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I take back what I said in my last post about having an easy semester.
Math 102, the Algebra Seminar, is officially Killing Me. I don't know how much time I've spent on it this week - probably close to 18 or 20 hours. I'm done with it now for the week, but it's cutting into work for other seminars. I have Quantum tomorrow afternoon but have yet to start the problem set. I know I still don't understand the this week's material for Algebra all that well. This week we did this horribly technical proof, using Zorn's Lemma, that every field has an algebraic closure. Writing the proof on the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall blackboards covering 3 sides of the seminar room took 2 trips around. Moreover, there's been such a barrage of confusing definitions of things that are similar: "algebraic over," "algebraic in," "algebraically closed," and "algebraic closure" all sound similar but mean very different things. As it is, Algebra makes quantum mechanics seem straightforward in comparison.
Perhaps things will get better. I think I'm going to make a more concerted effort to work on math with people, instead of alone. In physics, I'm certainly used to checking things and bouncing ideas off my seminar-mates. There's someone else in my Algebra seminar who's also a minor, and who like me is taking other demanding seminars; we agreed to try working together on math next Tuesday night before seminar. I think something like 102 is at least easier to deal with if it's your one uber-demanding, #1 priority class (e.g. if you're a math major and you're taking something easier like DiffEq and other non-math classes on top of it) than if you have 2 also-demanding physics seminars competing for your time.
So far, I'm handling my physics seminars OK. Stat Mech is a little weird conceptually but is not an unreasonable amount of work. Quantum hasn't been so bad because the last two weeks have been mostly review - of the mathematical foundations of QM and the postulates of QM. Most of the reading has been from the chapters of Shankar that we covered last year in Physics 14 and that I understood decently then, and I think pretty well now. I expect quantum to get harder once we move into new material, such as the harmonic oscillator problem and 3-dimensional problems like the hydrogen atom. In many such problems you have to deal with the nasty math of wavefunctions to calculate things (as opposed to nice tidy abstract Dirac bras and kets we've mostly been working with thus far) and have to grok with Hermite polynomials, spherical harmonics, and the like.
Unless things improve, at this point I'm doubtful fire school will happen this semester. Doing it over the summer does mean not having to worry about classes, but if I took it now I could take more advanced classes like Firefighter II or more specific classes on engine and ladder company operations then. On the one hand, I don't exactly look forward to spending all day training in full bunker gear and SCBA on a searingly hot, humid Sunday in August, but on the other hand one perhaps benefits most from training under the worst conditions possible.
I really, really, really need to start working on quantum. And I have to meet with Catherine Crouch at 0930 to see the Low Temperature Resistivity apparatus for Advanced Lab before we start pumping down its vacuum chamber (I think we're roughing with a mechanical pump, and then switching to a turbopump, just like my machine at Iowa).
Math 102, the Algebra Seminar, is officially Killing Me. I don't know how much time I've spent on it this week - probably close to 18 or 20 hours. I'm done with it now for the week, but it's cutting into work for other seminars. I have Quantum tomorrow afternoon but have yet to start the problem set. I know I still don't understand the this week's material for Algebra all that well. This week we did this horribly technical proof, using Zorn's Lemma, that every field has an algebraic closure. Writing the proof on the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall blackboards covering 3 sides of the seminar room took 2 trips around. Moreover, there's been such a barrage of confusing definitions of things that are similar: "algebraic over," "algebraic in," "algebraically closed," and "algebraic closure" all sound similar but mean very different things. As it is, Algebra makes quantum mechanics seem straightforward in comparison.
Perhaps things will get better. I think I'm going to make a more concerted effort to work on math with people, instead of alone. In physics, I'm certainly used to checking things and bouncing ideas off my seminar-mates. There's someone else in my Algebra seminar who's also a minor, and who like me is taking other demanding seminars; we agreed to try working together on math next Tuesday night before seminar. I think something like 102 is at least easier to deal with if it's your one uber-demanding, #1 priority class (e.g. if you're a math major and you're taking something easier like DiffEq and other non-math classes on top of it) than if you have 2 also-demanding physics seminars competing for your time.
So far, I'm handling my physics seminars OK. Stat Mech is a little weird conceptually but is not an unreasonable amount of work. Quantum hasn't been so bad because the last two weeks have been mostly review - of the mathematical foundations of QM and the postulates of QM. Most of the reading has been from the chapters of Shankar that we covered last year in Physics 14 and that I understood decently then, and I think pretty well now. I expect quantum to get harder once we move into new material, such as the harmonic oscillator problem and 3-dimensional problems like the hydrogen atom. In many such problems you have to deal with the nasty math of wavefunctions to calculate things (as opposed to nice tidy abstract Dirac bras and kets we've mostly been working with thus far) and have to grok with Hermite polynomials, spherical harmonics, and the like.
Unless things improve, at this point I'm doubtful fire school will happen this semester. Doing it over the summer does mean not having to worry about classes, but if I took it now I could take more advanced classes like Firefighter II or more specific classes on engine and ladder company operations then. On the one hand, I don't exactly look forward to spending all day training in full bunker gear and SCBA on a searingly hot, humid Sunday in August, but on the other hand one perhaps benefits most from training under the worst conditions possible.
I really, really, really need to start working on quantum. And I have to meet with Catherine Crouch at 0930 to see the Low Temperature Resistivity apparatus for Advanced Lab before we start pumping down its vacuum chamber (I think we're roughing with a mechanical pump, and then switching to a turbopump, just like my machine at Iowa).
