Mathematical Torment

[frederec]

Like all too many people, I'm an aspiring writer. I have written three novels so far. One a story of steampunk murder and revenge (that my wife says would make a good webcomic, if only I knew an artist). One a story about a junior high student who discovers messages in the chimes at her school, and tries to decipher their meaning with the help of an eclectic group of friends. The most recent, and the one that I'm trying to shop around currently, is a story about zombies and sweets, which is part cookbook.

I'm going to keep trying the traditional route, but I'm not sure how far I need to go before trying to go the self-publishing ebook route. If I felt I had a good enough web presence, I wouldn't feel like e-publishing would be giving up quite so much. Then again, a lot of people taking submissions ask about your platform, in other words what sort of a presences do you already have that will make selling the book easier. And I've got...nothing. So whether traditional or electronic, I clearly need a better presence.

So this brings me to the purpose of this post. Well, one of them. If someone out there has an inroad with a publisher or agent, I'm all ears. Or if someone is an artist interested in drawing for someone with a horror and steampunk bent, I'm also down. But mostly, my wife has been gently trying to push me to have a web presence.

And this brings me to an idea largely planted by our own Purple Santa. I thought it might be fun to have a fictional blog, written from the perspective of a cruel, sadistic math professor. Possibly there could be a running narrative involving dark magics in the background. Or maybe I could mostly open it up to questions from the internet at large. The professor would answer these questions in as insulting of a manner as possible, while still giving complete and comprehensible solutions.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Criticisms? Does this sound at all interesting to you? Would you be interested in participating by asking questions? They could be something pertaining to a class or problem you are currently involved in or something completely off the wall and goofy, whatever you like. In theory I could field questions from the whole undergraduate mathematical curriculum, as well as basic graduate ones (and advanced ones pertaining to my fields of study, like differential equations, inverse problems, functional analysis, or several complex variables and commutative Banach algebras).

[Purple Santa]

I'm glad all those inside jokes in the END/DAY thread are going somewhere with your MMP persona

I like the idea of self-publishing via Kindle etc. Self publishing doesn't have the stigma that it once did. Others can and will give you much better advice on this but I follow self-publishing some and I think you might be able to find an outlet that way.

I'm glad you finally brought your secret project out of the basement

I love all your ideas. I really do want them out there so I can read them all.

[frederec]

Originally Posted by Purple Santa

I'm glad you finally brought your secret project out of the basement

I've been gradually "coming out" more and more as time goes on. Since my original career has pretty much stalled, there's less to lose.

I love all your ideas. I really do want them out there so I can read them all.

The only thing keeping me from dedicating my time 100% to writing is stressing out over money. Between February and April of this year I treated writing like my full time day job, getting in front of my desk around 8 am and not leaving until around 5 pm except for lunch or breaks. It was awesome, and more productive than I could have hoped. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I was working nonstop the whole time, but as an experiment to see if I could pull off treating it like a job, it was a total success.

Now I just need to find a way to make money from it.

And as soon as things start getting published, you definitely are on the short list of people to notify. If I had a web page dedicated to this stuff, I'd at least have the first few chapters of everything I've done available to anyone and everyone.

[Karak]

Santa informed me of this thread due to some contacts I have from way back when I was setting up to release a fantasy novel before my second bought with the dread man cancer.

I still have contacts from 1997 2 people that still work for Del Rey. They are/were sci-fi editors and agents, or handlers as they call themselves. One is somewhat close and I still speak to the other lived in Eugene for many years and recently moved to Portland. I can touch base with them concerning any inroads my short time with them may still allow if you would like?

I really can't promise anything but I have no problem contact them. I burned a couple bridges with one of them but have patched those up nicely and I think they may...MAY listen to me if you want.

Publishing is such a different game than before. I feel the stakes and requirements for true publishing are much harder than epublishing(sort of obvious). For example the novel I turned in was many hundreds of pages and the editors had jobs specifically to identify what content was worth while and to fix errors. Now it seems like there is a VERY high expectation of excellent writing from the get go.

