/sci/ - Science & Math

>>9743647
Reading French might be a bit of a hurdle yeah.

>>9743659
actually most top math departments will require you to pass a foreign language test, brainlet

>Judging by my teaching experience in France, the university students' idea of mathematics (even of those taught mathematics at the École Normale Supérieure - I feel sorry most of all for these obviously intelligent but deformed kids) is as poor as that of this pupil.
>For example, these students have never seen a paraboloid and a question on the form of the surface given by the equation xy = z2 puts the mathematicians studying at ENS into a stupor. Drawing a curve given by parametric equations (like x = t3 - 3t, y = t4 - 2t2) on a plane is a totally impossible problem for students (and, probably, even for most French professors of mathematics).

>>9743665
>most top math departments will require you to pass a foreign language test
[citation needed]

>>9743665
ok? most probably wont learn french

>>9743674
French is actually by far the easiest to bluff your way through, when I took the test you could choose between French, Russian, and German

>>9743669
reminds me of an anecdote that Arnold told in some book that I can't remember now:

>teacher asks French student "What is 2+3?"
>Student says "3+2, because addition is commutative"

>>9743647
>50.000 French 2nd year math-physics-engineering undergraduates pass each year
Ahem

>>9743669
>Drawing a curve given by parametric equations (like x = t3 - 3t, y = t4 - 2t2) on a plane is a totally impossible problem for students
Lol no, drawing the graph determined by parametric equations is taught in first or second undergraduate year depending on what university you study in, specially parametric questions as simple as the ones you give in your example.
pic related : a picture of the first introductive exercices done in 2nd undergraduate year by my myself (TD1 = first class) in a course on systems of differential equations, sry for bad quality

>>9743647
>50.000 French 2nd year math-physics-engineering undergraduates sit each year
>50.000
Yeah no, more like 1500. And most don't do half of it either.

>>9743702

Arnold wrote that essay over twenty years ago.

Clearly you can now draw some curves - that is terrific - but you are struggling to have a physical intuition about time. A long way to go for French students!

>>9743709
56.000 students in scientific classes préparatoires that sit several exams such as the ENS exams (Ulm is a bit peculiar), X and so on. Keep in mind they also sit physics and / or engineering sciences exams at the same time

>>9743711
t. butthurt American stuck at understanding what a derivative could be

>>9743735

'What is a metre?'
The famous French mathematician Grothendieck asked this to some journalists who wanted to interview him; he wanted to see their answer first. What is your answer?

>>9743739
Not him, but I would say "A notion of distance"

>>9743739
It's a conventional length associated with the distance of 1/10.000 of an Earth's meridian (I had to search for this number)

and yet the vast majority of scientific and mathematical research is accomplished in the US.

Yikes!

>>9743739
well let me demonstrate *unzips dick*

>>9743761

I'm not sure that that sentence came out as you had hoped.

>>9743753

>>9743665
>I passed this meme test so I speak the language
retard

>>9743768
>caring about the Fields Medal which is now an affirmative action award

>>9743774
>all recipients were white or asian
>only 1 woman ever was awarded
>Hurr durr its affirmatives action BS guys!

>>9743787
Note that I said "is now" and not "was always".

>>9743768
The US is still ahead though. You do realize that the US is the place to be for just about every single field of research, whereas France can only compete in mathematics, right?

>>9743794
Do you say because there was a lot of diversity in 2014 ? This year all the favorites seem to be good ol white dudes.

>>9743798
France is 1/6 of the US in terms of population, every math student at ÉNS or at Polytechnique is given the opportunity to study at Harvard via exchange programs and yet close to nobody takes this opportunity, ask yourself why. The Shanghai ranking is complete bullshit, ÉNS is like 100th eve though it has like 10 times the Nobel prize / Fields Medal density of Harvard and even though its students are much better. But yeah it's "just math" right.

Harvard isn't what it used to be

Arnold is the last boss of mathematics. After you have jerked off to Hardy after competing your analysis courses, you will see that formalism is but one component of what makes a mathematician. Comprehension, vision and intuition is what makes things work.

