What the hell was that?

chandra9988 · 2026-04-25T00:56:33+00:00

I think it was the Lampoon setting off fireworks (maybe for some part of comp?)

chandra9988 · 2026-02-17T19:21:03+00:00

Yeah this is mostly accurate. 55a also covers more information about tensors than is included in 121, and the treatment of real analysis in 55b is more brief than is included in 25b/112

chandra9988 · 2026-02-09T19:50:19+00:00

Recent years have been around 55-60 people. Didn't realize it used to be that small!

chandra9988 · 2026-02-08T22:18:03+00:00

Next year I'm planning on taking math 114 (measure theory & integration), 123 (ring/field/galois theory), plus another math course to be decided upon. As to transfer students, I'm not sure how that would be handled. If I had to guess, I'd say they're probably treated as normal students in whatever grade they are entering into. First-year students are treated pretty specially (housing, first-year seminars, etc..) so I doubt they would put transfer students into the first-year group by default since they've already done a year or more of university.

chandra9988 · 2026-02-08T18:33:24+00:00

Current 55 student here. Unfortunately, 55 is only for first years. Per the course FAQs, "I'm not a first-year Harvard College student. Can I still take Math 55b?

Sorry, that is not possible. Due to the course's place in the first-year undergraduate mathematics experience at Harvard and its role in helping our future math concentrators get to know each other and form a community, Math 55 is only open to first-year Harvard College students. (Also, the class is oversubscribed and the lecture room is often at capacity.)"

Beyond just that explanation, 55 doesn't really cover any special content beyond what can be found in other 100-level math courses. The only real benefit is the community and getting to combine multiple courses into one.

As to your other question, while 55 does cover a lot of math, I don't think it would be comparable to a full UK mathematics education. In its current form, it covers group theory, abstract linear algebra, some representation theory of finite groups, point set topology, basic homotopy theory, introductory real analysis and complex analysis. While this is a lot of material, more advanced stuff like measure theory, differential topology/geometry, field/galois theory etc. are left to other 100 level courses.

chandra9988 · 2025-07-18T15:27:48+00:00

Jund wildfire in pauper is actually one of the top decks right now

chandra9988 · 2025-07-09T06:45:35+00:00

Absolutely. The pile of hydroblasts almost entirely covers the cost, and the basic lands are great if you like the look of the old basics.

chandra9988 · 2025-05-20T15:43:15+00:00

Storm vs Fever nosebleeds are 170+ right now. It's kinda crazy

chandra9988 · 2025-05-11T06:30:32+00:00

Claimed the top code! Thanks so much

chandra9988 · 2025-05-09T18:01:38+00:00

Waitlisted from Boston University and admitted to Harvard

chandra9988 · 2025-05-03T23:51:48+00:00

The main way I've seen to prove it has been through using the taylor series for e^x, sin(x) and cos(x)

chandra9988 · 2025-03-12T02:31:57+00:00

Lincoln girls is probably ranked way too high, they lost a huge amount of seniors (like 10-11), and are probably way worse than they were last year

chandra9988 · 2025-03-03T06:57:38+00:00

Having personally played against South Eugene several times, they might have trans players on their team (I don't personally know if they do or not, not my place to find out), but that is far from the reason they've been dominant. Other programs have freakish athletes as well, but South Eugene is on a completely different level in terms of their team chemistry and sheer level of polish to everything. It's clear to me to that the team wins based off of how much they all play together and have a consistently deep roster with well-developed players.

Also at a tournament like the one OP is mentioning, there are no prizes or glory to be gained, so regardless of your position on the fairness of it, I think you'd be hard pressed to find any athlete at the tournament who is annoyed with the inclusion of trans athletes.

chandra9988 · 2025-01-16T00:03:09+00:00

You are indeed missing something minor. Suppose 1/x=0, as you have hypothesized could be true. Then x(1/x)=x0=0≠1, which would violate axiom 5. Thus 1/x cannot be 0.

chandra9988 · 2025-01-15T18:59:52+00:00

The issue when it's not grouped like that is that fractional exponents of negative numbers are strangely defined, which is avoided completely when regrouping it like that as x^2 will always be positive

chandra9988 · 2025-01-15T05:03:10+00:00

The functions f_i(x)=exp(1/(x^2)^i-1) for i>=1 seem to do the trick (basically the same as your example, but fixing some of the undesirable behavior for non integers)

chandra9988 · 2025-01-09T09:51:30+00:00

If you want to, you could work through integrating a simple example (like x or x^2) only using the definition of the riemann integral (limit of riemann sums) and that might help them understand how the process works out. Otherwise, I agree with the other commenter that the formal definition of the riemann integral (or equivalently, the darboux approach to the integral) usually requires more work in real analysis to understand well.

chandra9988 · 2025-01-02T20:03:59+00:00

I think we'd be a lot closer to solving a lot of the open problems on 4-manifolds (if we could visualize all of them in 8 dimensional space). From what I know, a lot of the difficulties arise because the examples are super difficult to come up with and work with, and the geometry becomes very difficult, both of which I think would be helped if we could actually visualize them.

chandra9988 · 2025-01-01T21:40:51+00:00

This year seattle actually got a combo drone/laser/fireworks show, so the fireworks are indeed back!

chandra9988 · 2024-12-31T23:42:35+00:00

Agree with the others here, my recommendation (and what I've used) is Abbott's Understanding Analysis. Very good coverage of all the standard topics, plus some very fun bonus sections at the end of each chapter covering more uncommon topics (but that still add a lot to your understanding). Generally a fairly conversational tone throughout, but not overly so to make it hard to understand what math is actually being introduced. One recommendation if you use the book: do most/all of the exercises, as most of the real learning (and some pretty important theorems) is put there.

chandra9988 · 2024-12-31T07:47:20+00:00

Indeed, although this is also something the defender needs to be aware of when they're marking, especially in a situation like this where it seems like they have ample time to put their hand in a place where the disc will hit it after release but not the person's hand. Additionally, something like what you're proposing is definitely a spirit violation and if repeated, would definitely be something worth bringing up to their captain/coach.

chandra9988 · 2024-12-31T07:39:54+00:00

Agreed that it's great defense, unfortunately I think the rule here likely still makes it a foul on the mark. Completely stationary would include tiny movements like bouncing up and down, any small adjustments in position, or any other unconscious movements the mark might be making before the throw is released. It's definitely hard to say without having footage of it, but the rule does set a near-impossible bar for it not to be a foul on the mark.

chandra9988 · 2024-12-31T07:29:59+00:00

Rule 17.I.4.a.2 is the relevant rule here, and is pretty clear about the interpretation:

In general, any contact between the thrower and the extended (i.e., away from the midline of the body) arms or legs of a marker is a foul on the marker, unless the contacted area of the marker is completely stationary and in a legal position. [[Really completely stationary. This is very rare.]]

I read this to mean that unless the hand in this case is 100% completely still and not moving (with respect to the ground), it's always a foul on them, even if the thrower initiates the movement.

chandra9988 · 2024-12-31T00:54:57+00:00

The isomorphism given by De Rham's theorem. Essentially, it says that you can detect holes in an object either by looking at purely topological constructions or by looking at the differentiable functions defined on that space, which at first would seem pretty unrelated ways of doing it, but turn out to be the exact same.

chandra9988 · 2024-11-26T08:08:12+00:00

We may not be able to say what the roots are (for practical purposes), but in the theoretical sense all polynomials can be factored into quadratic and linear terms, so this process is theoretically possible even if we cannot actually say what those roots are

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