What do Mathematicians do?

After I heard someone ask about what a mathematician does, I myself wonder what it means to do mathematics if all what one can answer is that mathematicians do mathematics. Solving problems have been considered by some as the main activity of a mathematician, which might then be the answer to the question. But, could reading and writing about mathematics or crafting a new theory be considered as serious mathematical activities or mere extracurricular activities? Continue reading

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Math Appreciation

When did you realize that you wanted to study math? Some of my friends knew when they were little kids. One of my professors knew in grade school. I didn’t know until my first year of undergrad. Continue reading

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Geogebra and TikZ

sintikzI have been working on Geogebra files for the classes for which I TA (precalculus and trig). During this time, I discovered that Geogebra has an option to export to Tikz code. If you aren’t familiar with it, Tikz is a TeX package for creating graphics. For instance, I can open Geogebra, type sin(x) in the input line and hit enter. It graphs a sin function as expected. Then pressing File >> Export >> Graphics View as PGF/TikZ, I get the code as below. This is a pretty neat way to easily generate TikZ code. Have you used this feature? Are there other softwares you like to use to generate TikZ code? documentclass[10pt]{article} usepackage{pgf,tikz} usetikzlibrary{arrows} pagestyle{empty} begin{document} definecolor{ffqqqq}{rgb}{1,0,0} begin{tikzpicture}[line cap=round,line join=round,>=triangle 45,x=1.0cm,y=1.0cm] draw[->,color=black] (-4.3,0) — (7.3,0); foreach x in {-4,-3,-2,-1,1,2,3,4,5,6,7} draw[shift={(x,0)},color=black] (0pt,2pt) — (0pt,-2pt) node[below] {footnotesize $x$}; draw[->,color=black] (0,-3.12) — (0,6.3); foreach y in {-3,-2,-1,1,2,3,4,5,6} draw[shift={(0,y)},color=black] (2pt,0pt) — (-2pt,0pt) node[left] {footnotesize $y$}; draw[color=black] (0pt,-10pt) node[right] {footnotesize $0$}; clip(-4.3,-3.12) rectangle (7.3,6.3); draw[color=ffqqqq, smooth,samples=100,domain=-4.3:7.3] plot(x,{sin(((x))*180/pi)}); end{tikzpicture} end{document}

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Top 30 Grad School Blogs

The AMS Graduate Student Blog was named in the list of Top 30 Grad School Blogs of 2012 by The Best Master’s Degrees. Without the support of our readers, we would not be able to achieve such accomplishments. Thanks so much to all of you! -AMS Graduate Student Blog Editorial Board

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AMS Feedback

AMSBlogBeth Ayer, web editor for the AMS, has put together a form seeking feedback from mathematics students about student web/social media use, ams.org’s resources for students, and overall ams.org effectiveness. The form can be accessed at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ams-website-students. Please take a moment to provide your feedback to help the AMS make their information more readily available.

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