Variety

I wanted to use this opportunity. I consider myself to be pure mathematician, but I couldn't resist getting some insight to other subjects as well.

And I don't regret it. The term was therefore a bit harder than usual, but it was worth the effort. I studied completeness and incompleteness theorems in logic. I derived what caused floods in the UK and the Netherlands in 1953. I learned how to model and predict results of football matches. I am about to start some computer projects. I will simulate random variables, solve Schrödinger's equation or model abstract geometries.

I put in order the notes and solutions I wrote in the last eight weeks. It is between 500 and 700 pages. It is the only thing I want to keep. I trashed most of the solutions.

I was very lucky this year with my supervisors. Supervisors are fellows or Ph.D. students, who meet pairs of students to discuss the problems and the course. You usually get a different supervisor for each course. It is the second most important person for you in the subject – after the lecturer. When the lecturer struggles to provide coherent material, good supervisors can, which is fortunately not necessary very often.

I particularly enjoyed my supervisions for Fluid Dynamics. My supervisor showed us simple demonstrations with water, honey and jelly. It was instructive to see the gap between intuition, reality and solutions of equations, and also why these differences arise.

I went to some second year courses last year, so I only needed to solve the problems. It turned out to be an advantage, as the lecturers were behind in their courses. So the students who went there this year had to do some extra work earlier.

I'd like to briefly explain why I chose maths. Common opinion is that mathematicians want to end up in the  City and earn piles of money. That is not the case. The nice thing about maths is that it is hard. Maths is full of moments of clear mind. It is a game and a puzzle.