andy reagan only the interesting stuff

Topology of the universe

This past Tuesday I had to the opportunity to be a part of two talks by Dr Jeff Weeks, the first in my History of Mathematics and part II at the Math Club meeting. His name is linked because he has his own wiki, sweet! The talks were really interesting, investigating the topology (...geometry, sorta) of space. Attempting to answer questions of whether the universe of is finite or infinite, and what possible forms a finite universe could have. The going explanation is that of a many-dimensional torus, the sorta thing where if you fall off one side, you come back on the other. Thinking about these topologies is really interesting and a fun thought exercise to wrap your head around. Altogether, I enjoyed the talks for sure. Here is a picture of me playing one of his geometry games on the projector during history of math (and Dr Weeks behind me):

I knew it all along

During the past semester, I remember two specific instances in which my habits seemed at odds with what I was trying to do on the surface, but I had figured out that they were crucial to my success. In Eric Barker's blog, he has found science to back up each of my claims.

Sleeping

Trying to wrap my brain around the abstract mathematics of number theory to prove some difficult results, it was quite clear that I couldn't think as deeply without enough sleep.  This was even something I realized as early on as freshman year, doing homework late into the night. After many nights of long proofs homeworks, I noticed the rampant decline the quality of my thinking as the night drew on (quite evident in my proofs as I looked back).

Sitting in number theory class, before the class started, Dr. Brown heard some of the students complaining to eachother about how little sleep they got. So he asked them how much sleep they got, and the answers were around four hours. Perhaps he noticed my raised eyebrows, because he asked me and when I said "8-9 hours" the class somewhat gasped. How could he sleep so much and get anything done?? I could feel the class thinking this as they stared at me, and I quickly appeased this awe by remarking "every 3 days" in a laughing manner. But I really was getting 8-9 hours of shut eye every night, and I was the one in awe of how they could think with so little sleep.

Training

Trying to fit in training for road racing and tough course load certainly isn't easy, and there are times when the homework pile is high, but I need to get in a hard 3hr ride. I justified going on the ride to myself with the feeling that these activities were not opposing, but rather complementary.  I even literally said to myself during the spring that strong body is a strong mind, again and again, and stuck to that.  So firm was I in this belief, that I even wondered how one of my teachers who clearly didn't exercise was handling advanced calculus.

The great news is, both of these feelings of mine are backed by science!! So, I've been doing it right all along, according to the experts. Here is the article: http://www.bakadesuyo.com/what-are-the-rules-your-brain-works-by, which is a summary of the book Brain Rules by John Medina.

On this note, I'd like to propose another of my ideas as perhaps being true: well I thought of it earlier, but...now it's 1AM and I've lost it. See?

Haha that's all for now, night!

Actually, I thought hard (thought back to before I thought this thought, a train that started on my ride home...and found it again!). Here it is: we, as humans, are better adapted to gulp down room-temp water in large quantities sporadically than sip cold water. Here's why: since I've been running a lot, I've been real thirsty. And when I'm thirsty, the last thing I want is cold water. My mouth and head get cold before I've drank anything substantial. But when I have cool water in a big container (re-used half gallon gatorade bottles, I swear by them, credit goes to my Bro Kyle to turning me on to them), I sometimes drink the whole half gallon. And having them sitting around for when I'm thirsty to gulp down a quarter to half gallon allows me to stay well hydrated, throughout the day. Who knows...lol.

There's already pretty good evidence we're evolved to run (http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_mcdougall_are_we_born_to_run.html), so why not drink a lot of water?

Back to School

"Back to school, back to school, to prove to dad I'm not a fool." -Adam Sandler

I've been back for nearing a week now, and I just love it down here in BBurg with the town and how accessible everything is and the mountains. Seeing friends from cycling and tri that I hadn't all summer was awesome.  I've even had a chance to work on, and finish the tall bike that Alex Brown and I started this summer. Riding that thing around campus (it's literally one bike frame welded onto the top of a full bike) I have gotten some fun comments, mostly like "woah that's the coolest bike ever." I am 6 feet tall, and the bike is 6 feet in the air. I'll post of video of my sweet mounting technique  in due time.

Classes are going to pick up soon, I know it, so while I have time I'm excited to go this weekend and pick up my finished CHRIS KING R45 WHEELS! They're done today (Thursday) and they're gonna be soooo nice. Best bday present.  Also I got all of my stuff shipped down that I left at home, namely my running shorts.

That's all for now, here's a quick breakdown of my classload this semester (an excuse to not post for the next three months):

• MATH 4225 Real Analysis: touted to be hardest undergraduate course at Tech, I get what follows in an email this summer, and then Dr. Rossi finds it necessary to read out loud at the beginning of class Monday: "The word “elementary” in the title of the course is not a commentary on the difficulty of this course but rather it is the traditional nomenclature that differentiates the topics of  this course from a graduate level course in Real Analysis which involves Lebesgue measure and integration. In my opinion Math 4225 is the most difficult undergraduate math course that we offer. If you have never taken advanced calculus (Math 3225) or did poorly in that class or you have always had a difficult time with “proofs”, you may find another math class more appropriate."
• MATH 4124 Abstract Algebra: this shit's so abstract it's in the title! I was warned to say as far away from this class as possible by a friend Jason on the tri team, but Dr. Brown is teaching it and he's awesome, I've had him for a few others and I think he likes me (not that that helps though).
• MATH 5515 Mathematical Modeling of Biological Systems: seems so far to be an ODE class, but good that I have a biking friend from VBI in the class. But it's still a grad class. We shall see.
• MATH 4... History of Mathematics: Taking it P/F, because I was to take it and think that it's going to be super interesting. The teacher is Dr Andy Norton, and I really like him a lot, but I've heard the class is a lot of work.
• MATH 4445 Numerical Analysis: the first semester of the Numerical Analysis sequence shouldn't be a killer, but it ain't easy and we're going to be doing a lot of programming. Dr Boorgard *spelling is teaching it, and I like him a lot too, so should be okay.
• World Regions: possibly the largest college class ever, Dr John Boyer (JB, Boyer, the Plaid Avenger, J-Bizzler, The Professor...this guy's a celebrity) finds it as his calling to educate our generation on what's going on the world now, because it does all affect us, and it's important that we understand how our decisions affect the world. the class seems awesome so far, and is the same one that I took part in a stunt in as part of our Spartan Army. I'm only taking it as an audit

So maybe some themes that I've picked up on, a couple classes are killer and the others are hard, but they'll all add up and I might become a math-nerd-hermit. But I doubt that. Talking about them, I knew all of the professors, and all but two knew who I was when I walked in the door, which is pretty awesome. Kk, really gotta run now (literally, 12 miles today!).