▲Fun with polynomials and linear algebra; or, slight abstract nonsense(guille.site)
45 points by LolWolf 3 days ago | 1 comment
▲bwfan123 1 hour ago
To the author's credit, he has this in the first line, ie, that the article was not intended for others to read and enjoy.

> This is mostly a bunch of notes to myself

As Bessis has described in his book [1], it is extremely difficult to understand math someone else has written. The words and symbols dont convey imagery or ideas that the author has in their mind. I was surprised to read in that book that this applied to mathematicians just as it applies to you and I.

Coming back to this article, I wish it were written in the spirit of the essence of linear algebra [2] - conveying the essences in images and pictures instead of words. I am curious to hear from others if they feel this way or is it just me.

[1] Mathematica: A Secret World of Intuition and Curiosity

[2] Essence of linear algebra (3Blue1Brown, youtube)

▲seanhunter 8 minutes ago
There are lots of people who write math in a way that is very easy for others (of an appropriate level of experience let’s say) to understand. I also didn’t find this particularly hard to follow, although some of it is I think a little fast and loose. eg

   > In general, given two finite-dimensional vector spaces U and W, then U ≃ W exactly when dim(U)=dim(W).
Is that really true? I don’t think it is. Specifically surely at least they have to be vector spaces either over the same field or over fields which are themselves isomorphic. I’m thinking say U is a vector space over R and W is a vector space over Q. Dim(U) = Dim(W)=1 but U and W are not isomorphic because there exists no bijective homomorphism between a real and a rational.
▲Chinjut 1 hour ago
I don't want everything to be images and pictures. Often, I enjoy words for communicating math.
▲LolWolf 1 hour ago
Fair on all accounts! Surely, this could be made way more lively if I were in front of a blackboard waving my hands and drawing images, but alas, the medium is what it is :)

Thanks for reading though!