SemiAntics

Ok, I’m going to rewrite this page a little bit so that I can remember all the junk I install to get my LaTeX setup correctly on Ubuntu.

Getting Started

I usually start off by installing the plugin for gedit. That installs 95% of the stuff you would need to use LaTeX. In fact, it may be all you need.

Extra Stuff

To get the fullpage package, you need to install texlive-latex-extra. This package contains hundreds of styles, etc. It includes the exam package, but not the up to date version.

If you need to use the LaTeX exam class on Ubuntu, you will need to manually grab the latest version of exam.cls from  Phil Hirschhorn’s website. It goes into the /usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/exam/ directory on Ubuntu. If you don’t have this, you can’t use some of the new features like \ifprintanswers, for example. I guess someone needs to update the package on Ubuntu.

4 to go. Yep, it’s been a long year, but one is over. I survived! That’s really all I can say about this past year. I survived. I’m hoping that I can use induction and say I’ll make it 4 more years.

I’ve learned that math is hard, grad school is harder, and each year I learn more about how much I don’t know.

My plan is still to finish the Ph.D. program here, and then go teach at some university.

By the way, there are two reasons that we haven’t updated this website much lately. One is that I’ve been busy with school, the other is that I needed to update the software (wordpress) that runs our website, and so Grace couldn’t really put anything new up until I did that. Hopefully everything is cool now.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

I am a math teaching assistant, and one of my job duties is grading exams. I’m grading the second exam of the semester for what we call “Calculus Lite”. It’s basically calculus for people who need to know how to use some basic calculus tools, but who don’t need to know or understand much theory.

I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Math is not a spectator sport.” It’s true. Math is a subject that you only get good at by doing it. What varies is how much you have to do to become comfortable. Some people only need to work a couple problems, others have to practice much more.

When the students prepared for the first exam they didn’t work problems; they tried to memorize procedures and formulas. (That sort of approach is good for life sciences sorts of classes, but not so good for math). The average of the test was ok, but a lot of people failed or got Ds and Cs.

The instructor and I warned the students they would need to actually do problems to prepare for the second exam. They didn’t, and the average this time was much lower.

I wonder if any of the students will learn this time, or will they take the same approach to exam 3?

I attribute the problem to a failed education system. The failures must begin in elementary school, but they are certainly present in high school. What use is 12 years of “education” if, when you graduate, you have to take four years of college to be considered useful in the workplace?

In fact, most four year degrees are not considered “terminal” – the word terminal refers to the level of college education required to get the most out of a particular field. The truth is, many students spend their first two years of college learning things that should be learned in high school. That leaves about two years, the equivalent of an Associate’s degree, for real education. It is no wonder at all that a four year degree is not good enough.

If you use LaTeX to create professional documents, and if you use GNU/Linux with Gnome, you are in the minority. I can’t possibly overrate this setup, and I encourage you to invest some time in it – it will be worth the gains to you, especially if you are a researcher and write papers a lot. I used LaTeX for my English papers in my college composition class. LaTeX is useful for writing books as well, in fact it is the de facto standard for publishing anything you want to look really awesome, especially math books and papers.

So, how do you set it up and begin using LaTeX? First things first. You have to learn about LaTeX. There are a bunch of tutorials, but a very nice one is by Andy Roberts -  Getting to Grips with LaTeX.

Next, you’ll want to get some sort of editor for LaTeX. For KDE (which is not Gnome, obviously) you would simply use Texmaker. The problem with installing this on Gnome is that you get a ton of new libraries for QT and it’s a lot of stuff to install for one program. There is an easier way – use Vim. Well, most people aren’t going to do that! How about using Gedit? It’s got a nice extension for LaTeX (and a lot of other nice extensions too). There is a nice website set up for this plugin to Gedit, and installing is a breeze. You’ll also need the rubber package which includes the TeX libraries and all.

The Gedit plugin is in beta, so not everything works just perfectly. Hey, if you like it, donate to the people who are writing it – Free Software doesn’t have to be gratis. You might encourage them to finish your favorite missing feature sooner.

Well, it seems I’ve been selected as this year’s outstanding student in pure mathematics at VCU. What an honor, especially from such a wonderful faculty. I therefore reciprocate the award You are outstanding faculty!

I am delighted to tell you that you have been selected as this year's
Outstanding Student in pure mathematics. Congratulations! This and other
awards will be presented at the College's Student Awards Night, 7:00p at the
Siegel Center the evening of Wednesday, April 23. Awards Night is generally
a fun and exciting evening. I hope you will be able to attend, and you are
welcome to bring your parents and friends to marvel at your achievement!

Andy Lewis, Chair
VCU Dept of Mathematics

I just got the call tonight from the North Carolina State University Math department. They wanted to tell me that I will be accepted into their Ph.D. program in Mathematics, as well as to offer me a teaching assistantship. This is just what I was hoping to hear! I’ll be going down to visit in February for the recruitment weekend.

At slightly more than 30,000 students, NC-State University is just about the same size as VCU. But if you compare campus size, NCSU has a much larger campus. It’s also a lot greener, (as in grassy, with trees) and much more pleasant. NC-State has a good reputation with science, engineering, math, etc.

Wish me luck!

Here is my summary of years of studying mathematics:

1. When a book or a professor writes a proof and the proof contains the word “clearly”, it means that the fact is anything but clear. Usually it means that it would take up time and space to write it, therefore it is best to just write the word “clearly” and leave the verification “as an exercise to the student.”
2. When a student writes the word “clearly” in a proof or problem, it means the student is too lazy to write the full proof, or she doesn’t really understand it. Minus 5 points!

The moral of the story? Don’t ever use the word “clearly.” If you think something is clear, then it probably is, and you surely don’t need to insult your professor by pointing it out. If in doubt, write it out!

Sometimes there is a temptation to connect every step of a proof explicitly. In some cases it is best to leave obvious steps out, or simply state why it is true.