Aspiring mathematician, nice to meet you

[nox]

Hello, i am 29 year old that has an old love for mathematics and i joined here in hope to interact with people far more knowledgeable than me.

A little of me, i used to study technical physics, then switched to pure mathematics, but cause of problem with structure and being consistent it did not end well. I was recently diagnosed with Asperger and is one of the reasons i never seem to be able to complete anything i do.

During my time at university i successfully completed:
calculus 1-3, linear algebra, discrete math and combinatorics.
Since then i been exposed to proof based courses but never finished, i started in the past
Proof based linear algebra, more focus on matrix theory. Advanced calculus, and real analysis.
I basically know how to do an epsilon limit proof, know how to construct the real numbers from the integers, know how to define euclidean space R^n.

I been at this for 10 years, and cause of my Asperger i have hard time focusing on math for a long time, i get bored and tomorrow i could start drawing again and be back at math within 2 months or half a year depending. I realize my fundamentals is lacking and i need to plow through what lies ahead, the rest of advanced algebra, the rest of proof based linear algebra etc.
Right now on top of studying the course material for these two courses, i am working my way through, linear algebra done right.

I realize i could have been done with the undergrad level by now if i just did it everyday, but that is why i am reaching out to mathematician and physicists to break the pattern.
Since i want to push myself to develop, i am thinking of maybe i should have pet projects, "research" on my level, problems that forces me to learn new mathematics branches or even discover something new. Reading books and doing just the exercises get dull quickly, i need to apply my knowledge into math itself.

I asked this question at math.stackechange and people got really mad, they froze my post, so i thought i would try to reach out here. My goal is not to get a degree, but my goal is to understand enough at a graduate level, so i can do my own research. Maybe someday i will try to get through university, but today that is not an option. So i will be checking this site many times a day, and try to become a good part of this community, looking forward to many great conversations that illuminate the mind and ease the soul.

 

[berkeman]

Welcome to the PF, @nox

Check out our math forums, especially the math contest threads and the solutions. Also, if you end up with schoolwork-type questions during your studying, go ahead and post in the Homework Help forums, and show the problem and your best efforts so far to solve it. You will get good tutorial help in there.

Enjoy the PF!

 

[fresh_42]

Hello and !

I hope we can fulfill your expectations, and I'm sure we will try! We are a bit strict with personal research, mainly to get rid of all those who think they have solved a millenium problem with the means of high school mathematics. There are still people around who are convinced they solved a problem Galois has proven to be impossible almost a century ago! So you may ask everything, but aren't allowed to present everything. You might want to take part in our monthly math challenges in the General Mathematics forum. In any case I hope you will have fun. Stay curious!

 

[berkeman]

Here is a screenshot of the top of the General Math forum with one of the Math Challenge threads and the solutions thread...

 

[nox]

Hello and !

Thank you, and wow that is so funny, yeah i know enough of math to realize high school does not even teach real mathematics reasoning. The aim of my "research" would be the same as if i was learning to program, and instead of doing just isolated exercises i tried to apply my knowledge to make a game, or a website etc. You all seem to be very nice here, i am glad

 

[nox]

Here is a screenshot of the top of the General Math forum with one of the Math Challenge threads and the solutions thread...

Thank you, will check it out. By the way i can tell you something funny, that shows you how my mind operate sometimes.
I was trying to follow a proof that spivak did about schwarz inequality, and he used a fact that when x,y where linear independent you could use that to dervive a quadratic equation that is always bigger than 0. Use the reasoning that since it lacks real roots, we can use the discriminant to complete the proof. I was scratching my head for 30 min, asking myself how do we know it has no real roots. Until i realized wait, it was always > 0 thus no real roots, something very simple yet cause spivak never mentioned that reasoning in words took me a while to make the connection.

 

[bonifaceaw]

Hello, i am 29 year old that has an old love for mathematics and i joined here in hope to interact with people far more knowledgeable than me.

A little of me, i used to study technical physics, then switched to pure mathematics, but cause of problem with structure and being consistent it did not end well. I was recently diagnosed with Asperger and is one of the reasons i never seem to be able to complete anything i do.

During my time at university i successfully completed:
calculus 1-3, linear algebra, discrete math and combinatorics.
Since then i been exposed to proof based courses but never finished, i started in the past
Proof based linear algebra, more focus on matrix theory. Advanced calculus, and real analysis.
I basically know how to do an epsilon limit proof, know how to construct the real numbers from the integers, know how to define euclidean space R^n.

I been at this for 10 years, and cause of my Asperger i have hard time focusing on math for a long time, i get bored and tomorrow i could start drawing again and be back at math within 2 months or half a year depending. I realize my fundamentals is lacking and i need to plow through what lies ahead, the rest of advanced algebra, the rest of proof based linear algebra etc.
Right now on top of studying the course material for these two courses, i am working my way through, linear algebra done right.

I realize i could have been done with the undergrad level by now if i just did it everyday, but that is why i am reaching out to mathematician and physicists to break the pattern.
Since i want to push myself to develop, i am thinking of maybe i should have pet projects, "research" on my level, problems that forces me to learn new mathematics branches or even discover something new. Reading books and doing just the exercises get dull quickly, i need to apply my knowledge into math itself.

I asked this question at math.stackechange and people got really mad, they froze my post, so i thought i would try to reach out here. My goal is not to get a degree, but my goal is to understand enough at a graduate level, so i can do my own research. Maybe someday i will try to get through university, but today that is not an option. So i will be checking this site many times a day, and try to become a good part of this community, looking forward to many great conversations that illuminate the mind and ease the soul.

I recommend you try reading John Horton Conway's "On Numbers and Games". It starts with generating integers with sets, much like they generate counting numbers in Set Theory, to use set theory as a foundation of the rest of mathematics. But he starts off with ordered pair of sets, which become the Dedekind cuts, used to define the real numbers if a rule to do with ordering is observed.

If ordering rules might be broken, the ordered pairs of sets are called games. The sets are labeled Right and Left, and identified with the two players of the game. If the Right player has the move, the Right set is a set of games each one representing the new game after his move (conversely for Left).