NEW MEME

Aug 05, 2004 23:44

If you're a mathematician, create your own mathematical biography analogous to


12 May 1984: born
1985 (fall): first learn the difference between 1 and 2
1987 (spring): impress grandparents by reading a sign at the zoo showing a rhinoceros's weight to be 24000 pounds and telling them that it weighs "12 tons"
1987 (December): decide that I like numbers more than letters; get kicked out of 1st school
1989-90: go to kindergarten, discover all sorts of fun mathematical facts on my calculator, get in trouble for writing "99 x 99 = 9801" on the blackboard
1990 (spring): get an actual math tutor named Robert Allen with whom I discuss lots of things mathematical (at the pre-algebra level); get kicked out of kgtn 2 weeks before graduation
4 Sep 1990: start public school at 1st grade; discover math is "start at the top and then go down (3x) to make the numeral one"
14 Sep 1990: skip to 2nd grade
1990-1991: take part in the highest level 2nd grade math class while working on "pre-geometry" with Robert and my parents try and convince the school system to let me take algebra... meanwhile I learn "front digit estimation" via which a $3.99 item and a $1.99 item together cost somewhere between four and five dollars (about a decade later I was talking about this with my friend Mariel... she had a better example of front-digit estimation; for her it was '19 + 19 = 20'; from that moment I was INSTANTLY smitten)
1991-1992: finally take Algebra I, also go to the fourth grade G/T room during 'math' time to do 'enrichment', watching all those older kids beat me out most of the time (including math olympiads) but remembering the ONE time I beat them (the question: how many integers from 1 to 150 have a 1 in them?)
1992-1993: take geometry, HATE two-column proofs and geometric 'intuition'; spend most of the time playing with Geometer's Sketchpad and reading 'Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School'
June 1993: take geometry final; get a 75 on part 1 but am told that I'm going too slow - race through part 2 and get a final grade of FORTY SIX PERCENT
Summer 1993: "review" geometry and retake final exams until:
27 Aug 1993: Take two geometry exams, get a 91 and an 88, see it averaged as an 89.5 and my final grade for geometry magically becomes an A
28 Aug 1993: IMMEDIATELY begin working on Algebra II (YAY! It's NUMBERS again!)
1993-1994: take Algebra II; get bogged down in systems of THREE matrices, hard story problems, polynomials, matrices, etc
March 1994: finish course material, take final, get a 62
March-Jun 1994: review material from Algebra II
1994-1995: take precalculus
Early Jun 1995: take a practice final and am informed I got a 21/25; my dad is mad and tells me to get a 24/25 or better on the real final (otherwise Mr. Koppelman won't respect me mathematically) - turns out it was graded wrong and I get a 22
Mid Jun 1995: take a real final on the last day of school - my dad makes me spend an hour at home that day memorizing trig identities... then the final comes back with a 23; my dad is totally nonchalant
1995-1996: am slated to take CALCULUS
October 1995: the county supervisor, Dr. Collins, doesn't like me taking calculus so my parents put pressure on me to ace the unit test; I get about 90 percent of the points possible

BUT there were 26 questions divided into parts (I believe 80 parts total) each part worth 4 points; she took the total # of deductions, which was 32, and subtracted from 100 to get my score - which made it appear as if I had earned a D+ in the test!

then my dad spends a long time arguing w/Dr. Collins and she FINALLY agrees to let me take BC calc
Oct/Nov 1995: Dr. Collins gives me a series of easy quizzes so my first quarter grade can be recorded as "A"
Nov 1995-Mar 1996: finish up the AB syllabus
Mar - May 1996: learn the topics needed for BC calc
9 May 1996: at barely five feet tall and still eleven years old, I am unleashed into a high school cafeteria full of old giant HSers to take the BC calc exam; it's ridiculously easy though so I ace it (with a 5 - of course in those days you could use a calculator on ALL the free-response)


keep in mind... at THIS point I was fully eligible to take diff equations... but instead

August 1996: My parents decided to sign me up with EPGY's course in Linear Algebra and Multivariable Calculus
November 1996: The books finally arrive... with vastly incorrect information and REALLY poorly taught lectures
February 1997: Receive final exam for linear algebra, take it and
April 1997: Get back final exam with a 67 percent on it
Meanwhile:
March-May 1997: Study for pilot version of AP Stats exam
May 1997: ACE ridiculously easy version of AP Stats exam; though I was projected for a 3 I knew that I would get a 5 as soon as I saw the question 'a coin is flipped 10 times; the # of heads are recorded - this is repeated 100 times. what is the most likely bar graph of the results? and the options are: A) all bars 0-10 approximately the same height; B) bar 0 is the highest; C) bar 10 is the highest; D) bar 5 represents 50%, bars 4, 6 just under 25%, a trial represents bar 7 and the other bars are EMPTY; E) bar 5 is at 25%, bars 4-6 are at 12-15 percent, bars 3 and 7 around 5-10%, bars 2 and 8 around 3-4 percent, bars 1 and 9 around 1 percent, and nothing at bars 0 or 10)'
Jun 1997: retake final exam after contacting prof... and end up with an 80 - the multivar part never came

Incidentally: EPGY got their act together with the course the next year; they now claim that Linear Alg was only offered from 97 on and Multivariable Calculus only from 98 on - or at least that's what they said in 2000!