>>9743702
I remember doing this kind of parametrics equations in high school (terminale, iirc)
And now I'm a goddamn biologist

>>9743814
Most of the "elite" institutions aren't anymore after the anti-white male political campaign in America forced hiring criteria based on targeted gender and race first, rather than merit first. Women will literally never be as good at science and no one can change it, even by force.

>>9743763
This is 4chan, the grotesque absurdity was intentional.

>>9743787
2014 so a brown skin latino win and a woman. Just putting things in perspective. If a black guy ever wins you know the award is shit. Thank god that hasn't happened.

>>9743814
All the "name" institutions are overrated. Any ranking will produce this phenomenon.

>>9743926
There are famous mathematicans from the 20th century whose kids married black people and whose grandchildren are now mathematicians. It's only a matter of time until someone black wins.

>>9743932
An Octoroon might win someday, but come on.

>>9743934
Never change, /sci/.

>>9743687
Because all you have to do is pretend your choking on a cock

>>9743673
I know Harvard has a foreign language fluency requirement, but I don't think French is one of the permissible languages so the point is moot.

>>9743647
This applies to most countries, they just have higher standards and don't fuck around. Education in the USA is abysmal on all levels. Career opportunities are good though.

>>9743647
no one cares and we'll always have better mathematicians

get over it dumb frog

>>9743932
only a matter of 1 million years yeah
niggers can't graduate from high school how can they win a Fields medal

>>9743647
>show property T2 implies property T1
>doesn't include property T1 in the image
good one idiot

>>9744020
>fewer blacks complete high school per capita than the general population
>therefore no black person will ever be exceptional at mathematics
is it too late to get a refund for your degree there, buddy?

>this discussion about the brown latino guy winning and the woman

I'm pretty fucking pissed because what that "brown latino guy" did was pretty incredible. I work in the field of dynamical systems and I've studied his work extensively; it's fucking amazing.

I know you guys are degenerate racists, but not everyone with brown/black skin is a fucking idiot/degenerate/moron. Even if you look at it statistically, there's bound to be one genius in a lump of millions of shit. Clearly, he is that one.

I don't fucking understand how your brain works. If someone does good work and is recognized, it's an affirmative action award and he's shit. If someone does bad work, then he's definitely shit and that's to be "expected from his kind."

How do you fucking win in that scenario? You reach the top of the mountaintop, do your fucking best work and you're still relegated to being called a dummy or your medal being discounted over racism. The woman who won (and died recently) also did impressive work herself.

I don't fucking understand.

>>9744019
>doesn't know that the French have better mathematicians than the Americ*ns
>doesn't know that the American have 0 mathematician if you remove the Jews and the Chinese
kek amerimutts are stupid

>>9744032
i'm not even american you retard

>>9744031
it's just seething sub 140 IQ white anglo brainlets who think they're smarter than they actually are

nothing new

>>9744025
There is a possibility but it's extremely unlikely. Look how few Blacks there are in mensa, like 3 or 4 out of tens of thousands. But a quadroon or an octoroon could likely have a chance

>>9744031
Welcome to 4chan. You realize you’re carrying on these discussions with the absolute scum underbelly of the first world, right? Irredeemable losers who will never overcome their mental illnesses and create vast conspiratorial illusions to make sense of their failure.

>>9744042
>mensa
WHeeZe

http://math.harvard.edu/~kupers/teaching/231br/homework1.pdf
http://www.math.harvard.edu/~siu/math212b/homework_jan25_2018.pdf

The first (and easiest) problem sets for Math 212b and 231br, two courses offered the past semester at Harvard that were filled almost entirely filled by first- through third-year undergrads.

>>9743647
why would any modern doctorate student give a shit about drawing curves on paper?
computers do that shit

>>9743647
that's because they dont' speak french, idiot, not because they're bad at math

>>9744078
>Fubini's theorem
literally 1rst undergraduate year level in France in any bad university
I've heard Laplacian and Fourier's transforms and series were top genius tier in America, is it true ? Cause all of that is easy stuff from 1rst undergraduate year here

>>9744112
It's understood that you know what it is before starting the course. The first homework covers things you should be already comfortable with, e.g., tempered distributions, Sobolev spaces, Lebesgue theory, and Bernstein-Sato polynomials.

