Maths and Theoretical Physics Course Thread TR031 TR035

Raspberry Fileds · 18-07-2014 07:31PM

Wow, those are disappointing. Anyone have opinions on which is the best Maths dept in Ireland (in terms of reputation, variety, quality, etc)?

EuropeanSon · 19-07-2014 01:28PM

Raspberry Fileds wrote: »

Wow, those are disappointing. Anyone have opinions on which is the best Maths dept in Ireland (in terms of reputation, variety, quality, etc)?

It's still Trinity by a mile, but Trinity is just getting slightly less good.

Cork are fairly decent, and UCD have been getting better lately (they've taken on a few excellent former Trinity academics recently).

countbezukov · 19-07-2014 05:58PM

EuropeanSon wrote: »

It's still Trinity by a mile, but Trinity is just getting slightly less good.

Cork are fairly decent, and UCD have been getting better lately (they've taken on a few excellent former Trinity academics recently).

UCD now claim to be the "top ranked" on their homepage but yeah it's still trinity even if it's struggling to keep some of the younger lecturers, and not really hiring replacements.

ride-the-spiral · 20-07-2014 12:15AM

Bottleopener wrote: »

Yup. Slowly becoming a TP department apparently >_>

Well there aren't more TP choices than there usually is.

Raspberry Fileds · 20-07-2014 12:58AM

ride-the-spiral wrote: »

Well there aren't more TP choices than there usually is.

But they form a larger proportion because of a reduction in Pure options.

Having so many CS options is new as well, right?

countbezukov · 20-07-2014 10:03AM

But when all the CS options are in the first term, and there's only one course after christmas that doesn't have a requirement from before christmas, it makes it difficult to do them....

Bottleopener · 20-07-2014 01:47PM

ride-the-spiral wrote: »

Well there aren't more TP choices than there usually is.

Yeah thats fair enough. Just slightly irked that if you took stats in second year your choices are slightly ridiculous due to the fact theres 30 credits of stats first term and 5 second term, which means you cant really do much at all due to needing prereqs for term 2.

EuropeanSon · 20-07-2014 04:22PM

countbezukov wrote: »

But when all the CS options are in the first term, and there's only one course after christmas that doesn't have a requirement from before christmas, it makes it difficult to do them....

You don't have to do 6 and 6, you know.

I did 7 and 5 in third year, and 6 and 4 (plus project) in 4th.

I know someone did 8 and 4 in third year.

countbezukov · 20-07-2014 08:15PM

EuropeanSon wrote: »

You don't have to do 6 and 6, you know.

I did 7 and 5 in third year, and 6 and 4 (plus project) in 4th.

I know someone did 8 and 4 in third year.

I know yeah, planning on doing 7 and 5, but want to do most of the stats ones so still can't really fit them in. Also, we've heard from some sources that they are actually making it 6 and 6.

Anonymo · 20-07-2014 08:26PM

EuropeanSon wrote: »

It's still Trinity by a mile, but Trinity is just getting slightly less good.

Cork are fairly decent, and UCD have been getting better lately (they've taken on a few excellent former Trinity academics recently).

Nonsense to say TCD by a mile (and pretty condescending to suggest they've improved by only getting in some TCD guys). Its pretty close with UCD -- including internationally. Maynooth has massively improved in the past 5 to 10 years and is getting recognition now. UCC is behind those by a good bit (which is a ridiculous status but there you go)

EuropeanSon · 20-07-2014 11:15PM

Anonymo wrote: »

Nonsense to say TCD by a mile (and pretty condescending to suggest they've improved by only getting in some TCD guys). Its pretty close with UCD -- including internationally. Maynooth has massively improved in the past 5 to 10 years and is getting recognition now. UCC is behind those by a good bit (which is a ridiculous status but there you go)

That bit is pretty inarguable. That is exactly what has happened, it isn't condescending at all.

Probably incorrect to say by a mile in terms of the department itself now, but the courses in Trinity are certainly far more reputable.

Anonymo · 20-07-2014 11:46PM

EuropeanSon wrote: »

That bit is pretty inarguable. That is exactly what has happened, it isn't condescending at all.

Probably incorrect to say by a mile in terms of the department itself now, but the courses in Trinity are certainly far more reputable.

Of course it is arguable. Just cos some tcd guys went to ucd does not automatically mean the standard has gone up (given how close they actually are it may mean it's gone down!). The rest of your post is ridiculous too and yes incredibly condescending. I did undergrad and msc in ucd and phd in cambridge. The fact is there is little difference between ucd and tcd (more accurately ucd has broader scope and tcd more specalists in string theory and lattice). If you're happy to think there's a big step up from ucd to tcd you are kidding yourself. Both are good institutions. Neither are world class but both possess some top notch researchers

Anonymo · 20-07-2014 11:48PM

EuropeanSon wrote: »

That bit is pretty inarguable. That is exactly what has happened, it isn't condescending at all.

