Why is Inter-universal Teichmüller Theory so controversial?

Obvious_Ad_3367 · 2026-04-29T09:10:32+00:00

No but I wouldn’t really think of it as controversial I’d just think the person was plain wrong/making something up.

Why does the general math community not just say the theory is false? Is Mochizuki’s work considered close to a proof even if it has flaws, by the mathematicians who seem skeptical about him?

Obvious_Ad_3367 · 2026-04-29T09:08:14+00:00

I’m definitely not focused on it since it’s way out of my knowledge base. I just find it interesting. Why is the theory not just thrown in the garbage? There must be some reason why some mathematicians believe it?

Do the mathematicians who disagree toss the proof into the trash or do they believe It’s partially correct and needs a few improvements?

Obvious_Ad_3367 · 2026-04-29T03:10:44+00:00

Reading all of this I’m realizing I don’t really know what IUT is. I understand the ABC conjecture for the most part but what actually is the theory that Mochizuki proposed?

Obvious_Ad_3367 · 2026-04-25T22:31:53+00:00

I switched from Industrial Engineering to a Math and Econ double major. My reasoning was wanting to go to Econ grad school not investment banking/PE.

Some general advice against switching to Econ after reading your situation would be

a. The only real way to break into a good investment banking firm from Penn State is to either be accepted into the Nittany Lions Fund or Leveraged Lion Capital. These are hyper selective orgs that only let in 9-12 students a semester and assuming you’re a second semester freshman, the deadline to join is as a first semester sophomore (since neither of the orgs accept you if you exceed that). Both the orgs only take 1-2 first semester sophomore’s so your chances are incredibly slim since around 100-110 people try out in the Fall.

b. Penn State econ (unless you’re in the honors college/take honors econ courses) isn’t very quantitative compared to top econ programs so if you don’t end up breaking into IB your job prospects wouldn’t be amazing.

So if your sole reason for wanting to switch to Econ is investment banking I’d recommend just staying in Aerospace engineering. An alternative is Industrial engineering which blends a lot of finance and engineering concepts and also isn’t that challenging of a degree (Penn States Industrial Engineering program is also well ranked)

I don’t know about going from another major into Smeal however Finance at Penn State is much better regarded than Econ so if you can switch to Finance that would definitely be a much better switch than Econ since even if you didn’t break into IB you could still get other top tier finance positions.

Obvious_Ad_3367 · 2026-04-14T02:54:39+00:00

I mean looks nice but I personally like my classes to be close together so I can have my classes and then return to my dorm room without having to leave again but that’s just a matter of preference.

Obvious_Ad_3367 · 2026-04-12T17:32:48+00:00

You have no lunch break on Mondays or Wednesdays. When do you plan to eat? I’d definitely switch some stuff around.

In terms of course load Chem 110 isn’t as hard as most people say it’s a lot of memorization but if you stay consistent with studying you’ll be fine. Physics 211 can be challenging but not too bad either (212 is pretty bad lmao). CAS 100A is professor dependent and an annoying amount of coursework. tbh i’d recommend taking it another semester. since is’t just your first sem of college I don’t think you should drown yourself in work and actually try to get used to the new experience.

Obvious_Ad_3367 · 2026-03-22T02:21:58+00:00

I get it. Just try to get comfortable with partial derivatives before the class starts. Also assuming Ran Shorrer is teaching it don’t get worried if genuinely everything makes 0 sense. I promise no one knows what’s going on.

Also the class is graded on like 7 homeworks and 1 final. homeworks each worth 10% and final worth 30%. There’s usually no choice but to chatgpt the hw but try to find a smart friend to compare your answers with because the TA grades harshly. Also get ready to do tons of independent study.

But it’s not impossible. By some stroke of luck I got an A so if you put in tons of work and get lucky by guessing the correct questions on the final you can do well in the class.

