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Status Reports
Status: Mathematics (2009 - March)
(Text as at 08/04/2009 08:41:17)
*** THIS IS NOT THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS NOTE ***
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Rationale for this Project
This is rather an eccentric activity, which I mentioned briefly in a footnote on focus1 in my Research Proposal2. It is probably an attempt to exorcise some ancient demon – the rather bruising experience of reading mathematics at King’s College Cambridge back in the mid 1970’s. My excuse was that it’s more useful, if less sociable, than playing chess or bridge, to which I might otherwise be tempted. I’ve subsequently been tempted back to bridge and my technical work at HSBC and work on my web-tools3 project means that any further psychological need for technical activities is obviated. However, any modern educated person should be reasonably up to date with the mathematical sciences, and statistical and probability theory are essential tools for evaluating evidence. If only it wasn’t such a difficult subject.
Summary of Progress during March 2009
No real progress this month, at the expenditure of 5 hours, 99 hours YTD, where as always in these reports, the “year” is an academic year starting in October 2008. I’m having trouble formatting into a presentable form the remaining answers4 (as far as I’d got) to the problem-set questions in elementary mathematics that I’d wanted to do prior to the Mathematics faculty reunion at King’s in January. Had a look at LaTeX, but it all seems too complicated so will probably use Microsoft Equation 3.0 when I can get around to it.
Nothing much further is going to happen on this project for a while.
Items Outstanding for Immediate Progression
- Complete, or at least tidy up, the problem-set5 associated with the King’s Mathematics Reunion.
Items for Progression in the Medium Term
- Read, and thoroughly internalise, "Bais (Sander) - Very Special Relativity: An Illustrated Guide". This is worth reading, as a refresher, since an understanding of time is a prerequisite for a full understanding of persistence, which is itself a prerequisite for understanding questions of identity, in particular personal identity, the topic of my intended Thesis6. And, naturally, an understanding of relativity theory is essential for a proper understanding of time. If that’s how time works, then philosophers better believe it. Since Special Relativity is (or was) a Cambridge mathematics first-term course, the fact that I’ve still not thoroughly grasped it shows up my mathematical abilities for what they are, sadly. I intend to get to grips with relativity (special and general) as a medium-term project.
- Review probability theory for general philosophical purposes, and as an aid to Bridge (if I ever return to the game). Start with "Ross (Sheldon) - A First Course in Probability".
- Read "French (A.P.) - Special Relativity".
- Read "Rindler (Wolfgang) - Introduction to Special Relativity".
- Read "Schutz (Bernard) - A First Course in General Relativity".
- Complete the lecture series "Shankar (Ramamurti) - Fundamentals of Physics", in conjunction with the exercises and reading "Wolfson (Richard) & Pasachoff (Jay M.) - Physics with Modern Physics". I need to take the mathematics seriously for the course to be worth following.
- Repeat "Bailyn (Charles) - Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics", this time doing the exercises – without doing these, understanding is at best incomplete.
- Write a brief paper7 summarising the epistemological benefits of elementary mathematics when applied to the raw observational data.
Items for Progression in the Longer Term
- Read "Misner (Charles W.), Thorne (Kip S.) & Wheeler (John Archibald) - Gravitation".
- Re-start and complete the first-year course on discrete mathematics from the LSE.
- Based on success in the above endeavours, decide whether to take serious study any further.
Summary of Progress to Date
- I have downloaded a variety of course-material from the websites of various London Colleges, together with stuff from the Oxford and Cambridge websites, focusing on those courses having exercises with worked examples. I’ve also dusted off my old notes, which seem to have been written by someone else.
- As a warm-up exercise, I started a first-year course on discrete mathematics from the LSE.
- Listened to the Open Yale course "Bailyn (Charles) - Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics".
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Status: Summary (2026 - June) |
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