Timeline for How do I, as an undergraduate, find interesting, accessible questions to work on to see if I'd be interested in research mathematics? [closed]
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
23 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 1, 2022 at 14:50 | history | closed |
Joseph Van Name YCor Alexey Ustinov Hollis Williams Friedrich Knop |
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| Nov 1, 2022 at 8:39 | history | removed from network questions | Asaf Karagila♦ | ||
| Oct 31, 2022 at 18:50 | vote | accept | Chris | ||
| Oct 31, 2022 at 16:09 | comment | added | Eric | @ChristianDean a professor is a specific job title, not just someone with a PhD. A PhD is necessary but not sufficient. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor It’s worth making yourself aware of what it means — many undergrads do not know! Such is the constant life of grad students: “don’t call me professor, I am not one” for semester upon semester. | |
| Oct 31, 2022 at 15:08 | comment | added | Sidharth Ghoshal | Anyone can play the generalization game but the problem is as you start to play it you keep finding out that other people have done stuff, so actually finding an original result becomes very very very hard, and this is why it is better to talk to experts. But its a fun game to play and will teach you a bunch of things along the way. | |
| Oct 31, 2022 at 15:07 | comment | added | Sidharth Ghoshal | So an example might be take a function you like which is normally only defined for positive integers (ex the factorial), and try to define it for rational numbers, or if something is defined for rational numbers can be defined for arbitrary real or p-adic numbers? That's one flavor of this idea. A different flavor, if an object can be defined for functions, can a similar object be defined for functions-of-functions? Ex: we have a taylor series for functions, after a lot of work, i was able to scrap together a taylor series like construction for non-linear functions-of-functions. | |
| Oct 31, 2022 at 9:30 | answer | added | Stephan Kolassa | timeline score: 5 | |
| Oct 31, 2022 at 5:39 | comment | added | Chris | @SidharthGhoshal Could you expand a little more on that second option? I don't quite understand what trying to generalize or extend a particular result might look like? Do you mean something like trying to extend a theorem to more general cases or trying to modify an algorithm to work for more objects? | |
| Oct 31, 2022 at 5:38 | comment | added | Chris | @MattF. Probably more of 1 and 2, and less of 3. It'd be nice if it's a problem I might solve, but I can appreciate the value in wrestling with a hard question even if no answer is produced. | |
| Oct 31, 2022 at 4:36 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Oct 31, 2022 at 2:58 | comment | added | Sidharth Ghoshal | Definitely REUs are a good place to start. You can also just look at result you think are beautiful and try to generalize or extend them and just keep doing it until you run into something no one’s done before. But that might a laborious route | |
| Oct 31, 2022 at 1:57 | history | edited | David White | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Oct 31, 2022 at 1:42 | comment | added | user44143 | By “questions which are accessible” do you mean “questions which I can understand” or “questions where I can appreciate the challenges that experienced mathematicians see” or “questions which I might solve with hard work and good luck”? | |
| Oct 30, 2022 at 21:57 | comment | added | Chris | Thank you for the corrections @Carl-FredrikNybergBrodda Right, I am aware that having a PhD and having done graduate research are essentially synonymous. I think I just wanted to put emphasis on the research part, but you're right, both are definitely redundant! And thank you, I wasn't aware all that the term "professor" generally refers to those with PhD's (at least in North America). I thought having a MA or BA was sufficient. | |
| Oct 30, 2022 at 21:37 | comment | added | Carl-Fredrik Nyberg Brodda | @ChristianDean Just a few points on terminology: essentially all professors have a PhD (though exactly what "professor" signifies can vary quite wildly by country and context), and everyone with a PhD has done graduate level research (by definition). | |
| Oct 30, 2022 at 21:29 | comment | added | Chris | Thank you @VladimirDotsenko I've never heard of that, but I'll make sure to look into it! | |
| Oct 30, 2022 at 21:03 | review | Close votes | |||
| Nov 1, 2022 at 14:50 | |||||
| Oct 30, 2022 at 20:49 | comment | added | Chris | @Wojowu Right good point, I’m planning on doing that as well. Specifically my advisor as he has a PhD and math and has done graduate level research. | |
| Oct 30, 2022 at 20:45 | answer | added | David White | timeline score: 18 | |
| Oct 30, 2022 at 20:41 | comment | added | Vladimir Dotsenko | I understand that REU is something quite common in North America - so perhaps going through nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/list_result.jsp?unitid=5044 would help. | |
| Oct 30, 2022 at 20:35 | comment | added | Wojowu | You should talk to your professors about that. | |
| S Oct 30, 2022 at 20:30 | review | First questions | |||
| Oct 30, 2022 at 21:11 | |||||
| S Oct 30, 2022 at 20:30 | history | asked | Chris | CC BY-SA 4.0 |