For comparison, look at this later homework.
http://www.math.harvard.edu/~siu/math212b/homework_march8_2018.pdf

>>9744112
Many of the students who aim to study math at Harvard already saw those in high school, some even in middle school.

>>9744127
>Advanced Real Analysis Math 212b / Tu Th 10-11:30 / 216 SC Harvard University - Spring 2006
>Directed to graduate students. Lebesgue measure and integral, general topology, and theory of linear operators between Banach spaces will be assumed.

>>9744145
Doesn't stop it from being filled by first- through third-years. Many of the grad classes at Harvard are actually taken by undergrads.

>>9744152
>directed to graduate students of Harvard
plus there is a huge difference between first and third year, "first- through third-years" means nothing

>>9744155
It's because there are huge differences between individuals.

>>9744155
Take a look at the other course. All but one student were first- through third-years. All but two were first- through second-years.
http://math.harvard.edu/~kupers/teaching/231br/book.pdf

>>9743665
Why would you learn French? In the time it'd take you to learn it the exam would have already switched to Arabic.

>>9744162
>types the name of that guy Kupers
>finds the real first year lesson given to Harvard undergraduates
KEK I KNEW IT
http://www.math.harvard.edu/~kupers/teaching/21b/worksheet1.pdf

>>9744182
>Given 3 bundles of superior paddy [unhusked rice], 2 bundles of ordinary paddy, and 1 bundle
of inferior paddy, [together they yield] 39 dou of grain; 2 bundles of superior paddy, 3 bundles of ordinary
paddy, and 1 bundle of inferior paddy [together yield] 34 dou of grain; 1 bundle of superior paddy, 2 bundles
of ordinary paddy, and 3 bundles of inferior paddy [together yield] 26 dou of grain. Problem: 1 bundle of
superior, ordinary, and inferior paddy each yield how much grain?
Harvard lesson to math undergraduates.

>>9744191
Is math even halal?

>>9744184
There's a large variance in math skill among the undergrads at Harvard. Those who aim to study math are, more often than not, really intense and elect to take classes like 231br their first or second year. Those who want to study things besides math or those who have yet to develop the math background take 21b.

>>9744203
the problem is that it is low even for non math students. Matrices are taught in last year of high school in France, not very deeply, but at least enough for diagonalizing / trigonalizing a matrix

>>9744205
Well, of course the average Harvard student isn't good at mathematics. I know that well enough. But OP's claim was that Harvard math doctorates were bad at math. I don't know whether he's referring to graduate students in the math department or undergraduate math concentrators (majors), but in either case, I must disagree.

>>9744225
>caring what a degenerate actually fucking thinks,

>>9743811
What the fuck is your point, idiot? Harvard is nowhere near the top school for mathematics in the US,

>>9744306
Replace Harvard with Princeton, Stanford or whatever pleases you, and everything stays true, US education in math is meme tier. Students don't write down Pi, they write 3.14, and math majors use calculator in university like fucking retards, I never used a calculator a single time since I'm out of high school.

>>9744315
Caltech stomps every other university in the ground in STEM. Now cry about that.

>>9744316
http://www.shanghairanking.com/Shanghairanking-Subject-Rankings/mathematics.html
No kek I found out I'm in the 3rd best uni in the world in math far in front of caltek meme tier uni or whaterer. Not fair though, ENS is ranked 34th even though in real it would make the Princeton meme university's and my own uni's students look like fucking retards

>>9744324
>shanghairanking
lol

>>9744324
Lol. Cool story bro

>it's yet another "europeans either lie about their own education system or misrepresent america's to feel superior" episode
stop this

>>9744346
Textbook inferiority complex.

Bourbaki was a mistake

When it comes to mathematics, the French will always be supreme.

Read ANY Lausanne economist and you’ll know what I mean immediately

>>9744324
>bitches about shanghairanking being bullshit
>it's not bullshit if it pleases me!
Yeah I can see your degree in mathematics does wonders.

