Math People Are Lonely

I don't usually make videos like this but I told myself I would just sit down and make this video because I really feel like I need to address this topic the title of this video is math people are lonely and I picked that title because I think that it's true to some extent I'm not saying that all math people are lonely but there are certainly a lot of lonely people out there who happen to study mathematics so in this video I'm going to explain why I think that's true and I'm also going to show you some really cool math books and I've picked books that have some type of meaning each of these has something interesting worth mentioning and some of these are actually related to being lonely this video is completely inspired by some of the emails that I've received over the past several months as always if you have questions you should email me and if you like I'll keep your name Anonymous I'm not going to mention any names in this video because some of these emails had a lot of personal information basically there's a lot of people who do math and they're really lonely and I think one of the reasons is that math is so difficult and so time consuming that it takes away from other parts of your life for example if you wanted to learn calculus and you bought this book here it's called unified calculus this is a really old book that's super fun and it has answers to all of the odd numbered problems and I just got to give it a whiff I know it's random and unexpected but it just smells oh it smells so good you would sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil and maybe a nice little timer and time yourself so that you don't overdo it and so that you don't underdo it and you would learn as much as you can I mean it's a great book for Learning and I recommend it the thing is that takes time math takes time and the best way to learn mathematics is by doing mathematics that's not something I said that's something that Paul halmos said and that takes time it's going to take time away from the rest of your life studying math requires making sacrifices and sometimes those sacrifices can alienate you or maybe push people in your life away that really you shouldn't be pushing away so I think it's something to keep in mind so if you're one of those people who feels really lonely you feel like you don't have a Social Circle I'm going to give you some tips in this video that hopefully will help you so that you can actually do math and fend off that lonely feeling basically I have two suggestions for anyone who is studying mathematics and they feel like they're lonely so the first one is to try to create a social circle around your mathematics so if you're taking classes in college try to initiate study groups try to go to the talks in the math department try to socialize you have to make the effort one of the things that people often do I'm not saying always but often is that they want things to change and they just hope things will change but they don't take the steps to initiate that change and I think if you're trying to be unlonely if you're trying to stop that lonely feeling then I think you need to be active in your Pursuits and you need to initiate that social interaction that you're missing the second thing you can do to help fend off that lonely feeling is create social groups outside of mathematics and this will depend on what your interests are for example I enjoy surfing that's something I do I'm not very good at it but I like doing it so I do it I like going to the gym I'm not very strong or athletic by any means but I enjoy doing it so I do it I used to go to magic the Gathering card tournaments and play Magic the Gathering and that was a lot of fun so if you're into that that's something you could do if you're into video games you could do that as well although that's usually fairly solitary unless you're playing playing with other people online some people like cooking some people go to church so find things that you can do outside of math that take you out of the house I think it's better to get out of the house and actually physically be around other people and I think that will help because you'll create a bigger Social Circle besides what you currently have and hopefully it'll help fight off that loneliness math can be a very solitary activity but it doesn't have to be that's one of the things I like about making math videos is I enjoy reading the comments and I like hearing people's stories I love hearing when people bought their books and when they use them what classes they took what their experiences were it's just my social outlet for mathematics I think it's really interesting and I love talking about math and that's why I have a YouTube channel Paul Hummels used to always say that he had a hard time because other people didn't really understand his work and it made him sad that's paraphrasing his quote but you could see how that's the case he was a research mathematician Super Famous and by the way this is a great Book on a linear algebra let's go ahead and talk a little bit about these books so the first book Is unified calculus this book is super inexpensive it has answers to all of the odd numbered problems in the back of the book and it's super old and I just got to give it another whiff oh so nice this is a very clean book on linear algebra it's older and it's written by the legendary Paul halmos he's written other good books such as naive set theory and he has some other ones as well yeah great book for linear algebra it's probably fairly affordable as well and it covers all of the basics that you need to know in an undergraduate linear algebra course this book is special to me because it was recommended to me by a former Professor who I thought was the best Professor I have ever had in my entire life and this is the book he recommended and so I immediately bought it and I loved it this is a beginner book on abstract algebra it's not perfect no book is perfect but it's pretty good I have read most of this book and I have done a considerable number of exercises from this book compared to like the serocino book this one has more content and it's more advanced but again it's not perfect still it's a great book If you're trying to learn abstract algebra this book is special for two reasons one it's a classic book on topology it's called introduction to topology by Bert Mendelson this is one of the famous books on topology that was written early on two I think it's really cool that the previous owner put this inside the book owned and cherished in that order by n Lincoln fall 69 I think that means a lot 1969 was a very interesting year in the history of at least the United States I've read about the 60s and there was a lot of stuff going on then and this person and Lincoln was in some topology class somewhere in the U.S and this is the book he used and he owned it and then he cherished it in that order this book has everything you need for undergraduate topology it's a very very standard text and most other texts follow the same outline that this textbook follows this book is special because it was written by Lewis lighthold Louis lighthold was the inspiration for Jaime Escalante who was a famous mathematics teacher in California he's portrayed in the movie Stand and delivered by Edward James Olmos so check out that movie Stand and Deliver it's a great math movie Louis lighthold was the inspiration for the main character in the movie this book has tons of good exercises it has answers to all of the odd numbered problems and it has really good examples I've read a couple sections from this book and I've done several of the exercises and I think it's a fantastic book for anyone who wants to learn algebra this book is also really personal to me because I used it for an advanced calculus course when I was an undergraduate I took both Advanced Calculus 1 and advanced calculus 2 using this book as an undergrad this course completely consumed my life and it probably led to some loneliness and that's why I included it in this video I mean I pretty much isolated myself and spent all of my time trying to understand this book I mean look how beat up it is I would come home from school and sit in my room or at the kitchen table and just struggle it was such a struggle I ended up with an a in both classes but it was not easy try to remember that when you're studying Advanced calculus or other hard math classes as an undergraduate it's time consuming you're going to struggle and you're going to have to make sacrifices I sacrificed a relationship because I spent all of my time studying Advanced calculus so yeah math and loneliness it can be a real thing if you take away anything from this video other than the fact that these are all pretty good math books it's that you need to be the change that you want to see in your life if you are feeling lonely if you feel like you need a significant other or a bigger social outlet you have to make those changes and my advice is make those changes by creating Social Circles there's so many ways to create Social Circles just find something that interests you and find a group of people that are doing that and you can join that group for example Facebook has tons of groups you can join a Facebook group if you're in college there's all kinds of clubs you can join try to find something with math because math is something you probably love and you don't want to stop doing it and you shouldn't because if you love it you should do it and find something outside of math something that you really enjoy and try to make it a more social activity kind of a random video I just wasn't going to make it but I did so there it is math people are lonely yes it's true to some extent not everyone is lonely there's lots of happy math people you can be one of those people right good luck

Channel: The Math Sorcerer

Views: 168,278

Keywords: math, lonely, lonliness, math people are lonely, are you lonely, how to beat loneliness

Id: uvSrUG0yYQY

Length: 9min 52sec (592 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 15 2022