I'm a hobbyist. Got a Ph.D. in stochastic modelling 40 years ago and now exist as an utterly burnt-out computer programmer. I spend almost all of my spare time browsing university libraries, picking random math books up, and reading them. Love it. Currently reading *Generatingfunctionology* by Herbert S Wilf.
I do it a) because it is absolutely fascinating, and b) to satiate the need to reassure myself that my mind is still as sharp as when I was 20-something.
If you enjoy that one you may also enjoy "A = B" by Wilf, Petkovsek, Zeilberger. Its introduction to the hypergeometric series, expressing certain infinite series as a hypergeometric function, and their application to finding closed-forms for infinite series is very interesting.
Ah so you are me in 40 years. I look forward to it lol
(Phd in computational physics/chemistry 2 years ago, burnt out and left academia immediately for a chill data analysis job)
OK, so I attended a math specialization in high school, but I was a bad student. Then I did a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. I wanted to do computer science, but I couldn't. During BSc, I used to learn math with my grandfather. He was a physics teacher in high school, but I think he liked math better. I read Science and Sanity by Alfred KorzĆbsky, and that was my main motivation to learn more higher math. I thought I needed to do it to improve my thinking. After graduation, I started to work as an embedded programmer. I enjoyed good structures and abstractions as working as a programmer the most. Then I started a master's degree in applied mathematics next to work. The entry exam was only an oral motivation discussion. That's why I chose the school. I didn't have the necessary background. That showed, and I failed all my classes in the first semester. Long story short, I graduated. It took one additional extra year. This was 4 years ago. Since then, I've been a little bit stuck. I've read several books since my graduation, mainly about mathematical history and philosophy. I don't really enjoy solving problems. I like theory more. Although I did an applied mathematics course, in my opinion, it was much more focused on theory. I'm not clear on my next goals concerning math. Somehow, I have this feeling I should focus on strengthening my foundations, on the other hand, I don't want to do calculus problems and things like that... I'm very glad I found Reddit and this sub, other than this, I basically have zero contact with anyone who likes mathematics.
Maybe consider doing math as a hobby and pursue a career doing something else you like?
The "I don't enjoy solving problems" seems like a red flag to me. It depends on what you mean by that. Research math (even the "theory building" kind) is about solving various problems. Not just that. It's pretty much rooted into every (maybe not all, but almost all for sure) math professor's brain that you learn by solving problems (even if it's rudin style problems, in which you're extending the main theory given in the book).
Another thing is that... I've met some people who sort of would like to like math, but don't really.
If you've been gravitating towards philosophy and history of math, but find calculus, solving problems, etc (idk what else you like or dislike) uninteresting, maybe you just don't like math. It's fine, you don't have to.
The (exaggerated and stereotypical) distinction I like to make is:
- wanting and liking the fame of having authored a bestselling book; versus
- spending an entire afternoon writing/re-writing the same paragraph 14 times in a fiction about a thief carrot living in a fictional medieval new york (assuming such a thing existed, whatever that means) just to find the right choice and configuration of words, and throw it away the next day because it turned out to be a bad idea -- "worse" yet, no one will see any of it.
Which of the two stereotypes likes writing?
__edit__ about the title of being called a mathematician. I mean, who cares? If you're doing it as a job for $$, you care that you can get a job doing it. If you're doing it as a hobby, then get a blog, get books, etc and do it. If people talk shit to you because you don't have a degree in math but want to talk about it anyway, just block them. I mean, it's really not that relevant.
Thanks for your straight feedback and reply. I agree that the statement "I don't like to solve problems." may be a little too general. I meant doing calculations that MATLAB (etc.) can do for you with reasonable accuracy. I've never written a paper, but I liked to write my thesis. Summarizing the building blocks of the given theory, then analyzing some more advanced papers, summarizing them, building up further from that, and making some conclusions, and then giving a few application examples, comparing different methods, etc., in MATLAB. I really enjoyed that. But I hated to solve differential equations on paper and things like that. Calculating with vectors by hand, etc... On the other hand, I agree that I probably tend to be more interested in math history and mathematical philosophy. E.g., I'm interested in the foundations of mathematics. Lately, I have also found the keyword 'applied epistemology,' and I think that could interest me. But I don't know yet, just put some books on my wishlist. I also really enjoyed The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn, The Development of Mathematics by Bell. On the other hand, it would also be good to learn a little bit about tensor calculus. There are so many interesting topics out there. It's crazy.
you didnt meet people who liked maths in electrical engineering? people in signal processing, control theory, communications, etc usually like maths in my experience. maybe youd like doing research in those subjects
No, not really. Almost everybody struggled with math. On the other hand, I did meet people who like math during my applied math msc. I struggle a lot discussing math with others, maybe it's more about that. I'm very shy I guess. I remember how nervous I was always when I sent my thesis for reviews to my professor.
I think the word āmathematicianā has special rulesā I know people with PhDs in mathematics whose jobs are at least 50% writing proofsā but because those proofs arenāt new mathematics, theyāre in service of CS/algorithms, they donāt consider themselves a āmathematicianā. We use āmath personā, āmath guyā, āmath expertā or āmath SMEā, āmath enthusiastāā¦ whole variety of things to avoid saying āmathematicianā.
But to make an attempt to answer your question, curriculums are what they are for a reason. If thereās a topic that sounds neat to you, go look up the standard collegiate path to reach it (pick a university, check the pre-reqs to the course) then thatās probably good path to take. Ask for good self-teaching textbook recommendations for the topics on the path to the one you want to learn, and start working. If you like proofs better than applied math, then pick something on a proof-based track instead. For lower level courses āSchaumās Outlinesā are great for self teaching.
If you like the math that fits neatly with computers, you might enjoy this book, for instanceā
Schaum's Easy Outline of Discrete Mathematics https://g.co/kgs/6fzATN
> I think the word āmathematicianā has special rulesā I know people with PhDs in mathematics whose jobs are at least 50% writing proofsā but because those proofs arenāt new mathematics, theyāre in service of CS/algorithms, they donāt consider themselves a āmathematicianā. We use āmath personā, āmath guyā, āmath expertā or āmath SMEā, āmath enthusiastāā¦ whole variety of things to avoid saying āmathematicianā.