>>9744414
The "French" are a fucking joke dude

>>9744346
This desu

>>9743647
I don't believe an engineer student would have to take this exam desu

>>9743647
just because he wouldn't be able to do half of the exam doesn't mean he isn't capable of learning t hat and then passing the exam, brainlet
harvard student can learn anything he pleases

>>9744762
The rigor of many undergrad programs at harvard is less than that of many state colleges or even community colleges on the lower level. There's a pressure on harvard to provide high grade inflation since tuition is around 50k a year; students see themselves as customers rather than students. The students also tend to be privileged such that they can exert influence the faculty, or are on scholarships as affirmative action and professors feel guilty giving them bad grades. So in general the best students bumfuck state shit on the average or even above average harvard student. American schools are the world standard for graduate work and we have the best programs for undergrad (but you have to go to the right uni for your particular program).

>>9743647
>math-physics-engineering
That´s a dumbed-down version of pure mathematics and physics disguised as an engineering degree, brainlet.

>>9743647
What's the point of all this bullshit in an engineering degree lmao

>>9743811
>every math student at ÉNS or at Polytechnique is given the opportunity to study at Harvard via exchange programs and yet close to nobody takes this opportunity, ask yourself why.
The propaganda sits deep - that´s all one can say to such a claim. Bright people understand the value of the political philosophy underpinning American society, while brainlets commend french elitists for enacting martial law.

>>9743932
>and whose grandchildren are now mathematicians
Attaining a graduate degree in mathematics does not make you a mathematician.

>>9743665
/thread

>>9744778
>There's a pressure on harvard to provide high grade inflation since tuition is around 50k a year; students see themselves as customers rather than students.
The vast majority of Harvard students enjoy full rides, retard.
>The students also tend to be privileged such that they can exert influence the faculty,
The vast majority of Harvard students enjoy full rides, retard.
>or are on scholarships as affirmative action and professors feel guilty giving them bad grades.
Affirmative action students con´t comprise a majority of the student populace at Harvard.

>>9743647
This is not an "exam", this is a "competition" to enter in the elite school "ENS Ulm".

They accept each year no more than twenty students. And to be accepted, you don't have to do 100% of the paper, just to do better than the others.

This is really two different things.

>(Mais je suis français et dans le fond je suis d'accord, on est les meilleurs frr, nique les américains)

>muh cunt
>European inferiority complex
>muh calc in grade school
>muh 8inch long topological cock
>muh racial IQ
>somehow the JQ is mentioned

>>9744839
>vast majority of Harvard students enjoy full rides
Only 50% are any form of scholarship assistance (knocking a few hundred or thousand off tuition counts as aid - and they give aid for those with incomes over 250k)

So half of the student body is paying full sticker price

>Affirmative action students con´t comprise a majority of the student populace at Harvard.
This past freshman class had minorities as the majority for the first time (aka whites were less than <50%). This is how it is at every ivy except Dartmouth and Princeton.

t. Ivy Leaguer

>>9743739
what did he mean by this

>>9744404
this

if the french had just kept their secrets and rigour locked down, amerimutts would never have had a chance

>>9743739
1/299720000 of the distance light travels in 1 second.

>>9743926
Both of them got gold medals at IMO though. Hard to tell to what degree there was any affirmative action.

>>9744826
t. Dropout NEET

>>9744853
>europeans ONCE AGAIN lying about their educations to trick Americans
It never ends
There was an exchange student from Germany in my high school class who talked about how great their education system is, and the teachers backed him up, but he was just as brainlet as the rest of them.
Just stop this shit, nobody falls for it and you're embarrassing yourself.
>durr we all solved the riemann hypothesis in kindergarten

>>9744004
They require you to take a language, there is no requirement at all to be fluent or take a fluency test. One of my best friends is in his fourth year and got away with taking one semester of very easy Czech that fulfilled all he needed and he says himself he couldn't even order a coffee in Prague.
Stop talking out of your ass.

>>9744927
>minorities as the majority for the first time
most of those were asians

>>9745015
Clearly IMO is also an affirmative action competition now.