Regardless of all that, I would read something like a fictional blog. But math isn't a skill of mine...in fact its a default weakness so I am not sure I could ask any questions that would even make sense.

[frederec]

Originally Posted by Karak

I still have contacts from 1997 2 people that still work for Del Rey. They are/were sci-fi editors and agents, or handlers as they call themselves. One is somewhat close and I still speak to the other lived in Eugene for many years and recently moved to Portland. I can touch base with them concerning any inroads my short time with them may still allow if you would like?

I really can't promise anything but I have no problem contact them. I burned a couple bridges with one of them but have patched those up nicely and I think they may...MAY listen to me if you want.

I would be incredibly grateful for any help you're willing to give. I know you can't make promises on the behavior of other people, so I appreciate whatever you can do.

If you need more information on me or what I've done when talking to them, pm me.

[frederec]

Originally Posted by Karak

Regardless of all that, I would read something like a fictional blog. But math isn't a skill of mine...in fact its a default weakness so I am not sure I could ask any questions that would even make sense.

You know, that might be fun in its own way. I would like to imagine something not too far off from Strong Bad Email of mathematics, only with no animation.

[Karak]

Originally Posted by frederec

I would be incredibly grateful for any help you're willing to give. I know you can't make promises on the behavior of other people, so I appreciate whatever you can do.

If you need more information on me or what I've done when talking to them, pm me.

I will contact them tonight by phone or email and see if they are open to a unsolicited piece. You would be surprised by how many are actually open to that in various ways so hey, it could be good news.

As for asking questions. Honestly this isn't for the blog. But when I see massive forumula's on chalkboards and stuff I always want to know, are they shorthand or are they another language like spanish or something.

I guess I mean if you know mathematical calculations can a person just walk in and stare at it and understand it?

Oh and also, when a formula is so massive...why? Why is it massive? Is it because so many things are interconnected that they have to be? I see a big chalkboard and some math professor looking at it and most of the time think that its all bullshit and the dude is using a computer.

Also why can't those formula be written on a computer and checked for accuracy. Why do people have the chalkboards and seem to be brainstorming? It is math so shouldn't it be...static and right or wrong?

K done.

[frederec]

Originally Posted by Karak

I will contact them tonight by phone or email and see if they are open to a unsolicited piece. You would be surprised by how many are actually open to that in various ways so hey, it could be good news.

Again, thanks for anything you can do. If it lands me a deal, I figure I owe you a steak and a beer, at the least.

As for asking questions. Honestly this isn't for the blog. But when I see massive forumula's on chalkboards and stuff I always want to know, are they shorthand or are they another language like spanish or something.

I guess I mean if you know mathematical calculations can a person just walk in and stare at it and understand it?

Oh and also, when a formula is so massive...why? Why is it massive? Is it because so many things are interconnected that they have to be? I see a big chalkboard and some math professor looking at it and most of the time think that its all bullshit and the dude is using a computer.

Also why can't those formula be written on a computer and checked for accuracy. Why do people have the chalkboards and seem to be brainstorming? It is math so shouldn't it be...static and right or wrong?

K done.

Short answer: it depends. Longer answer, is it can be a number of things. It's not unusual for the mathematical stuff you see in the background to be total gibberish, stuff that's just thrown up there to look cool.

But as far as real, honest-to-goodness mathematical writing goes, it can still be a couple of things.

One possibility you hit on at the start. Writing, speaking, and even thinking math is not unlike translating stuff into another language. I say over and over that math requires a different kind of thinking. As a result, often when people write a board full of math, especially in a class, it's somewhere between shorthand and the language of mathematics.

Take, for instance, the theorem that was actually proven for an episode of Futurama a little while back. They freeze-framed on the board so you could see it:

That right there is the complete statement of a mathematical proof. It's math's version of an essay or short story, complete with its own rules on grammar, structure, and syntax.

