Comments | swalch: Lessons learned from grad school

swalch

Lessons learned from grad school

Oct 26, 2007 09:18

Just a sample of the more interesting bits of wisdom I have acquired at grad school ( Read more... )

Comments 7

elle_cosette October 26 2007, 15:14:19 UTC

hey! it's great to hear from you.

What's a Taylor and how do you expand it?

swalch October 26 2007, 18:08:32 UTC

Taylor was a mathematician who created a theory of how to rewrite (we say expand) any function as an infinite sum of polynomials. Basically, you can trade in a nasty mathematical function for infinitely many easy to work with ones.

And then, because we are physicists, we work in a limit where we can get rid of most of the infinitely many easy to work with polynomials and just work with about two.

koola October 26 2007, 19:19:17 UTC

That sounds great. Taylor sounds like a nice guy. Ha.

Nice Guy seeth_ransome October 27 2007, 01:40:16 UTC

Yeah, but where was Taylor when I needed him in High School?

Thread 5

scotland_37 October 27 2007, 02:14:32 UTC

I'm glad that you get to do so many Taylor-expansions. I know that I don't miss all that messy work. If it makes you feel better, I anticipate at least four inches of late work every night this week.

swalch October 29 2007, 02:04:10 UTC

Tut, tut, I'm a physicist. I don't take messy expansions; I look them up. ;)