Well, I thought I'd give a sort of boring but necessary update on what I've been doing for the past 4 weeks.
I'm interested in the design of mathematical arguments. By "design", I mean a constructive process, where one uses the specifications of a mathematical problem together with a general methodology of problem solving in order to build a solution to that problem. A lovely such methodology was developed over the last fifty years or so by Edsger Dijkstra, Wim Feijen, Netty van Gasteren, as well as many of their colleagues.
This year I am working in that methodology with Wim Feijen, in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. In particular, I'm applying it to a field of mathematics called graph theory, and researching how to teach it to grade school and secondary school students.
So, on 1 September 2005, I arrived at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, and trained over to Eindhoven, where I'm currently living. I was met at the train station by Wim Feijen, and Edsger Dijkstra's widow, Ria Dijkstra. They took me to my "dorm", and then to the next street over, Kruisstraat, where I bought all sorts of terrific food.
That was a Friday; the next Monday I went to the university, got set up with an office, and went straight to work. In the beginning, I was working on various problems from all areas of mathematics, just as exercise. This was mainly due to the influence of colleague Tom Verhoeff, who loves puzzles. But in the last week or two, I've been really focussed on graph theory, and have made some tremendous progress. Things should pick up even more when my Indian colleague Apurva Mehta arrives.
For a time --that is, for one day-- I tried to sit in on a class taught by colleague Rob Hoogerwoord. But the damn thing meets at 8:45 in the morning. Come on! So I'm reading the course notes, and a monograph written by Rob about the subject.
In social news, I'm mostly fraternizing with my suitemates, Jeppe from Denmark, and Bob from the Netherlands. I play soccer on Sundays, will be playing frisbee soon, and have befriended a fellow Northwestern grad in Amsterdam, named Saskia. Ah yes, and I live right across the street from a music school; I traded them my accompanying abilities for practicing time on their grand pianos.
Life is pretty much perfect.
Those of you who want to follow along with pictures, check out here.
Oh, and today I officially became a citizen of Eindhoven. Congratulate me. With a blowjob.
+j
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
About us
Books:
the adventures of huckleberry finn, brave new world, call it sleep, godel escher bach, the great gatsby, hamlet, i married a communist, little miss greedy, lord jim, mrs dalloway, metamagical themas, on the shape of mathematical arguments, one hundred years of solitude, orlando, portnoy's complaint, predicate calculus and program semantics, the prince and the pauper, the romantic generation, the scarlet letter, the shrinking of treehorn, sonata forms, slaughterhouse five, tess of the d'urbervilles, treehorn's wish
Interests:
alphabetization, animation, art (history), backgammon, bigball, boggle, bored games, braces, calculational mathematics, cats, comedy, computer science, computing science, cooking, criticism, cryptic crosswords, (digital) photography, directing, dogs, dvorak (the keyboard layout), film noir, filmwatching, fred rogers, games, graph theory, hair, harpsichord, hungarian, infectious mononucleosis, inside jokes, journalism, knitting, libertarianism, linguistics, literature, massage, math, mathematical methodology, model theory, molluscum, moviemaking, music cognition, music theory, naps, the new yorker, pedagogy, piano, ping-pong, plays, poetry, pondering, pool, psychology, puzzles, racquetball, rap, (red) wine, religion, salvador dali, sports, swimming, teaching, (ultimate) frisbee, whisk(e)y, word play (especially changing As to 1s), writing, parentheses
Movies:
akira kurosawa (everything), alfred hitchcock (everything), charles chaplin (the gold rush, the circus, city lights, modern times, the great dictator), christopher nolan (everything), coen brothers (everything), david lynch (mulholland drive, twin peaks), david mamet (glengarry glenross, state and main), francis ford coppola (apocalypse now, the conversation, the godfather 1 & 2), howard hawks (everything), paul thomas anderson (everything, especially punch-drunk love), stanley kubrick (everything), quentin tarantino (everything);
adaptation, amadeus (not the director's cut), batman (60's), the bridge on the river kwai, twelve monkeys, network, the office, one flew over the cuckoo's nest, coupling, citizen kane, donnie darko, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, fight club, forrest gump, josie and the pussycats, lost in translation, mean girls, pee wee's big adventure, raging bull, raise the red lantern, rocky, the royal tenenbaums, schindler's list, the silence of the lambs, taxi driver, tommy boy, total recall
Music:
albeniz, bach, bartok, beethoven, boulez, cage, chopin, de falla, debussy, granados, janacek, ligeti, liszt, mahler, montsalvatge, mozart, schoenberg, schubert, schumann, stravinsky, webern,
art hodes, bill evans, billie holiday, chet baker, clifford brown, dave brubeck, ella fitzgerald, fred astaire, john coltrane, miles davis, nat king cole, oscar peterson, sarah vaughan,
aesop rock, air, barry white, beatles, beach boys, beck, ben folds (five), billy joel, bob dylan, bobby hebb, breeders, burt bacharach, coasters, creedence clearwater revival, dan bejar, destroyer, doors, elton john, eminem, foreign born, gorillaz, green day, jimmie rodgers, jimmy cliff, johnny cash, led zeppelin, manu chao, minibosses, moldy peaches, muckafurgason, nine inch nails, nirvana, parka 3, pink floyd, pointer sisters, postal service, radiohead, raffi, rolling stones, simon and garfunkel, tori amos, u2, volcano i'm still excited!!