However, that ignores some of the more fun symbols people like to bust out, especially integrals. Let me give you a brief example from my old faculty web page. Give it a minute, the images can take a while to load (it's rendering the math). I'd show some of that code here, but it won't accept some of the java commands needed to make it happen.

This brings me to one of the other things that can fill a board - calculations. You can have tons and tons of space dedicated to people trying to simplify and understand certain equations or formulas, and it has led to many a student staring at boards for hours and hours.

Then again, don't take this to mean that people will never be found staring at boards with complete theorems like the Futurama one. People will stand and stare often because they are trying to understand it, or trying to find a mistake (again, if it's homework). I always remember being told that you can't read mathematics (or much of anything technical) like a novel, you hope to get through one page or so a day. It takes a lot of time and effort to parse and digest it all.

[Dark Acre Jack]

Write 6-7 books and publish them on Amazon without really talking too much about them, all the while networking with other independent writers and developing a blog/Twitter presence by posting slices of life that show off your writing talent.

Once you've got all that content in the marketplace, make a big marketing push with book trailers, blog/forum posts, and leveraging your social networking presence that you've built up over the prior 2-3 years.

If one of the books hits, you'll get knock-on sales for the other content. This is a recommended approach as opposed to a big marketing push with only a small number of titles available. You get more bang for your effort.

This is the boilerplate recipe for success in self-publishing, one that I've been following for a couple of years now. It's slowly working but I definitely feel that need to have a wealth of content available for when I'm ready to really go to town with the marketing.

Best of luck with your efforts!

[frederec]

Originally Posted by Dark Acre Jack

Write 6-7 books and publish them on Amazon without really talking too much about them, all the while networking with other independent writers and developing a blog/Twitter presence by posting slices of life that show off your writing talent.

Once you've got all that content in the marketplace, make a big marketing push with book trailers, blog/forum posts, and leveraging your social networking presence that you've built up over the prior 2-3 years.

If one of the books hits, you'll get knock-on sales for the other content. This is a recommended approach as opposed to a big marketing push with only a small number of titles available. You get more bang for your effort.

This is the boilerplate recipe for success in self-publishing, one that I've been following for a couple of years now. It's slowly working but I definitely feel that need to have a wealth of content available for when I'm ready to really go to town with the marketing.

Best of luck with your efforts!

That's good to know, thanks. I've set a personal goal of five completed novels before really pushing forward with the self-publishing route.

I'm not sure if I could do enough self-advertising to pull it off, which is part of why I'm trying to go traditional before self-publishing. But if it's possible I may have the time on my hands necessary to do it.

[Karak]

Originally Posted by frederec

Again, thanks for anything you can do. If it lands me a deal, I figure I owe you a steak and a beer, at the least.



Short answer: it depends. Longer answer, is it can be a number of things. It's not unusual for the mathematical stuff you see in the background to be total gibberish, stuff that's just thrown up there to look cool.

But as far as real, honest-to-goodness mathematical writing goes, it can still be a couple of things.

One possibility you hit on at the start. Writing, speaking, and even thinking math is not unlike translating stuff into another language. I say over and over that math requires a different kind of thinking. As a result, often when people write a board full of math, especially in a class, it's somewhere between shorthand and the language of mathematics.

Take, for instance, the theorem that was actually proven for an episode of Futurama a little while back. They freeze-framed on the board so you could see it:

That right there is the complete statement of a mathematical proof. It's math's version of an essay or short story, complete with its own rules on grammar, structure, and syntax.

However, that ignores some of the more fun symbols people like to bust out, especially integrals. Let me give you a brief example from my old faculty web page. Give it a minute, the images can take a while to load (it's rendering the math). I'd show some of that code here, but it won't accept some of the java commands needed to make it happen.

This brings me to one of the other things that can fill a board - calculations. You can have tons and tons of space dedicated to people trying to simplify and understand certain equations or formulas, and it has led to many a student staring at boards for hours and hours.