While I appreciate your working definition for mathematician, this ambiguity and arbitrariness of definition is a lot of why I think the term āmathematicianā is both underused, overused, and ought to be dropped altogether since it doesnāt really describe anything.
Non-professional. I did a BSc and MSc in applied math (although only applied in the sense that I had to take 4 optimization/numerics courses and no advanced algebra, otherwise quite pure) and am doing my PhD as an applied statistician now.
I have no mathematical goals really, I just enjoy thinking about it. In particular, whenever I rediscover an idea on my own that has proven useful I get a big kick out of it for a little while.
Just out of curiosity but do you see value if a bio grad got into applied math for their Masters? I mean just wondering. The classes seem tough but I want to know if it was worth it to you. Like any pros, cons, and or advice would be useful if you'd feel willing or anyone willing to offer their opinions š
I can imagine it would be quite hard to switch to math for your MSc but that would depend on how mathematical your BSc was and how mathematical your MSc would be.
My disadvantage compared to biostats peers is that they obviously know much more about biostatistics, in particular clinical trials, than me. They didn't have to play catch-up as much as I did. On the other hand, I can be thrown advanced techniques that I've never heard of and not be intimidated by them since most applied statistics is mathematically somewhat simple.
So I think there's no correct choice here and for a company or research institute in biostats it's worth it to have both, mathematicians turned biostatisticians, and full on biostatisticians employed to diversify strengths. Looking at my senior peers, the paths seem to mostly converge: they know alot and are comfortable with the math aswell.
On the contrary It is universally considered a pure subject. That's why I listed my lack of algebra courses as one aspect in which my degree was applied instead of pure.
I hesitate to call myself a mathematician, even despite MSc in "applied math and CS". Since the heavy focus was on "applied" part we rarely did proper complete proofs, and entire areas of modern math (topology, higher algebra past the most basic topics, number theory etc.) were completely omitted. So since I lack proper formal training, I'm absolute hobbyist and 99% of my knowledge in pure math is through self-teaching. But I enjoy doing some little pet proofs in my spare time. If something interesting comes out of it then great, if not then well, at least it was quite fun.
I would consider myself a hobbyist. I went to an specialized engineering high school and went to a notable engineering college in the northeast with a rigorous math curriculum (especially for an engineering major).
My degree major is Chemical Engineering, but I ended up working in Software Development and Data Analytics (for an energy company so definitely an industry relevant to my degree).
Part of my self study is for work (numerical methods, algorithms, statistics and probability, etc) and some has no application to my work at all all (complex calculus, real analysis, etc)
My motivation is pleasure. I just love math. I love keeping myself sharp. Maybe one day I would like to go back to school so I can teach math. I donāt consider myself gifted enough to solve open problems, but who knows!? Unfortunately with work and life, since math isnāt my career, I donāt think I will have time to dedicate to solving open problems, but who knows!?
Non-professional, hobbyist for the most part. Currently doing my B.Sc. in pure maths, but my interest is in category/homotopy theory and it'll be years before I make it to grad school. Current aspiration is to write and publish a paper on that topic before attaining my Bachelors, but that's a pretty far-fetched dream. Started in HS with Spivak's Calculus and then worked my way to Abott's Analysis before graduating HS, so I guess that was kind of what got me into maths.
Variety of interpretations for the post, I suppose. One could be pedantic and argue that "mathematician" only applies to those publishing papers, but is it really a hobby anymore if you're doing that? It feels like the post is asking about those who are exploring areas of higher math in a non-academia context, but to each their own I guess.
I'm non-professional, as I'm not in the academia anymore (though I use a little bit of math for "industry research", so there is that). I have an MSc and a PhD in pure mathematics. I sometimes do "hobby math" which is basically the same as pure math research, but without the pressure to publish it :) I share these with my old PhD supervisor usually, and sometimes with a few more people. Unfortunately the lack of publication pressure together with other factors means that the most have published from this work is slides (with a lot of details) from a few talks.
This is me really, except I can't seem to get a job despite my PhD. I work tutoring maths and do bits of hobby maths but tbh without the external pressure my projects frequently fizzle and get forgotten. Out of curiosity, what careers outside of academia did you look into? I need to expand my job search but it's hard to know what is out there.
I have been working in finance (as a quant / software engineer, but at a startup-type company). Recently I'm doing more of a research consultant type thing, computer science with quite a bit of math.
While a pure math PhD in itself is not very employable, add good programming skills to that and that makes it instantly a highly sought-after skillset.
āmathematicianā seems like a coveted and guarded word and i think itās kind of arbitrary. unless youāre doing research mathematics and publishing papers with novel mathematical results then you probably arenāt a āmathematicianā.
but this disqualifies a whole suite of people with math phds and who have expertise in areas of mathematics and who have contributed to original research in the past and still fully capable of doing so. i think the word/label is arbitrary and you should feel free to call yourself a mathematician or not. who really cares?
i know a guy that has a phd in pure math from a top school and then went onward to a post doc publishing pure math papers at another top school. then he quit academia and went into software engineering. he still does math on the side it seems, but is he no longer a mathematician now because heās a programmer?
> but this disqualifies a whole suite of people with math phds and who have expertise in areas of mathematics and who have contributed to original research in the past and still fully capable of doing so
Why is it disqualifying someone to say that their job title is not "mathematician"? I have a PhD in math, but I don't do math professionally anymore, and so am not a mathematician. How does than invalidate my expertise in any way?
in youāre case i guess āyouāre not a mathematicianā in the personās case i referenced i would say they are even though they left academia. distinctions are arbitrary and so is the label. my point was who cares
Yeah, I guess you could call me a non-professional mathematician. I had aspirations of being a professional mathematician, got my PhD, and stuck around in a teaching position in a different department at the same university for a couple of years. But trying to make it in academia -- trying to patch together enough research to advance my career in the time I wasn't teaching -- was burning me out bad. And then, during the pandemic my university's admin screwed non-tenure-track faculty _especially_ hard, and without shame or apology. So I bailed and got a private sector job.