Probably incorrect to say by a mile in terms of the department itself now, but the courses in Trinity are certainly far more reputable.

Of course it is arguable. Just cos some tcd guys went to ucd does not automatically mean the standard has gone up (given how close they actually are it may mean it's gone down!). The rest of your post is ridiculous too and yes incredibly condescending. I did undergrad and msc in ucd and phd in cambridge. The fact is there is little difference between ucd and tcd (more accurately ucd has broader scope and tcd more specalists in string theory and lattice). If you're happy to think there's a big step up from ucd to tcd you are kidding yourself. Both are good institutions. Neither are world class but both possess some top notch researchers

rjt · 22-07-2014 08:46AM

Anonymo wrote: »

Of course it is arguable. Just cos some tcd guys went to ucd does not automatically mean the standard has gone up (given how close they actually are it may mean it's gone down!). The rest of your post is ridiculous too and yes incredibly condescending. I did undergrad and msc in ucd and phd in cambridge. The fact is there is little difference between ucd and tcd (more accurately ucd has broader scope and tcd more specalists in string theory and lattice). If you're happy to think there's a big step up from ucd to tcd you are kidding yourself. Both are good institutions. Neither are world class but both possess some top notch researchers

I reckon the above is basically spot on (and I'm a TCD grad, so can't be accused of bias). My experience in the US has been that UCD and TCD are about as well known as each other. I'm very happy I went to TCD myself, but the snobbery is unwarranted and embarrassing.

kozak · 21-08-2014 11:06AM

Hello

Questions to Theoretical Physics students:

1) Where 1st year books can be bought for a reasonable price? Amazon offers Algebra by Michael Artin for 50 USD which looks a bit steep.

2) Would Win 7 i5 laptop with 4G RAM be good enough for Theoretical Physics tasks?

Thanks

Maybe_Memories · 21-08-2014 01:05PM

kozak wrote: »

Hello

Questions to Theoretical Physics students:

1) Where 1st year books can be bought for a reasonable price? Amazon offers Algebra by Michael Artin for 50 USD which looks a bit steep.

2) Would Win 7 i5 laptop with 4G RAM be good enough for Theoretical Physics tasks?

Thanks

I'm maths but point still stands... Don't buy books.

Tears in Rain · 21-08-2014 01:53PM

kozak wrote: »

Hello

Questions to Theoretical Physics students:

1) Where 1st year books can be bought for a reasonable price? Amazon offers Algebra by Michael Artin for 50 USD which looks a bit steep.

2) Would Win 7 i5 laptop with 4G RAM be good enough for Theoretical Physics tasks?

Thanks

Any piece-of-**** laptop is grand for TP, there's nothing computationally intensive you'll be doing. You probably won't need to buy any books for 1st year. Possible exception being the Mechanics book (Kleppner and Kolenkow).

sganyfx · 21-08-2014 06:59PM

If you have a laptop don't bother buying books, pdf files are pretty useful and free ^_^

ride-the-spiral · 22-08-2014 12:18AM

kozak wrote: »

Hello

Questions to Theoretical Physics students:

1) Where 1st year books can be bought for a reasonable price? Amazon offers Algebra by Michael Artin for 50 USD which looks a bit steep.

2) Would Win 7 i5 laptop with 4G RAM be good enough for Theoretical Physics tasks?

Thanks

As people have said you just won't need to buy books really. Lecture notes usually suffice. Also the school of maths hasn't really updated the module content entirely so books like artin which the previous lecturer used might not even be the recommended text.

sponsoredwalk · 22-08-2014 07:32PM

Artin was Pete's book of choice, you guys have Vlad for linear algebra so you could pick up a cheap 1 cent copy of Gelfand.

kozak · 25-08-2014 09:33AM

Thanks for books replies, much appreciated.

Now question to TP students about 3 Revision weeks during Easter period to prepare for tests in May.

There is no lectures during Easter Revision weeks.
Does this mean though that 1st year student can spend couple of Revision weeks outside of Ireland, preparing for tests?

Is there any need to attend TCD during Easter Revision weeks like extra seminars?

ride-the-spiral · 25-08-2014 01:45PM

kozak wrote: »

Thanks for books replies, much appreciated.

Now question to TP students about 3 Revision weeks during Easter period to prepare for tests in May.