>>9744927
>conflating "affirmative action students" with "minorities"

>>9743647
wow people teach different things

>>9743647
19 problems in 6 hours? The qual at my school had me do about 10 problems, each with 3 to 6 parts. No, a Harvard math doctorate student wouldn't be where he/she was without going through that kind of rigorous testing.

>americans r dumb
>NUH UH europeans r dumb

>>9745320
the harvard quals are a joke desu
http://www.math.harvard.edu/graduate/quals/qf12.pdf

>>9746508
I think it's supposed to be "per hundred million"

>>9744346

>[advanced math concept] is taught at uni level in America? that's taught in high school or middle school here :^)

the outright lies annoy me more than people just exaggerating.

>>9747056
>You didn't study topology in preschool? You will never be able to work in academia, drop out now.

>>9745554
Wow, I am a bit shocked to see that. I can do these problems easily as a first year undergraduate.

>>9744078
Do you have stats on the number of first years? Also, do you have more homework set links? These ones are quite nice actually.

>>9743647
>blah blah blah our undergrad is superior

Then why is your research output so inferior?

>>9745554
Huh, no way. Not only are they easy, they only have like 6 problems, many of which don't even have parts a - d etc. In their defence, not only are they being tested on Analysis and Algebra in the same exam, they are also being tested on Differential Geometry, Algebraic Geometry, and Algebraic Topology. This is strange to me because how can they judge competence in an area when they only have 1 question to judge from?

>>9747142
Ugh, it would be awful to mess up a stupid question in your best subject and to thus take an entire year's course.

>>9743647
http://www.math.harvard.edu/quals/index.html
admission exam PhD math.

>>9747142
The point of a qual is not to see if you're mathematician material or not. The rest of your PhD program will do that.
The point of a qual is just to check that you do not have gaping holes in your knowledge of basic math.

>>9747097
Well there can't be too many, since historical data on 55A nets 15-20 kids enrolled at the end of the semester. So there might be at most five kids taking graduate maths as a first year. Anyone have the graduate enrollment data?

>>9747176
I can tell you the number for the most recent semester is exactly three, unless I'm forgetting someone.

>>9743735
I am French. My only problem is that the way you phrase your first post makes it sound like every single prepa student sits Math D. Surely you know that only about 1500 students (cf scei) actually sit X/ENS and among these, some don't attempt Ulm.

>>9743774
So who do you think should have won in 2014, and why are your choices more appropriate or deserving than the people who did win that year?

>>9745152
And how would that happen? Everyone gets the same tests.

>>9747271
Even so, the students in 55a are no joke. Daniel Kim and Evan Chen both took Math 55 their freshman year, and they're better mathematicians than I'll ever be.

And depending on the year and the professor, Math 55 can be very nontrivial.

>>9743665
That's only math majors because the curriculum is piss easy that they need to fill it with a language course to get anywhere near the credits needed.

>>9747441
>In addition to these professors, past students of Math 55 include Bill Gates[18] and Richard Stallman.[4]
/g/'s meme deity

>>9747456
http://www.math.harvard.edu/archive/55b_spring_06/math55b_homework_april18_2006.pdf
Do the last problem if you think this class is so easy.

>>9747441
>Evan Chen
He say Harvard and MIT class are easy ...

>>9747475
First, I was talking about the students, not the classes. Second, Evan said that Harvard was a good place to learn math. I'd agree that many of the lower math offerings are easy, but I think some of the higher math offerings are pretty tricky, even if they involve much less busywork.

>>9744315
>math majors use calculator in university like fucking retards

?

Math majors didn't even use a calculator at my poorly ranked state school.

>>9743768
this kills the burger
>>9743798
not by ethnicity tho. What good is for the US to have 13 fields medals if they were awarded to indians, chinese, australians (Tao) etc. residing in the U.S.?
The point is: if you are born in the U.S. you are, most probably, mathematically illiterate period.

A bunch of piss poor onion licking cheese munching baguette devourers is short 1 fields medal of you. Shameful. And out of these 13 Fields medals, none was awarded to someone who was BORN and RAISED in the US. Even more shameful.

