[數撚圍爐區] Scientia Manu et Mente (67)
瘋不二子
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When I got into grad school at MIT, my life plan was to (1) get a PhD and then (2) a post doc and then (3) a tenure track offer, and then (4) die several decades later at a black board with a piece of chalk in my hand. QED.
I should mention here that I was not very much in tune with emotions and feelings, most of all my own, but also others. I thought about life mathematically. I swear to you, I once wrote a letter professing my love to a girl, and ended the letter with QED. This strategy was not effective.
In any case, the Academic path (for math and most other disciplines) has a similar structure, whose goal is to funnel the apprentice into specialization. In the course of attending afternoon seminars, grad students get to meet and talk with the professors, one of whom will eventually become your thesis advisor. It is a process similar to dating, where you find someone with similar interests, willing to engage you.
When I met the professor who eventually became my advisor, the Socratic dialogue went something like this:
PROF: So Niles, what sort of math are you interested in?
ME: Geometry and Analysis, I suppose
PROF: Analysis, eh? Anything in particular?
ME: (thinking) Um, Differential Equations?
PROF: Well, most of the theory of Ordinary Differential Equations has been worked out. So, are you thinking perhaps of Partial Differential Equations?
ME: Um, sure, why not?
PROF: Well, the Linear Theory of PDE’s is mostly done, as are most first-order equations. So would you be interested in higher order non-linear Partial Differential Equations?
ME. Sounds interesting…
PROF: Okay, so what *kind* of nonlinear partial differential equations? If you break them down there are Elliptic equations, Parabolic, or Hyperbolic, the latter having to do with waves.
ME. Wave equations sound interesting…
PROF: Okay, no we are looking at nonlinear hyperbolic partial differential equations. Some of the local theory is understood a bit, but a lot of work is going on now in the Microlocal theory, which looks locally in the phase space of the Lagrangian manifolds of the flows along characteristic curves.
ME. Okay. Sounds interesting, I’ve never heard of Microlocal Analysis.
PROF: Excellent, see me next Wednesday at 3pm.
And so it began. In other circles, this is what is known as “being led down the garden path”. A perfectly logical process.
Five years and six published papers later, I was doing a Post doc at UCLA, and had just been offered a tenure track position at Duke University. I’m standing at a blackboard, looking at some equations describing the shape of the Swallowtail singularity, and the though occurred to me that with this tenure track position, I am being handed the rest of my entire life on a silver platter, and all I need to do is to say Yes and I will be doing this work for the REST OF MY FUCKING LIFE.
Quite literally, at that moment, I fell to my knees, with a piece of chalk in my hand. And I cried. Sobbed, really.
Because (as I mentioned in my original post), the thought of me standing in front of a board like this, for the next forty years, alone, seemed incredibly pathetic and …. SAD.
I had simply never even thought about whether I was happy. I didn’t even really know what the hell that meant. It got me thinking. What does happiness *look* like?
I called up the chairman of the math department at Duke University (who was also a friend of mine), and told him “Mike, I want to thank you for the tenure offer, but I’ve got to tell you, I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my life now … but I suddenly realize that it is not this.”
My postdoc still had another year or so before I had to find something to do, so I began to talk to friends, telling them about my soul searching and quest to find something new and different. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it involved mathematics (which I still loved), but not with me in front of a classroom.
I should mention here that I was not very much in tune with emotions and feelings, most of all my own, but also others. I thought about life mathematically. I swear to you, I once wrote a letter professing my love to a girl, and ended the letter with QED. This strategy was not effective.
In any case, the Academic path (for math and most other disciplines) has a similar structure, whose goal is to funnel the apprentice into specialization. In the course of attending afternoon seminars, grad students get to meet and talk with the professors, one of whom will eventually become your thesis advisor. It is a process similar to dating, where you find someone with similar interests, willing to engage you.
When I met the professor who eventually became my advisor, the Socratic dialogue went something like this:
PROF: So Niles, what sort of math are you interested in?
ME: Geometry and Analysis, I suppose
PROF: Analysis, eh? Anything in particular?
ME: (thinking) Um, Differential Equations?
PROF: Well, most of the theory of Ordinary Differential Equations has been worked out. So, are you thinking perhaps of Partial Differential Equations?
ME: Um, sure, why not?