Then again, don't take this to mean that people will never be found staring at boards with complete theorems like the Futurama one. People will stand and stare often because they are trying to understand it, or trying to find a mistake (again, if it's homework). I always remember being told that you can't read mathematics (or much of anything technical) like a novel, you hope to get through one page or so a day. It takes a lot of time and effort to parse and digest it all.

This caused me to go into a mental crisis trying to figure it out.

All I could do is nod at the screen and say "Yep cthulhu for sure"

[Krispy]

I just wanted to add that not all of math is so lucid that we could program a machine to solve it for us. We do have proof programs and they are quite impressive but there are problems that the proof machine cannot patently solve and supposing that it could, that would often imply we know the strategy already and were able to program it in. To my knowledge, the proofs that a machine has solved that no human has aren't for reasons off mysterious strategy but reasons of exhaustive steps.

[Purple Santa]

Originally Posted by Karak

All I could do is nod at the screen and say "Yep cthulhu for sure"

That's his secret. Frederec is cthulhu. It's encrypted in a math code.

[frederec]

Originally Posted by Krispy

I just wanted to add that not all of math is so lucid that we could program a machine to solve it for us. We do have proof programs and they are quite impressive but there are problems that the proof machine cannot patently solve and supposing that it could, that would often imply we know the strategy already and were able to program it in. To my knowledge, the proofs that a machine has solved that no human has aren't for reasons off mysterious strategy but reasons of exhaustive steps.

Yes, exactly. I missed this point in my eagerness to reference Futurama.

There's a reason some people debate about whether math is an art or a science. While it is very ordered and rigorous, there is a certain element of elegance and creativity to it that cannot (yet) be reproduced by computers.

Like you said, computers are very important tools in doing mathematics these days. There are famous instances like the proof of the four color theorem which were not really doable by humans but a computer could exhaust all the possible cases. But computers are also used frequently to test cases and run simulations, though they generally can't articulate full proofs of major theorems. Yet.

[Krispy]

If the thesis of cognitive science is correct, then it really is a matter of time. The biggie is whether or not humans are actually limited by the halting problem and I think we will see a lot of tears roll when that gets decided. Or when it gets decided that it can't be decided. God damnit, math.

Edit: I had to write a proof for the four color theorem in my metalogic course. I should find my old homework. I remember the last step where you had to apply a Cantor style proof to the generalized instances to be a huge mind fuck for me.

[Krispy]

No one else knows shit about math in my life. This is cool.

[frederec]

One of the things I love about math is that there are theorems out there that essentially prove that any consistent system of axioms will always have statements in them that are unprovable as true or false. So no matter what, some questions will have no answers. And somehow that statement is a provable fact.

[Krispy]

I had to prove that too. It took me three months.

But in practice, the incompleteness theorem isn't taken that seriously. Most mathematicians treat it like a logician's magic trick. "Show me an example case," says the Mathematician. The Logician shrugs her shoulders and points to the proof.

[frederec]

Originally Posted by Krispy

I had to prove that too. It took me three months.

But in practice, the incompleteness theorem isn't taken that seriously. Most mathematicians treat it like a logician's magic trick. "Show me an example case," says the Mathematician. The Logician shrugs her shoulders and points to the proof.

Oh really? Now I want to know more about you. I've never actually taken a class in formal logic, so I only know about the theorems, but haven't studied them personally. What are you studying that has led you to prove this sort of stuff?

[Krispy]

I was a philosopher. I never took any philosophy of mathematics, but if you follow the logic courses down the rabbit hole long enough you get a good gist of it. All of modern philosophy is backboned on Frege's philosophy of language questions -- and by extension modern predicate logics -- so you learn it or fail. Understanding metalogic is a must otherwise you won't be able to go toe to toe with the big boys when they throw down set theory and lambda calculus to prove their philosophical repose.