Finally, having suffered through that (without the 'calc 3' my dad thought was necessary... my parents decide to have me take diff eq in 97-98)

24 Aug 1997: The day before HS starts, I discover that the world-class diff EQ teacher had JUST retired
26 Aug 1997: Go to my first diff EQ class (meets Tues, Thurs 3 hours after school) only to discover that
A) the new teacher never took diff EQ (would later learn that he had no intention of ever learning it)
B) the text is incomprehensible
C) everyone else in the class with one exception is a senior; the next youngest person is nearly 3 years younger than I am and many of them were born in the SEVENTIES
D) everyone is intimidatingly smart and has no trouble w/the text
Aug 1997 - May 1998: struggle with this badly-taught differential equations course; get screwed grades-wise and get a B in the course after the guy decides to grade everything for me for the 4th quarter WAY down (I mean, making a 93 into a 53 - claiming that 35% of my work is 'illegible')
Jun 1998: my dad REALLY wants me to get straight A's so he negotiates with the teacher, forcing me to do an extra credit project in which I write a study guide to get an A for the course

Editor's note: the study guide was only used once, and then only for the easiest chapter!

1998-1999: my parents do NOT let me take any math courses; instead I do a mentorship in which I learn chaos theory at college park (following up on my game theory the preceding year)

1999-2000: again my parents do NOT let me take any math; just continuing the chaos mentorship in which I develop an intel-level project (I learn a little multivar... but from AP Physics, which I take as self-study... but that's another story)

April 2000: when visiting Duke my parents FINALLY learn from the prof that my math background (BC calc) is NOT enough for college...I'd been trying to tell them this for years

12 May 2000: turn 16; my parents FINALLY let me sign up for linear algebra in the fall

Jul-Aug 2000: go to MathCamp and discover that real mathematics is NOT just geometry proofs, get characteristic functions named after me and get impressed by those people born from late 84 to 87 who are now way faster than I am

Sep-Dec 2000: ACE linear algebra
exam 1: HUNDRED
exam 2: HUNDRED (so far it's all ridiculous algebra 2 review)
here, when the lin alg begins, campbell says 'now is when the course gets harder'
exam 3: HUNDRED
final exam: make a stupid mistake (thinking [1 0 1], [0 1 1], and [1 1 1] are not a basis because the average of the first two seems to be the third... it's NOT by the way!) and get a 98 instead of a HUNDRED - and think I just missed an A+, but this school doesn't even GIVE A+'s

yes, there were crushes, but this is NOT a romance biography so I won't discuss them here

Jan-May 2001: take multivar w/prof Minkoff (who looks like Ferris Bueller's sister)... only to find out at the end that she will only teach ONE of the three topics I need to learn; work way too hard for the computations yet have no problem acing the course anyway

Well... you all know the rest from here (my college years): I worked my ass off in Math 55 my first year - the rest is fully chronicled in the journal, but if you want a full report of the first 2 years check out
1) http://www.livejournal.com/users/mmailliw/64941.html
2) http://www.livejournal.com/users/mmailliw/65259.html
3) http://www.livejournal.com/users/mmailliw/66595.html
4) http://www.livejournal.com/users/mmailliw/67379.html
5) http://www.livejournal.com/users/mmailliw/68476.html
6) http://www.livejournal.com/users/mmailliw/69064.html

and for the most recent year: there's

Fall semester: work my ass off on Real Analysis (Math 212a) and the functional analysis applied stuff (Math 116) only to discover at the end of the semester that
A) Nov: there would be no 2nd semester real analysis
B) Dec: I was rejected from Cambridge (this was the 7th, THREE days after I dumped the sexy Krista)

so I did that mad rush with applications... and then made it through my final semester, where I worked my ass off in two ridiculously easy classes (alg II and diff eq) and cambridge changed its mind in February so THAT'S WHERE I'M GOING!

P.S. You'll notice I didn't mention thesis... that's because it totally screwed me over - check out
http://www.livejournal.com/users/mmailliw/124465.html

for details

NOTE: Competitive mathematics/math competitions are NOT included in this history.

long long ago

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