PROF: Well, the Linear Theory of PDE’s is mostly done, as are most first-order equations. So would you be interested in higher order non-linear Partial Differential Equations?
ME. Sounds interesting…
PROF: Okay, so what *kind* of nonlinear partial differential equations? If you break them down there are Elliptic equations, Parabolic, or Hyperbolic, the latter having to do with waves.
ME. Wave equations sound interesting…
PROF: Okay, no we are looking at nonlinear hyperbolic partial differential equations. Some of the local theory is understood a bit, but a lot of work is going on now in the Microlocal theory, which looks locally in the phase space of the Lagrangian manifolds of the flows along characteristic curves.
ME. Okay. Sounds interesting, I’ve never heard of Microlocal Analysis.
PROF: Excellent, see me next Wednesday at 3pm.
And so it began. In other circles, this is what is known as “being led down the garden path”. A perfectly logical process.
Five years and six published papers later, I was doing a Post doc at UCLA, and had just been offered a tenure track position at Duke University. I’m standing at a blackboard, looking at some equations describing the shape of the Swallowtail singularity, and the though occurred to me that with this tenure track position, I am being handed the rest of my entire life on a silver platter, and all I need to do is to say Yes and I will be doing this work for the REST OF MY FUCKING LIFE.
Quite literally, at that moment, I fell to my knees, with a piece of chalk in my hand. And I cried. Sobbed, really.
Because (as I mentioned in my original post), the thought of me standing in front of a board like this, for the next forty years, alone, seemed incredibly pathetic and …. SAD.
I had simply never even thought about whether I was happy. I didn’t even really know what the hell that meant. It got me thinking. What does happiness *look* like?
I called up the chairman of the math department at Duke University (who was also a friend of mine), and told him “Mike, I want to thank you for the tenure offer, but I’ve got to tell you, I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my life now … but I suddenly realize that it is not this.”
My postdoc still had another year or so before I had to find something to do, so I began to talk to friends, telling them about my soul searching and quest to find something new and different. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it involved mathematics (which I still loved), but not with me in front of a classroom.
One day, a friend came by who was working part time at the NASA Jet Propulsion Labs, and she said she was at a meeting where another group in the Image Processing Section was saying how what they really *needed* right now was a mathematician to help solve some geometric problems they were having.
The next week I showed up at JPL for an interview. And the rest was history. I worked at JPL for ten years, sitting at my desk, with people coming in with all kinds of crazy problems that they figured a mathematician might have some idea how to solve. I would solve them, and they would say thank you. It was almost like being a detective.
And THIS is what I now realized was missing: at JPL, I felt I was *needed*, and what I did *mattered* to some other person, somewhere. I was helping people who had missions, to explore Mars, or Saturn, something important. Not just something inside my head, but something in the world.
I was engaged with the world, and now was able to use my skills to help.
And I was happy.
Quod Erat (not so easily) Demonstrandum.
The next week I showed up at JPL for an interview. And the rest was history. I worked at JPL for ten years, sitting at my desk, with people coming in with all kinds of crazy problems that they figured a mathematician might have some idea how to solve. I would solve them, and they would say thank you. It was almost like being a detective.
And THIS is what I now realized was missing: at JPL, I felt I was *needed*, and what I did *mattered* to some other person, somewhere. I was helping people who had missions, to explore Mars, or Saturn, something important. Not just something inside my head, but something in the world.
I was engaged with the world, and now was able to use my skills to help.
And I was happy.
Quod Erat (not so easily) Demonstrandum.
但係世上大部分工作都係沉悶既
有一份好玩既工作係好彩 一般人應該分開興趣同工作
唔係話唔可以重疊 但期望要分開
手巴咁 返工放工都problem solving 返工零期望就ok
有一份好玩既工作係好彩 一般人應該分開興趣同工作
唔係話唔可以重疊 但期望要分開
手巴咁 返工放工都problem solving 返工零期望就ok
Applied係有用既 pure係冇用既
所以去industry 啦
難道大學讀三（四）年 識計Fourier transform
transform了的人生 人工也扭曲了
若回望 再報多次jupas 可能我仲係 狗沖數學系
transform了的人生 人工也扭曲了
若回望 再報多次jupas 可能我仲係 狗沖數學系
推po冇人理 係咪因為discrete math is not math
仲有啲先會formal少少
因為無人理
平時啲0.999...≠1好多人理
平時啲0.999...≠1好多人理