Television:
american dad, aeon flux, coupling (bbc), curb your enthusiasm, the electric company, family guy, kids in the hall, mister rogers' neighborhood, the office, the simpsons, twin peaks
the adventures of huckleberry finn, brave new world, call it sleep, godel escher bach, the great gatsby, hamlet, i married a communist, little miss greedy, lord jim, mrs dalloway, metamagical themas, on the shape of mathematical arguments, one hundred years of solitude, orlando, portnoy's complaint, predicate calculus and program semantics, the prince and the pauper, the romantic generation, the scarlet letter, the shrinking of treehorn, sonata forms, slaughterhouse five, tess of the d'urbervilles, treehorn's wish
Interests:
alphabetization, animation, art (history), backgammon, bigball, boggle, bored games, braces, calculational mathematics, cats, comedy, computer science, computing science, cooking, criticism, cryptic crosswords, (digital) photography, directing, dogs, dvorak (the keyboard layout), film noir, filmwatching, fred rogers, games, graph theory, hair, harpsichord, hungarian, infectious mononucleosis, inside jokes, journalism, knitting, libertarianism, linguistics, literature, massage, math, mathematical methodology, model theory, molluscum, moviemaking, music cognition, music theory, naps, the new yorker, pedagogy, piano, ping-pong, plays, poetry, pondering, pool, psychology, puzzles, racquetball, rap, (red) wine, religion, salvador dali, sports, swimming, teaching, (ultimate) frisbee, whisk(e)y, word play (especially changing As to 1s), writing, parentheses
Movies:
akira kurosawa (everything), alfred hitchcock (everything), charles chaplin (the gold rush, the circus, city lights, modern times, the great dictator), christopher nolan (everything), coen brothers (everything), david lynch (mulholland drive, twin peaks), david mamet (glengarry glenross, state and main), francis ford coppola (apocalypse now, the conversation, the godfather 1 & 2), howard hawks (everything), paul thomas anderson (everything, especially punch-drunk love), stanley kubrick (everything), quentin tarantino (everything);
adaptation, amadeus (not the director's cut), batman (60's), the bridge on the river kwai, twelve monkeys, network, the office, one flew over the cuckoo's nest, coupling, citizen kane, donnie darko, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, fight club, forrest gump, josie and the pussycats, lost in translation, mean girls, pee wee's big adventure, raging bull, raise the red lantern, rocky, the royal tenenbaums, schindler's list, the silence of the lambs, taxi driver, tommy boy, total recall
Music:
albeniz, bach, bartok, beethoven, boulez, cage, chopin, de falla, debussy, granados, janacek, ligeti, liszt, mahler, montsalvatge, mozart, schoenberg, schubert, schumann, stravinsky, webern,
art hodes, bill evans, billie holiday, chet baker, clifford brown, dave brubeck, ella fitzgerald, fred astaire, john coltrane, miles davis, nat king cole, oscar peterson, sarah vaughan,
aesop rock, air, barry white, beatles, beach boys, beck, ben folds (five), billy joel, bob dylan, bobby hebb, breeders, burt bacharach, coasters, creedence clearwater revival, dan bejar, destroyer, doors, elton john, eminem, foreign born, gorillaz, green day, jimmie rodgers, jimmy cliff, johnny cash, led zeppelin, manu chao, minibosses, moldy peaches, muckafurgason, nine inch nails, nirvana, parka 3, pink floyd, pointer sisters, postal service, radiohead, raffi, rolling stones, simon and garfunkel, tori amos, u2, volcano i'm still excited!!
Television:
american dad, aeon flux, coupling (bbc), curb your enthusiasm, the electric company, family guy, kids in the hall, mister rogers' neighborhood, the office, the simpsons, twin peaks
Well, here we are.
Two years ago, my brother and I joint posted on livejournal (http://www.livejournal.com/~trivialpursuer). It was a nice way to keep abreast of what the other was up to, as well as a nice way to make people very confused.
Well, we're back.
The name of this blog is a homage to "Three Js and an A", our family band.
+j
Well, we're back.
The name of this blog is a homage to "Three Js and an A", our family band.
+j
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