>>9743801
>white dudes
you misspelled "jews".
Also I suspect some brown hack will get it instead of them. Hopefully i'm wrong.

>>9743763
t. Summer

>>9744315
Have you studied maths at all of these unis? If not, how do you know this to be true?

>>9743739
A lenght about 10/18 of the average height of a man.

>>9744042
How many fields medals winners are at mensa?

>>9747153
Haha, what a joke. Anyone from a mid-tier university should be able to pass this without hesitation.

>>9744927
>This past freshman class had minorities as the majority for the first time (aka whites were less than <50%).
Asians and Jews aren´t the minorities I was hinting it, anon. Black and Latino students make up no more than 20-25% of the student body in ivy league schools.

>>9743702
In america we did this in Calc 2 I think, which is taught in high school or uni

>>9746508
>placing Australia and Norway above Finland in a chart that supposedly shows fields medals per million inhabitants.

>>9747537
>The point is: if you are born in the U.S. you are, most probably, mathematically illiterate period.
>he isn´t aware of the normal distribution of intelligence
Brainlet.

>>9743647
Well yeah they don’t speak French

>>9747271
I have to admit that a priori I was expecting more (7ish).

Yet 90+% of meaningful discoveries in the last 40 years came from the US and not from France . Put a baguette into your ass and stfu, vassal state.

>tfw prépa made you capable of solving problems 90% of /sci/ is incapable to solve
>tfw prépa CS veteran CS majors are more mathematically and physically-literate than /sci/ retards who are proud to starve to death

>>9748155
As I said, a lot of the talent does end up taking 55 their first year. I mentioned Daniel Kim and Evan Chen above as prime examples.

>>9743739
What's a sheaf?

>French supremacy
>They don't know how to use \left and \right

>>9743692
>What is a square?
>A square is a square, but that have to be proven
Arnold's anecdotes are pretty based

>>9746508
Why is poland here? There were no polish field medalists

>>9748339
At least, we don't imply that [math]\mathbf R^2[/math] is the set of open intervals.

>>9743647
>superior
>hasn't put a man on the moon yet

come again

>>9744315
>students dont write pi down
Just a /sci/ meme dumbass
>math majors use calculator
Also false, unless for homework or project

>>9744032
Why dont all those jewish and chinese people go to France if it is better for mathematics then? Really makes you think

>>9747056
>lies
not lies, the average stem student in France has a 2 years advance in math compared with his American counterpart, I can provide pictures of my own notes on request

>>9747321
Not it's over 5.000 that sit ENS/X and 3.000 that sit Math D, that makes a 1/75 admission rate at Ulm given there are about 40 places.

>>9748478
Because they don't outsmart the French like they outsmart the Americans. See a picture of ENS math promo, there is like 1 or 2 Asians out of 40 students even though education requires no fee (actually students are paid at ÉNS) and is purely meritocratic

>>9743647
Do amerifats have multiple choice questions for their maths exams? Lmfao

>>9748528
>Because they don't outsmart the French like they outsmart the Americans.

Because they have the best Unis in the world (if you think I'm meme'ing just see publications in elite venues/nobel prize winners in the last 30 years) and you are a delusional frenshit to think otherwise

>>9748559
>just see publications in elite venues/nobel prize winners in the last 30 years
see
>>9746508
>>9743768
>The principal goal of ENS is the training of professors, researchers and public administrators. Among its alumni there are 13 Nobel Prize laureates including 8 in Physics (ENS has the highest ratio of Nobel laureates per alumnus of any institution worldwide[10]), 12 Fields Medalists (the most of any university in the world)
Even by your own criteria the best American unis are meme tier compared with what we have here m8

>>9748588
In the last 30 years, read again oniisan.

>>9748588
I'm not saying that France has not contributed to science, but its golden age is waaay gone.

>>9743647
Te real question is why are Europeans so obsessed with America?
We don't even think about you.

>>9748600
ofc not, for example take the Fields medals since year 2000. France has got 3 and the US. have got 5 (if you count half medals then it's 5 for Fr and 6 for the US kek). If your remove all non ethnic Americans, then the US have got 0 Fields medal. If you remove non ethnic French then France has got 3, ie. the same amount.

