Edwards suggests to “read the classics”. Meaning the most famous works of the most famous mathematicians. In particular he means Riemann’s original paper Ueber die Anzahl der Primzahlen unter einer gegebenen Grösse, obviously he means a translation (for mono lingual English speakers).

As insane as reading Riemann sounds, it’s not nearly as insane as reading Grassmann (which made no sense to mathematicians). I think I agree with him. There isn’t any other way to really get a taste for where the passion comes from. So many maths texts provide very minimal context for the development of the ideas. They might provide things in a chronological order of development and think that suffices, but it doesn’t.

To get a real taste for a subject you have to dig around and stumble down the same dead ends. It isn’t enough to know the topic if you don’t know why it’s interesting. This doesn’t mean you have to understand the original papers completely. I mean, Riemann? Good luck me.

I probably would have run to the hills at this idea two years ago, but last year I had to research Hilbert’s 10th Problem. I went on long tangents, reading all sort of ancient papers by people that have theorems named after them. I actually wrote a pretty crappy paper by the end of it. I got so side tracked by logic, I took too long get around to doing any number theory. It was a number theory course. At the time I regretted that, but in hindsight I’m glad. Who gives a fuck about marks anyway eh?

Also all the ancient logic got me confused when I came to write the paper. They had odd conventions that are very different to the way they’d be written now.

I started with Hilbert’s address and Hilbert himself. Then I read Gödel’s paper where he first proved his more famous incompleteness theorem. I read papers by Kleene, Church, Turing, Post etc, each one subtly changing the course of mathematical history. Then I read all the papers by Davis, Putnam, Robinson and Matiyasevich which led to the completion of the solution of Hilbert’s tenth problem (vast tracks of these got me lost). It was a true mathematical odyssey that far more fascinating by reading the source, rather then via popular science novels or even retrospective maths papers. All of the papers would be available semi publicly in almost any University library.

I wish I could find a similar hook for my thesis. Then I’d be set, I’m having so much trouble looking for a place to dig my fingers in. Grassmann seems too far removed from my thesis. I guess I should find out who really came up with the definition I’m looking at, since it’s supposedly been know for a while. Or at least I could find out which century it came into the mathematical consciousness.

So yeah I should read the classics, but time is always a factor. In our results orientated education system it also requires an assessment reason.
I’m not promising anything to myself.

I’ve one class left and a thesis to write. The class will be on group representations. It should be hard. Good luck me.

I’m heading to my homeland today. 2 hour trip, motorbike screaming just to maintain 100kph.

I’m visiting a friend I haven’t seen in maybe a year? maybe more. Should be fun.

Uni is a little crappy lately. I dropped a class, got to make it up next semester. They’re all very nice to me about it though. I’m still behind drastically in one of my classes (which I should have finished completely by now).

My sis is moving in for a few months. Haven’t lived with her in years.. Should be good.

And my big news, is that I’m committed to visiting New Zealand over the winter break. If only for a few weeks. I aiming at a month. Lots wandering around aimlessly. Maybe I can rent a bike there? Price could be an issue though.

If I like it too much, I might not want to come back.

I just need to get away. Do something on my own for a change.

I’ve been gaming too much, to avoid study. That’s why I fucked up my class so much.

But still… I’ve finished 4 seasons of Pro Evolution Soccer 6. The lynchpin of my team is Zinedine Zidane. I wouldn’t let him retire. In the game he just turned 38, even at 38 he’s amazing.

Speaking of which, I saw the movie “Zidane”, it’s excellent art movie. A full game from Zidane’s perspective, no dialogue as such. He gets sent off in the end, but creates an amazing goal. He drags his feet when off the ball, as if he’s playing with an imaginary ball. So subtle.

I haven’t shot archery in weeks. I’m getting back into though.

Ballet just finished for the term. 2 week break. I’ll miss it.

I’ve decided I need to do exercise of some sort in the mornings or I do nothing of use with my day. Cycling, yoga, or a jog, maybe even swimming, but that seems like too much.

I’ve been downloaded and purchasing tons of music lately. I bought a Sophie Koh cd, should be arriving soon. Some Veda Hille CD’s arrived. I’ve got some new Nina Nastasia albums, and I’m expecting some more Tujiko Noriko. It’s funny I think most of my music lately seems to be by women artist. That’s a turn around. I actually remember saying I couldn’t find any music by women artists. Shows how hard I looked.

It moves so fast. I have to spend all day every day studying. Then I discover I haven’t done a thing on my thesis all week. Yesterday I left uni at 10pm, got home had dinner, sat around for half an hour, then crashed. I slept like shit though because my mind couldn’t stop thinking about the maths problems I’d just worked on. So then I slept in and missed the morning of study.

I think the key to not going insane will be to grapple onto the thing I am doing at the time, forget about progress, and just trust in planning that I will come out the other side each week.

I have just looked into definitions of the determinant for linear tranformations on real vector spaces. Now I’m delving into the determinant for commutative rings. I find when I’m reading up on things I am constantly asking myself “what the fuck does that mean?”

Time to learn about fields, rings, modules, tensor products, exterior products. bla bla.

The grand goal so far is a general definition of the determinants which applies for non-commutative rings, and the nicer more friendly algebras. There is one, but I can’t follow it at all.

I have a supervisor and have even started getting stuck into my thesis topic. My thesis will be soaked in Linear Algebra.

All in all good news.

In other good news, I actually went to a party yesterday where I enjoyed myself. I met new people, woah.

*touches wood*