Mathematics

Anyone here study mathematics separate from computer science? Pure mathematics interests me. I have been listening to podcasts about the history of mathematics and it seems that famous mathematicians across history explored their own interests independently of mainstream currents of study. Much of it not practical at all. Are there any fields of mathematics that you find compelling? And why?

There are plenty of fields that you can go into, but many of the ones that I know of are under the comp sci umbrella. Data analysis seems like it could be up your alley. Big Data is growing exponentially, and research centers like pew are going to be growing as well. May not be what you want, but you could check into it

I did a bachelor degree in mathematics, then switched to comp sci. Maths is fuarrrking hard compared to comp sci to me. It could just be my particular natural inclinations. A lot of stuff I did like partial differential equations and vector calculus (especially applied to physics) felt satisfying when precisely solving problems and modeling things, but now I end up never using any of it

>>9258 Calculus is something I excelled at in secondary school but haven’t followed up on. I think I’m going to do some independent studies of it.

I have become fascinated with abstract algebra and topology. Might try to learn Homology and Homotopy in my free time, if I have any. I used to like discrete math but there's so much bookkeeping and so little interesting universal ideas. I'm doing a math degree, going to be taking advanced coursework with the intention of doing a PhD. >it seems that famous mathematicians across history explored their own interests independently of mainstream currents of study. honestly this is false. The only person I can think of who really advanced the field without being part of the international community was Newton, and he only did a soykafty version of what Liebniz did. I think the basic ideas for every advancement float around, and everyone can smell them, it just takes someone really smart to put them together right. For instance, anyone who studied Ricci Flow could have told you it would be useful for Poincare's Conjecture, it just took Gregori Perelman to figure out exactly how.

>>9258 I agree, math is much harder than CS. I suppose that's why I'm studying it, because it's more of a challenge.

I study dynamical systems, particularly (neuronal) network dynamics. The emergent behavior of systems with lots of moving parts fascinates me, and I like seeing how these models are applied too. Merging theory and application has a lot of historical precedent in dynamical systems research. Much of the theory was constructed by physicists, chemists, biologists, and at least one notable meteorologist (Lorenz). Topology and abstract algebra are also really interesting to me. I like how clean and general they are compared to the classical formulations. >>9262 This is sort of where I'm at. I'll probably end up in some kind of applied mathematics once I get through grad school, but I prefer studying pure mathematics and working out the applications on the side.

Originally went to university to study Engineering. Got my undergrad in Mathematics though and then into a PhD program but left that with a Masters after selling out to a good job offer halfway through. This was a few years ago now. Algebra/Combinatorics always felt more natural to me though I enjoyed my required topology, measure theory, and mathematical logic papers. My brief taste of Class Field theory opened my eyes to it's beauty but the rest of the number theory I studied didn't interest me at all. Most interesting thing I did was a capstone project in Computational Algebra. I still keep in touch with my supervisor and contribute to some software projects. I enjoyed being able to work with concrete objects and their representations. I also own a signed copy of the ATLAS and it's a bitch to store.