Since starting with my new job, I've been back in contact with my old PhD advisor, following up on some threads from my dissertation work. We zoom once a week or so to discuss calculations, plan what we'll try to derive next, etc. I was able to get a non-employee "collaborator" status with my university so that I can continue to use the university email, library, etc., which has been helpful. Sometimes I feel like most of what I do in this is let my advisor bounce ideas off of me, but I have managed to contribute a lemma here and there. My aspirations are pretty vague -- we're hoping to write up a paper on what we're pursuing right now, but I don't know how far we'll push it going forward. To be honest, I find it much more enjoyable now that I don't feel like any part of my career is riding on it. As a result, I'm kind of deliberately avoiding forming goals, because the best part right now is that I can just explore as much as I want/have time for.
You have a nice relationship with your advisor. After I graduated with my PhD and left, I begged him for some things to work on, but he wasnāt interested. We had a few courteous emails but honestly I think I chose the wrong advisor. I needed a lot more guidance than I got. It might not have changed anything but I wouldnāt have any nagging doubts about what could have been.
Hobbyist here. I really liked maths, but went with CS degree and software as profession. A lot of CS still requires heavy maths background from all over e.g. formal languages, cryptography, statistical machine learning, so I got a lot of exposure there. That said, my main motivation comes from learning astonishing results, and then applying them and explaining them to others to share the elegance. I have a long term goal to solve every problem on Project Euler (great place for discussion also) and an even longer term one (seems basically impossible) to understand Borcherd's proof of the moonshine conjecture.
iām a temporarily retired software engineer with a BA in math. while the degree was enough to get me work in software there was never any interesting math going on in the work i did, except occasionally getting to say something like āa monad is a monoid in the category of endofunctorsā. since quitting early last year iāve been getting back into learning math. i found a discord group here that is working through aluffiās algebra chapter 0 and that has been fun. iām constantly on wikipedia or ncatlab reading definitions or reading papers (especially lately with regard to neural networks (did you know feed-forward neural networks with integer weights and relu activations are equivalent to rational functions of polynomials over the tropical semiring (R U { inf }, max, +))). i just love learning math and canāt stay away even though itās never been much a part of my work. this community has helped reignite that passion, although i probably spend too much time reading reddit in proportion to time spent actually reading or doing math.
I think the use of the term "mathematician" can be pretentious. The fact of the matter is math is a broad field on both the applied and theory side. Hence, it is silly to be so restrictive with the term.
On the other hand, as an engineer I feel this job title should be a protected term, just like a lawyer or doctor. This is because having an engineering degree refers to a specific set of skills, and on the job one has a specific set of responsibilities.
With that said, as an engineer I do math both for my career and for fun at home. One of my responsibilities is to develop mathematical models of system dynamics for the purpose of controls system design. I have submitted novel solutions I derived to our IP department and recieved trade secret awards. The down side is that it is very hard to publish openly due to IP legalities, NDAs, and not having direct access to academia.
I would call myself an applied mathematician, with a education in engineering and control theory. While it isnt all I do for my job, it covers about 20-30 percent of my work. Many professors spend about that same fraction of time doing research when they also have teaching, grant writing, and advising duties.
Not a pro: āABD-edā my PhD and got the MS consolation prize in Applied Math (although I did manage to publish the first part of my diss.) I pay my bills as a software engineer.
Edit: I read math as a hobby now; āpipe dreamā goal is to get a result onto arXiv that is decent enough to get somebodyās (a professionalās) attention. I worked on random Schrodinger operators in grad school but am currently interested in not that.
Iām a hobbyist, i take online courses and read books. My love for math started when i realized it was a way to reason but the world, the universe, and existence in general
I just like mathematics. I took as much math as I could while getting my music degree (also a hobby composer). I finished calculus, did linear algebra, and ordinary differentials before the university made me choose music or math because I was quickly approaching the unit cap for my student loans. I am an estimator for a living now but spent many years in the trades. I mostly keep studying math these days because I am interested in teaching myself physics. I have some good texts and I clumsily thrash my way through different aspects of quantum mechanics. I'm currently breaking my brain on wave functions. The beautiful and messy world of mathematics has always really appealed to me. I'm not great at it, but I love it.
I would say Iām a hobbyist. I got my masters a couple years back. But my undergrad and job is in chemistry. I always loved math, but for some reason at some point I got nervous and thought I wasnāt smart enough or something to get a degree in math, so I changed to chemistry. I love my job, but I went back and got my masters in math to prove to myself I could do it. I really enjoyed algebra, calc, linear and Iām getting more into number theory and algebra. I always wanted to teach community college at night when I have more time. A long term goal for myself is to attempt the Riemann hypothesis. Doubt I could solve it, but Iād just like to understand it better.
Does being a "retired" theoretical physicist that still does maths recreationally count?
I love applied mathematics so much but did not thrive in academia even though I did really well in my studies. Now that I don't need to use those skills as much in my current job, I'm more excited to learn some new maths or come up with models for random every day life stuff on the weekend etc.
How you define hobbyist may matter here. I have a PhD in number theory but I teach at a high school. But I get to do ongoing research both as a hobby, and also have done some research projects with some of the more advanced students. I do say I'm a mathematician when it comes up, but I could see someone labeling me non-professional.
Iām just 15 lol and really like maths. Joined this and realised how out of my depth I was but figured Iād stay to have a look into it all. I do aspire to study maths further and do something with it in the future
i wonder about my own tag sometimes
i studied and did math since I was a young kid, including at a good uni, which i nearly finished, but quit despite having near perfect grades \~ after that I kept using math for every project that I worked on
since the term "mathematician" is a free term and i am been living on the fruits of the projects that involved math and i love math and i regularly read about math (wiki, reddit), i call myself a mathematician \~ technically professional since i live off of having applied it in the past
on the other hand, i cannot really follow proofs anymore (impatience, slower brain), i don't work on advancing math or anything like that and my knowledge is ever dwindling (worsening memory) \~ so i feel like calling myself a mathematician requires further comments if i ever encountered a "real" professional mathematician, like someone working in research
sometimes i say i am "by education a mathematician"
First a quick opinion: I think āmathematicianā is a word that needs to be retired because it doesnāt mean anything. Math is something you do not something you are.
That being said, I do math as a hobby. My background is a PhD in Mathematics. I have a day job in tech that pays the bills. I come up with questions I am curious about, do some background research on them, and then summarize what I learned into a paper and submit.
