nut House" thread for some needed comic relief.

It's been a while since I've been in college (back then books were only $15 - 20 (used but in good shape).

One comment on linear algebra - In my EE program, of course we have to take a lot of math classes - 3 semesters of Calculus, Applied differential equations, etc. So one summer I thought I'd take the Linear Algebra class, because with all the other math classes, I could then get a minor in mathematics as well. It sounded like an easy class- but it was pure hell.

All of the math classes I took up to that point, I could characterize as "shake 'n bake" that is, you learn a math definition, you get a problem, stick it in, and out pops the answer... pick 'n shovel work.

Linear Algebra, on the other hand, you actually have to think - learn about vector spaces, what a "basis" is, proofs, eigenvalues, and so on. It took a lot of thinking on my part. Sadly, I have never had to use any of this at work or anywhere else.

I'll be watching the rest of the videos, mainly out of curiosity, why some students pay big big bucks to attend MIT, as opposed to a smaller and less expensive college (as I did) to learn the same thing.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Did you even run into a math problem and rack your brain how to solve it because you haven't done anything like that since you graduated mumble years ago? Or draw a complete blank because you didn't go that far?

Well Bunkie, cheer up because the professors at MIT are here to help.

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathemati...ideo-lectures/

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Char*Pntr

I'll be watching the rest of the videos, mainly out of curiosity, why some students pay big big bucks to attend MIT, as opposed to a smaller and less expensive college (as I did) to learn the same thing.

You don't go to a place like MIT just to take the courses. You go there to make friends with the other people who are also going there. It makes the environment more enriching, and as a bonus, you have connections all over the world for the rest of your life in your chosen field.

[Adak]

Right on, Glatt. ^^^^^^^

[Char*Pntr]

Duly noted. There is an intangible value to attending a high profile university, such as MIT. BTW, when I was leaving the service, I traveled to MIT to check it out as I was selecting a university to attend. Back in '81 they told me the tuition was around $13K per year. I thought at that time I could never afford that of my GI education grant.

Spent the weekend there tho, talking to the students. I remember this one corridor, the students called it the "infinite" corridor, as it was so long. Probably long gone by now.

Originally Posted by glatt

You don't go to a place like MIT just to take the courses. You go there to make friends with the other people who are also going there. It makes the environment more enriching, and as a bonus, you have connections all over the world for the rest of your life in your chosen field.

[xoxoxoBruce]

And the classrooms are just giving them tools, the real action is going on in the labs. Both required work, and trying to work out hare brained schemes the students dream up.

Quite often they're working on ideas a collaboration of 2, 3 or 4 students hashed out over pizza & beer, then brought the table cloth/place mats to the lab. MIT owns thousands of patents, and spins off dozens of companies, so many the labs are self supporting.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Char*Pntr

One comment on linear algebra - In my EE program, of course we have to take a lot of math classes - 3 semesters of Calculus, Applied differential equations, etc. So one summer I thought I'd take the Linear Algebra class, because with all the other math classes, I could then get a minor in mathematics as well. It sounded like an easy class- but it was pure hell.

All of the math classes I took up to that point, I could characterize as "shake 'n bake" that is, you learn a math definition, you get a problem, stick it in, and out pops the answer... pick 'n shovel work.

Linear Algebra, on the other hand, you actually have to think - learn about vector spaces, what a "basis" is, proofs, eigenvalues, and so on. It took a lot of thinking on my part. Sadly, I have never had to use any of this at work or anywhere else.

Same experience for me. The average for our tests were around 30%. I never felt so dumb in my life when it came to math.

Right now I'm taking continuum mechanics, which is basically just applied linear algebra.

[Lamplighter]

OK, here's another field that defies understanding by this common man...

NY Times
Quantum Computing Reaches for True Power

In 1981 the physicist Richard Feynman speculated about the possibility
of “tiny computers obeying quantum mechanical laws.”<snip>
Since then there has been sporadic progress in building this kind of computer.

Classic computers are built with transistors that can be in either an “on” or an “off” state, representing either a 1 or a 0.
A qubit, which can be constructed in different ways, can represent 1 and 0 states simultaneously.
This quality is called superposition.<snip>
There is, of course, a catch.
The mere act of measuring or observing a qubit can strip it of its computing potential.

So researchers have used quantum entanglement —
in which particles are linked so that measuring a property of one instantly reveals
information about the other, no matter how far apart the two particles are — to extract information.
But creating and maintaining qubits in entangled states has been tremendously challenging.

My first reaction when I read this article was "What the ... ???"
For me, I need "real world" images to make any sense at all
out of anything beyond Algebra 101, but Wikipedia comes pretty close.

Sometimes, two particles will act together and become a system.
They behave like one object, but remain two separate objects.
It is as if they now sit on the same teeter-totter seesaw.
No matter how long the seesaw is, even if it is one million miles long,
if one end is down the other end must be up, and this happens instantly.

I'm just glad I'm not a young sprout planning to get my education in Computer Sciences.

[xoxoxoBruce]

That sounds like every byte would need two locations, one to hold the information, and a second sacrificial location to read the first location.
But if the sacrificial location is destroyed by reading it, then it could only be read once. If it can only be read once, how does the computer search for shit in memory, without destroying everything it's not looking for?

curiouser and curiouser.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Char*Pntr

Spent the weekend there tho, talking to the students. I remember this one corridor, the students called it the "infinite" corridor, as it was so long. Probably long gone by now.

Nope, still there. My sister's a grad student there.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by glatt

You don't go to a place like MIT just to take the courses. You go there to make friends with the other people who are also going there. It makes the environment more enriching, and as a bonus, you have connections all over the world for the rest of your life in your chosen field.

Also, you get to do research on really important issues of our times...

Scientists learn physics behind how cats drink water without getting wet

Something as complex as a cat drinking water doesn't get unraveled and turned into a paper at the nation's top science journal overnight.
It was almost four years ago that Roman Stocker, an associate professor at MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
became interested in how his cat, Cutta Cutta (or "Stars Stars" in the Australian aboriginal language), drank.
His enthusiasm spread to Aristoff, Sunghwan Jung, now an engineer at Virginia Tech, and Pedro Reis,
a physicist who works on the mechanism of soft solids at MIT.

[ZenGum]

Lamplighter:

For me, I need "real world" images to make any sense at all

Then, sir, stay the heck out of quantum physics. At the very small scale, matter behaves in very strange ways, and there is nothing at all at the human scale that behaves the same way, so you will never get that "real world" image that will give you a feeling of understanding.

For example:

if one end is down the other end must be up, and this happens instantly.

... not just that, but until you measure it both ends are (in a super-position of) both up and down at the same time. Measuring and finding one to be up means that the other is instantly down. And yes, god-damn instantly, with no speed of light delay, which is a direct contradiction of relativity which says nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. We (well, not me, boffins) can produce this effect on demand with less that $10,000 worth of equipment, which is both intriguing and annoying.

ETA - the cats drinking is worth studying. 30 years ago someone spent years figuring out how lobster eye-stalks work. 10 years later the discovery was used to create a new way of etching electronic circuit boards, or something like that, and is earning millions. Never know where these things might lead.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Lamplighter:

Then, sir, stay the heck out of quantum physics. At the very small scale, matter behaves in very strange ways, and there is nothing at all at the human scale that behaves the same way, so you will never get that "real world" image that will give you a feeling of understanding.

Prove it.