Annual Disappearing Act

Hey everyone.

The school year is approaching quickly and I'm about to begin my research and teaching duties (Just got my office key yesterday yay).

So unfortunately, that means I have to do my annual hiatus, while I do my studies. I don't think I have any loose ends to tie up, so all that's left to say are my goodbyes.

I'll try and pop in from time to time when I'm available, but I can't guarantee too much...the best way to contact me is by MSN.

So with that, I'll be back next summer. Have a good one.

 

lol Pulse. You're the only one I know for certain will still be here when I get back. xD (hopefully many more, like D_W, I've known you for a bit, SB's a nice guy and Answer Man's always a character)

Give it a try though, I always come back really energized and wanting to RP, debate, etc.

I'm doing my masters in math...it'd be something like grade 18 for me? I'm not 100% sure how the U.S. schooling system works, but I already graduated (bachelors) from university.

 

Oh yeah that reminds me...Have you been to SEF lately? S:

I checked a few days ago, and it's just a screenshot of the forum when it was active...but you can't log in, view any threads or anything...the forum software is gone.

Nothing says I didn't skip a grade or work a few years after highschool.

I've been hired by the university as what's termed a "Teaching Assistant."

This means in addition to taking courses and researching at the university (Masters degrees are research degrees on the way to doctoral (PhD) degrees), I've been hired to help teach. I'm teaching Vector Calculus...that's exciting haha.

What's more I get paid to maintain course webpages. 0:

Here's my shameless plug: *Link removed*

(I'll remove the link in a few days though, so get it while it's hot xD)

 

Yeah, I'd go back and try to revive FFN, but whenever I do lagatcy's at my throat and I just get bored and leave. xD

Not a whole lot, but I do have office space and a key to said office space. lol.

Oh and a complimentary bus pass! xD

Make sure you get on that...your creations/productions will entertain me for generations. xD

Calculus is the mathematical study of rates of change, and something called a limit. If you have a mathematical model let's say, of how much rain falls in the U.S.A. each year, a lot of information is lacking...like on what days did it rain the most, and what days were there jumps/abrupt changes etc.

So what you do is you look at a curve, do an operation on it (called 'differentiation'), and you get a new curve which tells you a bit about how that original curve behaved. If you do this a sufficient number of times, you can get as much information about the curve as you want (you create what's called a 'Taylor Series'). Of course this isn't all you do in Calculus, but this is the part that's relevant.

There is also a field of study known as Linear Algebra...and what it deals with, are 'spaces.' 2-D, 3-D, 4-D, n-D, these things can all be described reasonably well by Linear Algebra, and little mathematical objects called Vectors (they're literally...just arrows that 'float' in space. Like the x-axis and y-axis are infact, vectors).

Vector calculus is when the two courses merge together...that is you use calculus to quantify things in 2-D and 3-D space (at least I'm instructing the course in 2 and 3-D, though it can be higher dimensional too).

Using vector calculus, you can calculate many things without memorizing formulas, such as the surface area of a sphere, or how long a curve is that is positioned in some way in 3-D space. You can for instance, calculate the surface area of some random shape, like this (random google image pic):



(Hope that pic doesn't stretch out the page) It's a beautiful subject in the sense that it is a very visual one with lots of pictures and stuff.