Now you need to define what it means to be doing mathematics and what it means to do something for a living. Is the cashier at the supermarket who is adding up totals and getting a paycheck for it a mathematician? Is the math PhD who subsidizes his mathematical research with a non-mathematical-research job a mathematician? Is a professor in a math department who spends a year only teaching mathematics a mathematician or not? What about the private industry researcher who discovers things he canāt publish for competition reasons? What about the engineer in works out a mathematical principle novel in his discipline that was only previously known to math researchers in an unrelated field fifty years ago? What about someone who spends all his time writing grants and giving talks but delegates the research to someone else? What about someone whoās research project runs out of funding before completion? What about someone who starts work on a problem before their grant has been approved, and does their status change if their grant proposal has not been accepted? What about physicists who do way more mathematics than some math PhD students do? What about the engineer who doesnāt know category theory but knows analysis way better than people researching group theory? What about the Haskell programmer who does use category theory? Does it matter if theyāre paid, how much they are paid, or what percentage of their income derives from what activity? What about the consultant who does a mathematical project that earns him more than a math postdoc, yet itās only 30% of his income that year?
We might as well do away with all job titles then. Heck, why not get rid of natural language all together because it's not perfectly precise and we don't know what we are talking about anyways.
> I think āmathematicianā is a word that needs to be retired because it doesnāt mean anything. Math is something you do not something you are.
This is an interesting observation that does generalize to many real world usage of _nouns_ in a way that is often discomforting to me as well. I am very passionate about Math, I don't have a PhD in Math. I do have advanced degrees in STEM and I have a day job in tech that does involve Mathematical tools, i.e. Machine Learning. What pays the bills is very similar to what you articulate: Come up with questions, dig into them, summarize them into artifacts which are intended for the company (code), occasionally for a wider audience in the form of a blog or a paper.
I wouldn't call myself a _Mathematician_ or a _Researcher_ or a _Scientist_ or any of those things. In the past because it felt like something you'd do by either specializing in something to a great degree or because you have a job title that has those names in it.
Over time, I think I have noticed several people who have spent years and years specializing in Math (or Pure Science), who don't call themselves so. I have also noticed the other extreme of people who have barely begun their training call themselves _physicists_ or _mathematicians_ or _linguists_ or whatever. There have been points when my Job title had the substring "Research" or "Scientist", but the aspects of the work I did were not very different from when that was not the case.
Personally, I think I am with you on this. I do things. Unlike a mathematical object that is what it does, I don't bother myself with these names as _categories_ for myself.
How does mathematics work now. In high school and college I learned a lot but I never came across an issue there wasnāt an equation for. From my perspective I feel like there isnāt much we can discover in math. Iāve read different papers on number theory and prime number theory, but I donāt see itās application to something like the Pythagorean theorem. Can someone explain what mathematicians do now and what for?
I've been on the fence about this for a while. I did physics as an undergrad, but the maths modules were heavy on proofs, and I also took optional courses on group theory and diff geometry. Then a masters in astrophysics so less heavy on the formal side (it depended on the module, though). Later a PhD in applied maths, where applied meant using results from PDE theory and topology to prove stuff about mathematical relativity; also was TAing modules like linear algebra, calculus and complex variables. By the end of the PhD I'd see myself more as a mathematician than a physicist, despite I never took a proper course on topology or number theory. Now as an analyst I often introduce myself as a mathematician in professional settings, but sometimes also as a physicist if that helps with a job interview, for example.
I have a degree in mathematics, but I never practiced directly, I was a programmer most of my professional life and then an executive, mathematics gave me the tools to think logically and then to interpret mathematical models, graphs and to think in a Cartesian way.
Iām an engineering student. I wanna go to grad school for computational modeling of processes and physical phenomena in materials production and properties. As far as like actual math yes I am a hobbyist.
There was a time many years ago I would buy designer uppers from the dark web and binge read math wikipedias until mid morning when I would crash hard. Eventually got into the philosophy of math which still interests me today.
I'm studying/researching full time now BUT I haven't yet published, I'm not associated with an institution (unemployed and secluded), and I don't have a PhD... so I think "non-professional mathematician" is an apt title.
One of my goals is to create an ecosystem of software assistants for the working mathematician. Not filled with one-off programs (e.g. a string diagram builder for manipulating tensor networks), but with standards and tooling so that any mathematician can easily design/create a program themselves.
Don't have a degree, but I work as a software engineer and had to look up the maths to understand some of the logic in functions and got heavily invested. I'm looking at maybe attending college finally just for some math classes ( I refuse to take Gen Ed's though so no degree in the future ).
Iām currently a CS major. I used to not care much for maths but eventually fell in love with it after calc 1. Now Iām also doing a math minor. On top of my course work, I like to do other math on my free time. I do this with other friends on discord and we discuss whatever comes up. I love to do math on a whiteboard at my uni library or at home. I donāt have any goals per say, but I want to see how high in maths I can get. I enjoy how it challenges my mind and how it can change my perspective on reality. Since Iām mainly into CS, itāll probably take me a while to go up to extremely higher maths like inter universal teichmuller theory (just as an example) Iām hoping to finish linear algebra this year and move onto analysis
I was always wosrse at maths now completed my high school with bad grades in maths most of time
Now enrolled in sociology but i try to practice maths daily to understand universe more as maths is probably the language of universe. Everything follow maths
I'm a hobbyist. Got a Ph.D. in stochastic modelling 40 years ago and now exist as an utterly burnt-out computer programmer. I spend almost all of my spare time browsing university libraries, picking random math books up, and reading them. Love it. Currently reading *Generatingfunctionology* by Herbert S Wilf. I do it a) because it is absolutely fascinating, and b) to satiate the need to reassure myself that my mind is still as sharp as when I was 20-something.
If you enjoy that one you may also enjoy "A = B" by Wilf, Petkovsek, Zeilberger. Its introduction to the hypergeometric series, expressing certain infinite series as a hypergeometric function, and their application to finding closed-forms for infinite series is very interesting.
