Read all these books

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_Texts_in_Mathematics

Wait, hold on, I'm going to use my psychic powers on you!

Sources tell me... you are a virgin!

I thought I wanted to do that too.  Then I took math courses. All they are is proofs.

Fuck.

Yes, they are :)

Applied maths may be better though:

http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/AM_Dept/undergrad/programs.shtml

I thought maybe you were going to aspire to become Turing complete...

why?

Why what?

Why read all of those books?

No reason.

Just not to waste time :)

Why read all of them, can't you pick a particular topic.  I know math majors generally pick something like topology or something.  And normally you wont "Read" the books but actually go through the algorithms and do the proofs.

Of course, read means all that stuff.

Sigh. Probably not all. Just enough to pass Math. PhD comprehensive exam

woot. one of these was my number theory professor (i think he has 4 books on the list). he was tough. he assigned unsolved problems on the final.

I hate to insult you so much, Rick, but that's a stupid goal.  it's a lazy way out to stick to that series.  Also, unless you took a lot more math at UBC than you've ever maentioned, most of them will be too advanced.  have you already done senior-level analysis courses?  multi-variable boundary-value problems?  linear algebra?  it's unlikely that all those books are the best ones for their topic.

I took more math courses than I will ever need, if I keep working in this stupid place...

Obviously, not any 400 level courss.

There is no such thing as a PhD comprehensive exam.  Maybe one you take en route to getting the PhD, but at the end you demonstrate that you know one thing incredibly well, well enough that at least 3 highly trained people in your field who have had time to rip apart your thesis can't really find any reason to deny you a doctorate.  Not only that, you have to have made "a lasting contribution to the body of science".

I would suggest, if you are serious and I dont think you are.  Doing something like bluebeard (with the forex thing), setting up a blog, "math for dummies" or something.  "statistics for people who don't know statistics"

I bought a couple of statistics for dummies books thinking I want to do the same thing.  I got to about Gaussian distribution or something and that was it.

> Just not to waste time :)

Then read the complete archie comic book series. You'll learn a lot.

I think to say of math courses "all they are is proofs" is to somehow underestimate what mathematical proofs should be about. What mathematical proof should be about is coming to a complete understanding of why and how something is true, approaching it from many different directions, seeing the connections with related things, and ultimately being able to write down a proof that is different from the one first learned.

There is some sense in which proving things is the whole of mathematics.

Aaron,

"There is no such thing as a PhD comprehensive exam.  Maybe one you take en route to getting the PhD..."

Yeah, that's what I meant.

Bot, I agree. "For dummies" books in general don't work for academic subjects. You need to find books written by professionals who know how to explain their subjects.

Yeah, you are right in doubting my motive.

I still have not finish reading Donald Knuth The Art of Programming volume one.

Yeah, not gonna get anywhere if you didn't get to 400 and 410.

I was a math major, now I can't remember how to do a single piece of calculus. It's all lost. Oh well.

I think reading all those books for "no reason" WOULD be a waste of time.

Heck. I wonder what your reason for having a son...

Ah, that's too bad.  Insulting me about my son, eh?  And here I was just trying to be helpful.

Well, you do whatever you want to do with your life project.