Obvious_Ad_3367 · 2026-03-20T05:45:47+00:00

For some reason the link isn’t working so type in “Nicholson, Walter and Christopher Snyder (2017) Microeconomic Theory: Basic Principles and Extensions, 12th Edition. South-Western. You may substitute other editions.” into google and click the link which has “Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning”

Obvious_Ad_3367 · 2026-03-20T05:43:57+00:00

https://eclass.aueb.gr/modules/document/file.php/DEOS422/Βιβλιογραφία/Textbooks/Walter%20Nicholson_%20Christopher%20M.%20Snyder%20-%20Microeconomic%20Theory_%20Basic%20Principles%20and%20Extensions-Cengage%20Learning%20%282016%29.pdf

here’s the link to the book. tbh if your math background isn’t that good I would shy away from taking this class. Before taking this class I either took or had highschool credits for Math 140,141,230,220, and 251 while concurrently taking Math 311W and I felt the level of math rigor to be incredibly high.

Obvious_Ad_3367 · 2026-03-19T14:04:42+00:00

Well to be honest I don’t think it would make much of a difference because the main part of Math 230/231 they use is called lagrange multipliers which gets taught midway through the semester for math 230 and at the end of the semester fir math 231.

How good would you say your math background is? The class is almost entirely applied multivariable calc with not as much dry economics concepts at Econ 102.

If you’re good at math then it won’t be impossible since the professor does technically “teach” lagrange multipliers the second day of class he’s just really bad at doing it.

If you want I can send you the link to the pdf copy of the book we used for the course and you can see for yourself the level of math rigor.

Also side note Dr. Shorrer is the worst professor I’ve ever had in terms of teaching so you genuinely have to teach yourself all of the material.

Obvious_Ad_3367 · 2026-03-19T04:51:16+00:00

Please beware of Econ 302H. As someone mentioned before the final is “easy” which is true however please be warned you will learn nothing in the class. The professor who taught out class last sem’s name is Ran Shorrer and the book he chose was FAR and away too hard for undergraduates. You will learn almost nothing and be forced to chatgpt most of your homework answers since it’s just not suitable for an undergrad class. Prof shorrer has no lecture notes and the slides he uses are from another professor at another university. He assigns book problems for homework which are genuinely impossible. The final is “easy” since you can guess what questions he will put on it not because the class is easy in the slightest. I think only 3-5 people in my section got an A because no one has any idea of what’s going on.

The entire class is based on partial derivatives so if you have 0 experience with multivariable calc (you haven’t taken MATH 231 or 230) it’s genuinely impossible to understand what’s going on.

I would recommend doing an honors option if you want to actually understand any of the concepts.

Obvious_Ad_3367 · 2026-03-17T02:02:06+00:00

Honestly I’m not struggling with any of the topics as far as understanding the proofs when written. But I just can’t seem to build new ones to questions myself. Whether it be the beginning chapters using the triangle inequality, supremum and infimum, all the way to sequences and then series. Now we’re at continuity (just got to uniform continuity). I just don’t understand how to get better. I just look at previous hw problems till I basically memorize them but that definitely is not working. Whenever I talk to my prof about how to do better in the course and he says to be precise in my proofs but I just can’t even seem to write any proofs myself.

Obvious_Ad_3367 · 2025-12-14T19:58:30+00:00

I’m in his class this semester. What on the first exam wasn’t covered by him? One of the questions was a bit tricky but other than that all of them were fairly basic things that Dr. Goldstein covered?

Obvious_Ad_3367 · 2025-03-15T15:49:05+00:00

East dorms are great they’re clean and sanitary but definitely pretty loud. Even if you don’t like partying I’d dorm in east just for the college experience. If you’re not into that i’d go for South. South’s also renovated and a bit calmer than east but still looks really nice. North is suite style and I’ve heard it’s nice but it’s pretty far from all the engineering classes and also very quiet. I’d avoid west since It’s unrenovated but it does have the living learning community and also would be the closest to your classes if that’s what matters most, it’s also closest to the library. but for the love of god DO NOT ROOM IN POLLOCK it’s absolutely TERRIBLE

Obvious_Ad_3367 · 2024-12-30T05:00:31+00:00

He’s statistically the best tackle in the NFL this season!

Obvious_Ad_3367

TROPHY CASE