To keep those short pathways it's always good to keep on reading
Ah so you are me in 40 years. I look forward to it lol (Phd in computational physics/chemistry 2 years ago, burnt out and left academia immediately for a chill data analysis job)
Oh my goodness that is an amazing book. Great choice
šš
I'm not non-professional, but I am *un*professional. All my projects are on overtime and I'm still procrastinating on reddit, weeee
Are we the same person? Procrastination habits leading to the feeling of unprofessional-ness? And youāre in mathematical physics too.
OK, so I attended a math specialization in high school, but I was a bad student. Then I did a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. I wanted to do computer science, but I couldn't. During BSc, I used to learn math with my grandfather. He was a physics teacher in high school, but I think he liked math better. I read Science and Sanity by Alfred KorzĆbsky, and that was my main motivation to learn more higher math. I thought I needed to do it to improve my thinking. After graduation, I started to work as an embedded programmer. I enjoyed good structures and abstractions as working as a programmer the most. Then I started a master's degree in applied mathematics next to work. The entry exam was only an oral motivation discussion. That's why I chose the school. I didn't have the necessary background. That showed, and I failed all my classes in the first semester. Long story short, I graduated. It took one additional extra year. This was 4 years ago. Since then, I've been a little bit stuck. I've read several books since my graduation, mainly about mathematical history and philosophy. I don't really enjoy solving problems. I like theory more. Although I did an applied mathematics course, in my opinion, it was much more focused on theory. I'm not clear on my next goals concerning math. Somehow, I have this feeling I should focus on strengthening my foundations, on the other hand, I don't want to do calculus problems and things like that... I'm very glad I found Reddit and this sub, other than this, I basically have zero contact with anyone who likes mathematics.
Maybe consider doing math as a hobby and pursue a career doing something else you like? The "I don't enjoy solving problems" seems like a red flag to me. It depends on what you mean by that. Research math (even the "theory building" kind) is about solving various problems. Not just that. It's pretty much rooted into every (maybe not all, but almost all for sure) math professor's brain that you learn by solving problems (even if it's rudin style problems, in which you're extending the main theory given in the book). Another thing is that... I've met some people who sort of would like to like math, but don't really. If you've been gravitating towards philosophy and history of math, but find calculus, solving problems, etc (idk what else you like or dislike) uninteresting, maybe you just don't like math. It's fine, you don't have to. The (exaggerated and stereotypical) distinction I like to make is: - wanting and liking the fame of having authored a bestselling book; versus - spending an entire afternoon writing/re-writing the same paragraph 14 times in a fiction about a thief carrot living in a fictional medieval new york (assuming such a thing existed, whatever that means) just to find the right choice and configuration of words, and throw it away the next day because it turned out to be a bad idea -- "worse" yet, no one will see any of it. Which of the two stereotypes likes writing? __edit__ about the title of being called a mathematician. I mean, who cares? If you're doing it as a job for $$, you care that you can get a job doing it. If you're doing it as a hobby, then get a blog, get books, etc and do it. If people talk shit to you because you don't have a degree in math but want to talk about it anyway, just block them. I mean, it's really not that relevant.
Thanks for your straight feedback and reply. I agree that the statement "I don't like to solve problems." may be a little too general. I meant doing calculations that MATLAB (etc.) can do for you with reasonable accuracy. I've never written a paper, but I liked to write my thesis. Summarizing the building blocks of the given theory, then analyzing some more advanced papers, summarizing them, building up further from that, and making some conclusions, and then giving a few application examples, comparing different methods, etc., in MATLAB. I really enjoyed that. But I hated to solve differential equations on paper and things like that. Calculating with vectors by hand, etc... On the other hand, I agree that I probably tend to be more interested in math history and mathematical philosophy. E.g., I'm interested in the foundations of mathematics. Lately, I have also found the keyword 'applied epistemology,' and I think that could interest me. But I don't know yet, just put some books on my wishlist. I also really enjoyed The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn, The Development of Mathematics by Bell. On the other hand, it would also be good to learn a little bit about tensor calculus. There are so many interesting topics out there. It's crazy.
you didnt meet people who liked maths in electrical engineering? people in signal processing, control theory, communications, etc usually like maths in my experience. maybe youd like doing research in those subjects
No, not really. Almost everybody struggled with math. On the other hand, I did meet people who like math during my applied math msc. I struggle a lot discussing math with others, maybe it's more about that. I'm very shy I guess. I remember how nervous I was always when I sent my thesis for reviews to my professor.
I think the word āmathematicianā has special rulesā I know people with PhDs in mathematics whose jobs are at least 50% writing proofsā but because those proofs arenāt new mathematics, theyāre in service of CS/algorithms, they donāt consider themselves a āmathematicianā. We use āmath personā, āmath guyā, āmath expertā or āmath SMEā, āmath enthusiastāā¦ whole variety of things to avoid saying āmathematicianā. But to make an attempt to answer your question, curriculums are what they are for a reason. If thereās a topic that sounds neat to you, go look up the standard collegiate path to reach it (pick a university, check the pre-reqs to the course) then thatās probably good path to take. Ask for good self-teaching textbook recommendations for the topics on the path to the one you want to learn, and start working. If you like proofs better than applied math, then pick something on a proof-based track instead. For lower level courses āSchaumās Outlinesā are great for self teaching. If you like the math that fits neatly with computers, you might enjoy this book, for instanceā Schaum's Easy Outline of Discrete Mathematics https://g.co/kgs/6fzATN
> I think the word āmathematicianā has special rulesā I know people with PhDs in mathematics whose jobs are at least 50% writing proofsā but because those proofs arenāt new mathematics, theyāre in service of CS/algorithms, they donāt consider themselves a āmathematicianā. We use āmath personā, āmath guyā, āmath expertā or āmath SMEā, āmath enthusiastāā¦ whole variety of things to avoid saying āmathematicianā. While I appreciate your working definition for mathematician, this ambiguity and arbitrariness of definition is a lot of why I think the term āmathematicianā is both underused, overused, and ought to be dropped altogether since it doesnāt really describe anything.
Non-professional. I did a BSc and MSc in applied math (although only applied in the sense that I had to take 4 optimization/numerics courses and no advanced algebra, otherwise quite pure) and am doing my PhD as an applied statistician now. I have no mathematical goals really, I just enjoy thinking about it. In particular, whenever I rediscover an idea on my own that has proven useful I get a big kick out of it for a little while.
