What's the hardest mathematical thing you know?

Judgeneo · 27 Apr 2012 at 21:45

nydryl said:
I don't mean to be rude, and I'm sure you're a better mathematician than I am, but I tend to find that the people who resort to an explanation like this are the very same people who don't fully understand their work.

I may be wrong, but it's an observation that tends to be fairly close to the mark.

Its a lazy answer rather than one that indicates a lack of understanding. I've used it myself once or twice when I don't have the time to explain everything, but lots of things can be discussed qualitatively with non-mathematicians if you have a little patience

Castiel · 27 Apr 2012 at 22:25

Judgeneo said:
As to Castiels question, have a read of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom
Everything is based on the axioms of mathematics, as for the incompleteness theorem, well thats beyond my expertise. Essentially you can't have a system of axioms that prove themself, and define the natural numbers? I just assume the axioms are true

Thanks, I knew what an axiom was and the limitations therein, I found some good sources which have given me what I wanted.

Thanks though.

Narj · 27 Apr 2012 at 22:28

1+1=window.

toasteh · 27 Apr 2012 at 23:05

complex analysis is currently making my brain melt as i try to revise for my 2nd year uni exams, however i nailed my real analysis exam today so it evens out

SheepBeast · 28 Apr 2012 at 00:25

Probably vector calculus. Nothing too tricky. There should be a lot more stuff listed here but I didn't attend any of my lectures this semester so don't even know what the topics were.... yeah resits in august for me.

lukeharvest · 28 Apr 2012 at 01:23

nydryl said:
I don't mean to be rude, and I'm sure you're a better mathematician than I am, but I tend to find that the people who resort to an explanation like this are the very same people who don't fully understand their work.

I may be wrong (there are obviously exceptions), but it's an observation that tends to be fairly close to the mark.

As for the hardest mathematical thing I know? Whatever I'm trying to learn at the time.

I think it says more about my explanation skills than anything else. Having said that, I'm only a first year undergrad doing mathematics - so I'm no expert in mathematics.

nydryl · 28 Apr 2012 at 14:02

Judgeneo said:
Its a lazy answer rather than one that indicates a lack of understanding. I've used it myself once or twice when I don't have the time to explain everything, but lots of things can be discussed qualitatively with non-mathematicians if you have a little patience

I use it too when I'm trying to explain my research, but it's probably an equal split between laziness and realising I haven't understood something fully myself.

sjcf1 · 28 Apr 2012 at 14:06

Spherical polar integration, and integration involving more than 2 variables. Ie dx, dy, dx. Also, proving the taylor series in its valid form for more than one variables is annoying.

T345 · 28 Apr 2012 at 14:50

I'm in a grammar school, but and 1+1 is a killer, I always end up with 11 =(

Amleto · 28 Apr 2012 at 16:34

Fluid mechanics, perturbation theory, complex analysis, pdes

Some other physics areas that use some decent maths as well
statistical physics, quantum mech, langrangian + hamiltonian mechanics

stickman1 · 28 Apr 2012 at 19:21

The Riemann Hypothesis seems to be quite challenging :-)

GSXRMovistar · 28 Apr 2012 at 20:09

I did a fair amount of discrete maths when at university, last time I looked back on my notes which was probably 10 years ago I couldn't make head nor tale of it, god knows how I used to understand it all.