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164 votes
21 answers
25k views

When should a supervisor be a co-author?

What are people's views on this? To be specific: suppose a PhD student has produced a piece of original mathematical research. Suppose that student's supervisor suggested the problem, and gave a few ...
59 votes
10 answers
12k views

What do you do when you're stuck?

I'm pretty sure almost all mathematicians have been in a situation where they found an interesting problem; they thought of many different ideas to tackle the problem, but in all of these ideas, there ...
52 votes
4 answers
8k views

Changing field of study post-PhD

I am doing my PhD in algebraic graph theory, for not much more reason than that was what was available. However, I love deep structure and theory in mathematics, and I do not particularly want to be ...
36 votes
15 answers
10k views

Is pure mathematics useful outside of mathematics itself? [closed]

From time to time Mathoverflow allows soft questions because they are arguably best answered by active mathematicians and they can benefit other mathematicians/PhD students/math undergraduates. I ...
29 votes
5 answers
5k views

Collaboration or acknowledgment?

This post is a sequel of: When should a supervisor be a co-author? This time the topic is about the interaction between two professional mathematicians (in particular junior-senior, but not ...
15 votes
6 answers
2k views

What does keep you "doing what you do"? [closed]

I am towards the end of my Phd (with some difficultues to overcome, I can say I am really satisfied about it) and I was wondering about what to do next. There are basically two paths: academia or ...
M.S.L.'s user avatar
  • 835
7 votes
5 answers
3k views

What does a mathematician expect from mathematics education? [closed]

Consider that my question is not a personal and/or subjective question. Perhaps, you have hired a mathematics educator in your department and you are interested in finding a way to communicate with ...
3 votes
2 answers
1k views

Advice on Giving a Talk [closed]

What advice do you have for giving a talk on a mathematical research paper to people in other fields in science (not physics nor astronomy) but without lot of math background? Thanks.
2 votes
0 answers
382 views

How to handle a research identity crisis

I have studied applied math and got a PhD (3yrs) in that field with applications in fluid dynamics. Then in my first postdoc (1.5yrs) I did again a postdoc in applied math but studied applications in ...
Riri's user avatar
  • 31
-4 votes
1 answer
551 views

Amount of mathematical knowledge required for starting Ph.D. in pure mathematics [closed]

How much mathematics should one know before starting a Ph.D. program in pure mathematics? For example what topics one must understand well to pursue a Ph.D. in US University in Number Theory (...
SARTHAK GUPTA's user avatar