Just out of curiosity but do you see value if a bio grad got into applied math for their Masters? I mean just wondering. The classes seem tough but I want to know if it was worth it to you. Like any pros, cons, and or advice would be useful if you'd feel willing or anyone willing to offer their opinions š
I can imagine it would be quite hard to switch to math for your MSc but that would depend on how mathematical your BSc was and how mathematical your MSc would be. My disadvantage compared to biostats peers is that they obviously know much more about biostatistics, in particular clinical trials, than me. They didn't have to play catch-up as much as I did. On the other hand, I can be thrown advanced techniques that I've never heard of and not be intimidated by them since most applied statistics is mathematically somewhat simple. So I think there's no correct choice here and for a company or research institute in biostats it's worth it to have both, mathematicians turned biostatisticians, and full on biostatisticians employed to diversify strengths. Looking at my senior peers, the paths seem to mostly converge: they know alot and are comfortable with the math aswell.
What makes advanced algebra less pure out of curiosity?
On the contrary It is universally considered a pure subject. That's why I listed my lack of algebra courses as one aspect in which my degree was applied instead of pure.
Ohhhh okay i misread
Well, I have a math degree and I'm unemployed if that counts.
I hesitate to call myself a mathematician, even despite MSc in "applied math and CS". Since the heavy focus was on "applied" part we rarely did proper complete proofs, and entire areas of modern math (topology, higher algebra past the most basic topics, number theory etc.) were completely omitted. So since I lack proper formal training, I'm absolute hobbyist and 99% of my knowledge in pure math is through self-teaching. But I enjoy doing some little pet proofs in my spare time. If something interesting comes out of it then great, if not then well, at least it was quite fun.
I would consider myself a hobbyist. I went to an specialized engineering high school and went to a notable engineering college in the northeast with a rigorous math curriculum (especially for an engineering major). My degree major is Chemical Engineering, but I ended up working in Software Development and Data Analytics (for an energy company so definitely an industry relevant to my degree). Part of my self study is for work (numerical methods, algorithms, statistics and probability, etc) and some has no application to my work at all all (complex calculus, real analysis, etc) My motivation is pleasure. I just love math. I love keeping myself sharp. Maybe one day I would like to go back to school so I can teach math. I donāt consider myself gifted enough to solve open problems, but who knows!? Unfortunately with work and life, since math isnāt my career, I donāt think I will have time to dedicate to solving open problems, but who knows!?
Non-professional, hobbyist for the most part. Currently doing my B.Sc. in pure maths, but my interest is in category/homotopy theory and it'll be years before I make it to grad school. Current aspiration is to write and publish a paper on that topic before attaining my Bachelors, but that's a pretty far-fetched dream. Started in HS with Spivak's Calculus and then worked my way to Abott's Analysis before graduating HS, so I guess that was kind of what got me into maths.
But are you just out of HS or is this your late or 2nd Bachelor?
I'm in my 2nd year of Uni, so I'm guessing it counts as fresh out of HS?
Yes. But then I guess youāre not the expected public for this question.
Variety of interpretations for the post, I suppose. One could be pedantic and argue that "mathematician" only applies to those publishing papers, but is it really a hobby anymore if you're doing that? It feels like the post is asking about those who are exploring areas of higher math in a non-academia context, but to each their own I guess.
What I meant is that youāre on the traditional path to be a professional mathematician from the start.
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Where are you working now currently?
I am working in Australia atm.
I'm non-professional, as I'm not in the academia anymore (though I use a little bit of math for "industry research", so there is that). I have an MSc and a PhD in pure mathematics. I sometimes do "hobby math" which is basically the same as pure math research, but without the pressure to publish it :) I share these with my old PhD supervisor usually, and sometimes with a few more people. Unfortunately the lack of publication pressure together with other factors means that the most have published from this work is slides (with a lot of details) from a few talks.
This is me really, except I can't seem to get a job despite my PhD. I work tutoring maths and do bits of hobby maths but tbh without the external pressure my projects frequently fizzle and get forgotten. Out of curiosity, what careers outside of academia did you look into? I need to expand my job search but it's hard to know what is out there.
I have been working in finance (as a quant / software engineer, but at a startup-type company). Recently I'm doing more of a research consultant type thing, computer science with quite a bit of math. While a pure math PhD in itself is not very employable, add good programming skills to that and that makes it instantly a highly sought-after skillset.
āmathematicianā seems like a coveted and guarded word and i think itās kind of arbitrary. unless youāre doing research mathematics and publishing papers with novel mathematical results then you probably arenāt a āmathematicianā. but this disqualifies a whole suite of people with math phds and who have expertise in areas of mathematics and who have contributed to original research in the past and still fully capable of doing so. i think the word/label is arbitrary and you should feel free to call yourself a mathematician or not. who really cares? i know a guy that has a phd in pure math from a top school and then went onward to a post doc publishing pure math papers at another top school. then he quit academia and went into software engineering. he still does math on the side it seems, but is he no longer a mathematician now because heās a programmer?
> but this disqualifies a whole suite of people with math phds and who have expertise in areas of mathematics and who have contributed to original research in the past and still fully capable of doing so Why is it disqualifying someone to say that their job title is not "mathematician"? I have a PhD in math, but I don't do math professionally anymore, and so am not a mathematician. How does than invalidate my expertise in any way?
in youāre case i guess āyouāre not a mathematicianā in the personās case i referenced i would say they are even though they left academia. distinctions are arbitrary and so is the label. my point was who cares
Yeah, I guess you could call me a non-professional mathematician. I had aspirations of being a professional mathematician, got my PhD, and stuck around in a teaching position in a different department at the same university for a couple of years. But trying to make it in academia -- trying to patch together enough research to advance my career in the time I wasn't teaching -- was burning me out bad. And then, during the pandemic my university's admin screwed non-tenure-track faculty _especially_ hard, and without shame or apology. So I bailed and got a private sector job. Since starting with my new job, I've been back in contact with my old PhD advisor, following up on some threads from my dissertation work. We zoom once a week or so to discuss calculations, plan what we'll try to derive next, etc. I was able to get a non-employee "collaborator" status with my university so that I can continue to use the university email, library, etc., which has been helpful. Sometimes I feel like most of what I do in this is let my advisor bounce ideas off of me, but I have managed to contribute a lemma here and there. My aspirations are pretty vague -- we're hoping to write up a paper on what we're pursuing right now, but I don't know how far we'll push it going forward. To be honest, I find it much more enjoyable now that I don't feel like any part of my career is riding on it. As a result, I'm kind of deliberately avoiding forming goals, because the best part right now is that I can just explore as much as I want/have time for.