There is no lectures during Easter Revision weeks.
Does this mean though that 1st year student can spend couple of Revision weeks outside of Ireland, preparing for tests?

Is there any need to attend TCD during Easter Revision weeks like extra seminars?

Nope, you're free to do what you wish over those 3 weeks, you only need to be in for exams. They're would most likely be extra revision tutorials which would be recommended to go to but not compulsory.

zagaluke · 30-08-2014 01:13PM

Just about to start first year TP.

Any point in familiarizing myself with some of the maths in the weeks before I start, just so it's not the first time I'm seeing things?

Tears in Rain · 30-08-2014 04:21PM

zagaluke wrote: »

Just about to start first year TP.

Any point in familiarizing myself with some of the maths in the weeks before I start, just so it's not the first time I'm seeing things?

It's not really necessary at all but obviously it's not going to hurt. Maybe just for fun take a glance at something involving epsilon delta limits, matrix inversion or introductory vector calculus topics like gradients or divergences, since these are probably the least familiar things you're going to see? But really, there's nothing that hard at all mathematically in first year TP.

zagaluke · 30-08-2014 08:21PM

Tears in Rain wrote: »

It's not really necessary at all but obviously it's not going to hurt. Maybe just for fun take a glance at something involving epsilon delta limits, matrix inversion or introductory vector calculus topics like gradients or divergences, since these are probably the least familiar things you're going to see? But really, there's nothing that hard at all mathematically in first year TP.

Thanks for the reply!

yeah I probably won't do much if it isn't necessary, I'll just try to keep on top of the work during the year

Maybe_Memories · 02-09-2014 02:08PM

Since Vlad is teaching Linear Algebra again my massive post on the Jordan Normal Form on the first page of this thread might actually be useful again. :pac:

EDIT: Although looking back on it I realise there's probably a lot wrong with it. I might do it again and LaTeX it and stick it on my page.

Also a word of advice to first years maths and TP - don't worry if you don't understand the epsilon delta stuff in analysis - pretty much no one does until months later when everything suddenly clicks.

I'm mildly terrified that we have Frolov for Diff Geom.

Anyone have any ideas for projects? I'm doing one on scalar products in quantum integrable models.

sganyfx · 02-09-2014 06:05PM

Maybe_Memories wrote: »

Since Vlad is teaching Linear Algebra again my massive post on the Jordan Normal Form on the first page of this thread might actually be useful again. :pac:

EDIT: Although looking back on it I realise there's probably a lot wrong with it. I might do it again and LaTeX it and stick it on my page.

Also a word of advice to first years maths and TP - don't worry if you don't understand the epsilon delta stuff in analysis - pretty much no one does until months later when everything suddenly clicks.

I'm mildly terrified that we have Frolov for Diff Geom.

Anyone have any ideas for projects? I'm doing one on scalar products in quantum integrable models.

So much agree with this, my entire year struggled with it for the first few weeks/months and then after a while it suddenly clicks and it is really easy.

Any similar advice for second years? :P

sponsoredwalk · 02-09-2014 08:58PM

Any idea on who's doing GR? Frolov? I'd give just about anything for that to happen :cool:

If you're going into second year mechanics, there'll come a time when these 3 pages motivating 'Newton ---> Lagrangian' & these 2 pages motivating 'Newton ---> Hamilton's equations' will explain all the magic.

Maybe_Memories · 02-09-2014 09:33PM

sganyfx wrote: »

So much agree with this, my entire year struggled with it for the first few weeks/months and then after a while it suddenly clicks and it is really easy.

Any similar advice for second years? :P

If you're doing schols just start learning the solutions to Simms stuff asap.

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

Any idea on who's doing GR? Frolov? I'd give just about anything for that to happen :cool:

If you're going into second year mechanics, there'll come a time when these 3 pages motivating 'Newton ---> Lagrangian' & these 2 pages motivating 'Newton ---> Hamilton's equations' will explain all the magic.

I really hope it's Frolov too.

ride-the-spiral · 02-09-2014 11:08PM

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

Any idea on who's doing GR? Frolov? I'd give just about anything for that to happen :cool:

If you're going into second year mechanics, there'll come a time when these 3 pages motivating 'Newton ---> Lagrangian' & these 2 pages motivating 'Newton ---> Hamilton's equations' will explain all the magic.

Frolovs already teaching 3 modules so I don't think it will be him. There are 3 new lecturers so it could be one of them? Although there's still nobody down for teaching first year mechanics or PNS...

For second years, beware that Zaitsev expects a lot more on his schols exam than his course might suggest.

Maths and Theoretical Physics Course Thread TR031 TR035

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