the math geek

so after around 7 months in the USA, I have proclaimed myself a math geek!!! well I already was a math geek in school…..I remember sitting on the train from delhi to jalandhar with my math book solving questions in trigonometry for class 10 when i was in class 9 because I was fascinated by it…..now I guess people know why I’ve been single all this long …

i dont know what made me interested in math…i was pretty bad at it initially…..but as soon as i moved to delhi i immediately became good…was that a miracle…i dont know…..I guess its that one good thing that makes us realize that we actually can be good at something…….anyways thats not the point…so till class 12 i was the stupid math geek who would kill himself coz he got 98/100 instead of 100/100. Looking back it sounds really funny, but I actually used to get so depressed for those 2 points…..

well then there were the iit days…where we were convinced by the professors that we were good for nothing!! we tried to fight it during our first semester but all of us kinda gave up after that…..but since ive come to USC…..the math geek in me is being reborn!.. i swear if i had professors like these when i was in undergrad, id be wearing thick spectacles and coconut oil in my hair and solving math problems for recreation ….well not as gruesome as that picture sounds but yeah…it wouldve been fun…..everybody hated my first math professor at USC except me that is……..he used to come to class with a torn up bag and completely unprepared and muddle his way through the lecture…forgetting things….making mistakes like 2+2=5 and getting completely confused…….but i liked him because (a) he was absolutely hilarious!!! ….. and (b) even though he fumbled with the material and got it right at the end…he was teaching us how to think…unknowingly of course…

so yeah…..math is this funny language of numbers……people really like to generalize….if you’re good in math..you’re very intelligent…i don;t see the correlation….im good in math…im horrible at many other things……..but i’m reminded of this quote by Von Neumann which I find really hilarious

In mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them.

And its so true…think about a mathematical formula….it makes sense only because some guy many many years ago gave something a meaning and you learnt about it and accepted it. And for some reason when applied to what happens around us , IT WORKS!!!!

3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399 37510 58209 74944 59230 78164 06286 20899 86280 34825 34211 70679 82148 08651 32823 06647 09384 46095 50582 23172 53594 08128 48111 74502 84102 70193 85211 05559 64462 29489 54930 38196 44288 10975 66593 34461 28475 64823 37867 83165 27120 19091 45648 56692 34603 48610 45432 66482 13393 60726 02491 41273 72458 70066 06315 58817 48815 20920 96282 92540 91715 36436 78925 90360 01133 05305 48820 46652 13841 46951 94151 16094 33057 27036 57595 91953 09218 61173 81932 61179 31051 18548 07446 23799 62749 56735 18857 52724 89122 79381 83011 94912 98336 73362 44065 66430 86021 39494 63952 24737 19070 21798 60943 70277 05392 17176 29317 67523 84674 81846 76694 05132 00056 81271 45263 56082 77857 71342 75778 96091 73637 17872 14684 40901 22495 34301 46549 58537 10507 92279 68925 89235 42019 95611 21290 21960 86403 44181 59813 62977 47713 09960 51870 72113 49999 99837 29780 49951 05973 17328 16096 31859 50244 59455 34690 83026 42522 30825 33446 85035 26193 11881 71010 00313 78387 52886 58753 32083 81420 61717 76691 47303 59825 34904 28755 46873 11595 62863 88235 37875 93751 95778 18577 80532 17122 68066 13001 92787 66111 95909 21642 01989

if you can remember the first 60 digits of this number…..welcome to the world of math geeks (i’m still preparing for my orientation )

Heres a useful mnemonic for you aspiring math geeks…just count the number of letters in each word……and voila..you have 30 digits of pi……i dont remember more than 5….my classmate remembers 60…to clarify

How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy chapters involving quantum mechanics. One is, yes, adequate even enough to induce some fun and pleasure for an instant, miserably brief.

~ by lazysud on March 1, 2007.