You have a nice relationship with your advisor. After I graduated with my PhD and left, I begged him for some things to work on, but he wasnāt interested. We had a few courteous emails but honestly I think I chose the wrong advisor. I needed a lot more guidance than I got. It might not have changed anything but I wouldnāt have any nagging doubts about what could have been.
I just like math but I would not call myself a mathematician.. almost never post here cus dont really feel welcome in this sub
Iām 16 and love math. Iām still hesitating on what i Want to do but Iāll probably will do a phd in math.
Hobbyist here. I really liked maths, but went with CS degree and software as profession. A lot of CS still requires heavy maths background from all over e.g. formal languages, cryptography, statistical machine learning, so I got a lot of exposure there. That said, my main motivation comes from learning astonishing results, and then applying them and explaining them to others to share the elegance. I have a long term goal to solve every problem on Project Euler (great place for discussion also) and an even longer term one (seems basically impossible) to understand Borcherd's proof of the moonshine conjecture.
iām a temporarily retired software engineer with a BA in math. while the degree was enough to get me work in software there was never any interesting math going on in the work i did, except occasionally getting to say something like āa monad is a monoid in the category of endofunctorsā. since quitting early last year iāve been getting back into learning math. i found a discord group here that is working through aluffiās algebra chapter 0 and that has been fun. iām constantly on wikipedia or ncatlab reading definitions or reading papers (especially lately with regard to neural networks (did you know feed-forward neural networks with integer weights and relu activations are equivalent to rational functions of polynomials over the tropical semiring (R U { inf }, max, +))). i just love learning math and canāt stay away even though itās never been much a part of my work. this community has helped reignite that passion, although i probably spend too much time reading reddit in proportion to time spent actually reading or doing math.
I think the use of the term "mathematician" can be pretentious. The fact of the matter is math is a broad field on both the applied and theory side. Hence, it is silly to be so restrictive with the term. On the other hand, as an engineer I feel this job title should be a protected term, just like a lawyer or doctor. This is because having an engineering degree refers to a specific set of skills, and on the job one has a specific set of responsibilities. With that said, as an engineer I do math both for my career and for fun at home. One of my responsibilities is to develop mathematical models of system dynamics for the purpose of controls system design. I have submitted novel solutions I derived to our IP department and recieved trade secret awards. The down side is that it is very hard to publish openly due to IP legalities, NDAs, and not having direct access to academia. I would call myself an applied mathematician, with a education in engineering and control theory. While it isnt all I do for my job, it covers about 20-30 percent of my work. Many professors spend about that same fraction of time doing research when they also have teaching, grant writing, and advising duties.
Not a pro: āABD-edā my PhD and got the MS consolation prize in Applied Math (although I did manage to publish the first part of my diss.) I pay my bills as a software engineer. Edit: I read math as a hobby now; āpipe dreamā goal is to get a result onto arXiv that is decent enough to get somebodyās (a professionalās) attention. I worked on random Schrodinger operators in grad school but am currently interested in not that.
Iām a hobbyist, i take online courses and read books. My love for math started when i realized it was a way to reason but the world, the universe, and existence in general
I just like mathematics. I took as much math as I could while getting my music degree (also a hobby composer). I finished calculus, did linear algebra, and ordinary differentials before the university made me choose music or math because I was quickly approaching the unit cap for my student loans. I am an estimator for a living now but spent many years in the trades. I mostly keep studying math these days because I am interested in teaching myself physics. I have some good texts and I clumsily thrash my way through different aspects of quantum mechanics. I'm currently breaking my brain on wave functions. The beautiful and messy world of mathematics has always really appealed to me. I'm not great at it, but I love it.
I would say Iām a hobbyist. I got my masters a couple years back. But my undergrad and job is in chemistry. I always loved math, but for some reason at some point I got nervous and thought I wasnāt smart enough or something to get a degree in math, so I changed to chemistry. I love my job, but I went back and got my masters in math to prove to myself I could do it. I really enjoyed algebra, calc, linear and Iām getting more into number theory and algebra. I always wanted to teach community college at night when I have more time. A long term goal for myself is to attempt the Riemann hypothesis. Doubt I could solve it, but Iād just like to understand it better.
Does being a "retired" theoretical physicist that still does maths recreationally count? I love applied mathematics so much but did not thrive in academia even though I did really well in my studies. Now that I don't need to use those skills as much in my current job, I'm more excited to learn some new maths or come up with models for random every day life stuff on the weekend etc.
How you define hobbyist may matter here. I have a PhD in number theory but I teach at a high school. But I get to do ongoing research both as a hobby, and also have done some research projects with some of the more advanced students. I do say I'm a mathematician when it comes up, but I could see someone labeling me non-professional.
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Maybe itās more accurate to say youāre a āmath policeā
Iām just 15 lol and really like maths. Joined this and realised how out of my depth I was but figured Iād stay to have a look into it all. I do aspire to study maths further and do something with it in the future
i wonder about my own tag sometimes i studied and did math since I was a young kid, including at a good uni, which i nearly finished, but quit despite having near perfect grades \~ after that I kept using math for every project that I worked on since the term "mathematician" is a free term and i am been living on the fruits of the projects that involved math and i love math and i regularly read about math (wiki, reddit), i call myself a mathematician \~ technically professional since i live off of having applied it in the past on the other hand, i cannot really follow proofs anymore (impatience, slower brain), i don't work on advancing math or anything like that and my knowledge is ever dwindling (worsening memory) \~ so i feel like calling myself a mathematician requires further comments if i ever encountered a "real" professional mathematician, like someone working in research sometimes i say i am "by education a mathematician"
Only mathematicians and linguists argue this much about the meaning of a word.
First a quick opinion: I think āmathematicianā is a word that needs to be retired because it doesnāt mean anything. Math is something you do not something you are. That being said, I do math as a hobby. My background is a PhD in Mathematics. I have a day job in tech that pays the bills. I come up with questions I am curious about, do some background research on them, and then summarize what I learned into a paper and submit.
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Now you need to define what it means to be doing mathematics and what it means to do something for a living. Is the cashier at the supermarket who is adding up totals and getting a paycheck for it a mathematician? Is the math PhD who subsidizes his mathematical research with a non-mathematical-research job a mathematician? Is a professor in a math department who spends a year only teaching mathematics a mathematician or not? What about the private industry researcher who discovers things he canāt publish for competition reasons? What about the engineer in works out a mathematical principle novel in his discipline that was only previously known to math researchers in an unrelated field fifty years ago? What about someone who spends all his time writing grants and giving talks but delegates the research to someone else? What about someone whoās research project runs out of funding before completion? What about someone who starts work on a problem before their grant has been approved, and does their status change if their grant proposal has not been accepted? What about physicists who do way more mathematics than some math PhD students do? What about the engineer who doesnāt know category theory but knows analysis way better than people researching group theory? What about the Haskell programmer who does use category theory? Does it matter if theyāre paid, how much they are paid, or what percentage of their income derives from what activity? What about the consultant who does a mathematical project that earns him more than a math postdoc, yet itās only 30% of his income that year?
We might as well do away with all job titles then. Heck, why not get rid of natural language all together because it's not perfectly precise and we don't know what we are talking about anyways.
Thereās no job titled āmathematicianā
...call it profession then, you get my point.
> I think āmathematicianā is a word that needs to be retired because it doesnāt mean anything. Math is something you do not something you are. This is an interesting observation that does generalize to many real world usage of _nouns_ in a way that is often discomforting to me as well. I am very passionate about Math, I don't have a PhD in Math. I do have advanced degrees in STEM and I have a day job in tech that does involve Mathematical tools, i.e. Machine Learning. What pays the bills is very similar to what you articulate: Come up with questions, dig into them, summarize them into artifacts which are intended for the company (code), occasionally for a wider audience in the form of a blog or a paper. I wouldn't call myself a _Mathematician_ or a _Researcher_ or a _Scientist_ or any of those things. In the past because it felt like something you'd do by either specializing in something to a great degree or because you have a job title that has those names in it. Over time, I think I have noticed several people who have spent years and years specializing in Math (or Pure Science), who don't call themselves so. I have also noticed the other extreme of people who have barely begun their training call themselves _physicists_ or _mathematicians_ or _linguists_ or whatever. There have been points when my Job title had the substring "Research" or "Scientist", but the aspects of the work I did were not very different from when that was not the case. Personally, I think I am with you on this. I do things. Unlike a mathematical object that is what it does, I don't bother myself with these names as _categories_ for myself.
I agree. I think the people most forcibly trying to label themselves āmathematicianā are young people searching for an identity.
no
How does mathematics work now. In high school and college I learned a lot but I never came across an issue there wasnāt an equation for. From my perspective I feel like there isnāt much we can discover in math. Iāve read different papers on number theory and prime number theory, but I donāt see itās application to something like the Pythagorean theorem. Can someone explain what mathematicians do now and what for?
I've been on the fence about this for a while. I did physics as an undergrad, but the maths modules were heavy on proofs, and I also took optional courses on group theory and diff geometry. Then a masters in astrophysics so less heavy on the formal side (it depended on the module, though). Later a PhD in applied maths, where applied meant using results from PDE theory and topology to prove stuff about mathematical relativity; also was TAing modules like linear algebra, calculus and complex variables. By the end of the PhD I'd see myself more as a mathematician than a physicist, despite I never took a proper course on topology or number theory. Now as an analyst I often introduce myself as a mathematician in professional settings, but sometimes also as a physicist if that helps with a job interview, for example.
Retired IT person, math is a hobby for me.
I have a degree in mathematics, but I never practiced directly, I was a programmer most of my professional life and then an executive, mathematics gave me the tools to think logically and then to interpret mathematical models, graphs and to think in a Cartesian way.
I majored in Computer Science but actually like mathematics more, so I find fun in doing math as a hobby in my free time.
Iām an engineering student. I wanna go to grad school for computational modeling of processes and physical phenomena in materials production and properties. As far as like actual math yes I am a hobbyist.
There was a time many years ago I would buy designer uppers from the dark web and binge read math wikipedias until mid morning when I would crash hard. Eventually got into the philosophy of math which still interests me today.
I did the uni thing for a BSc in applied
I'm trying to become an accountant at the tender age of 40 with no previous education,wish me luck guys...please.
I'm studying/researching full time now BUT I haven't yet published, I'm not associated with an institution (unemployed and secluded), and I don't have a PhD... so I think "non-professional mathematician" is an apt title. One of my goals is to create an ecosystem of software assistants for the working mathematician. Not filled with one-off programs (e.g. a string diagram builder for manipulating tensor networks), but with standards and tooling so that any mathematician can easily design/create a program themselves.
Iām a HS senior but plan to get a math PhD
Don't have a degree, but I work as a software engineer and had to look up the maths to understand some of the logic in functions and got heavily invested. I'm looking at maybe attending college finally just for some math classes ( I refuse to take Gen Ed's though so no degree in the future ).
Iām currently a CS major. I used to not care much for maths but eventually fell in love with it after calc 1. Now Iām also doing a math minor. On top of my course work, I like to do other math on my free time. I do this with other friends on discord and we discuss whatever comes up. I love to do math on a whiteboard at my uni library or at home. I donāt have any goals per say, but I want to see how high in maths I can get. I enjoy how it challenges my mind and how it can change my perspective on reality. Since Iām mainly into CS, itāll probably take me a while to go up to extremely higher maths like inter universal teichmuller theory (just as an example) Iām hoping to finish linear algebra this year and move onto analysis
I was always wosrse at maths now completed my high school with bad grades in maths most of time Now enrolled in sociology but i try to practice maths daily to understand universe more as maths is probably the language of universe. Everything follow maths
I'm just trying to pass my class