>>9748320
Those students are into problem solving much more than theoretical mathematics, with Evan Chen studying combinatorics mostly. These students do have talent but are not on the path of research.

>>9748528
It's not, I mean it's literally there https://www.scei-concours.fr/stat2017/mp.html
Plus, why do you care about this so much ? Are you still a prepa student ? At some point, you gotta stop caring about this kind of stuff.
Sure the US undergraduate curriculum is shit, but they have many great graduate students, as do the French. I don't know how exactly they do it, probably import them or something, but whatever. Nobody cares. The good ones are good wherever you go.

>>9748632
>Those students
Depends on which student. Some of them want to go into finance. Some of them want to go into tech. Some want to go into TCS. Some want to go into math.

But that is a moot point. The original claim was that Harvard math students are smaller brained than the average French STEM undergrad. This claim is highly contestable.

>>9743665
>he actually believes this is still a thing
fuck off undergrad

>>9748609
That's only math though. All the rest in French science is shit-tier with the exception of engineering schools.

There are a bunch of French Math professors in my college (not American).

Almost all the questions of the exams are hard, very theoretical, but there is a catch..

the sum of marks are always over 100%, you could get 60% of the questions right and pass with 90%, for instance.

>>9748528
>I can provide pictures of my own notes on request
do it brainlet

>>9748698
>The original claim was that Harvard math students are smaller brained than the average French STEM undergrad. This claim is highly contestable.
*that the few thousands good STEM undegrads that sit ÉNS entrance exams each year
And yes, this is probably true. Take the agrégation de mathématiques, a 2nd French undergraduate year level exam that good prépa STEM students can pass and that is meant to recruit a special body of math teachers. 80 doctors in mathematics or related fields presented themselves last year and only 38 got more than 5/20, those doctors were from public French universities, which are same tier as American universities (from Preston-tier to low tier), by opposition with.the prépa system that produced - if my knowledge is correct - all French Fields medal recipients.

>>9748698
Haha yeah I was just detouring the discussion for my own means. I care little for this slide thread's topic.

>>9748776
http://media.devenirenseignant.gouv.fr/file/Agreg_int/12/5/RJ_2017_Agreg_Interne_Mathematiques_781125.pdf
I assume this is the test you're talking about. The mathematics covered by this test is covered in Math 25/55, 114, 137, etc. at Harvard, which were taken by many first-year students the past year. Harvard defines the math concentration very narrowly: algebra (includes NT), analysis, geometry (which includes topology for some reason), and other (logic, set theory, combo, etc.). As a result, those who declare concentrations (majors) in math are very dedicated and often (though not necessarily) precocious. I posted a few psets from Math 212 and 231 earlier in this thread, but I'll repost them here if you want a look. I'll also post you some psets from 233, which was also taken by a freshman this past semester. (Joe Harris doesn't have a website, so I can't share the most recent iteration of the course, so you'll have to settle for a previous version.)

212: http://www.math.harvard.edu/~siu/math212b/homework_march8_2018.pdf
231: http://math.harvard.edu/~kupers/teaching/231br/homework1.pdf
233: http://www.math.harvard.edu/~gaitsgde/Schemes_2009/BR/week12.pdf

>>9748841
>I assume this is the test you're talking about.
Not exactly, this is the internal exam, which is a bit easier and sat by civils servants to facilitate job change inside the public administration. The regular exam is agrégation externe.

The problem is you pick courses whose teachers clearly say they are meant for graduate students. Let me ask you a question, I saw Calc I, II and III programs on a website and I don't understand, are Calc I and Calc II parts of the university curriculum ? Because here it's mostly part of high school curriculum. At what levels Calc III requirements are usually fulfilled ? When are American student typically taught first order linear differential equations, matrix diagonalisation, Fourier series ?

>>9748761
>with the exception of engineering schools.

Not even that lmao. Most french engineering is legacy. Modern innovations (say from 25 years ago) are subpar as fuck.

>>9748884
Okay, here's an insider secret. Harvard grad classes are filled by undergrads and first-year grad students who missed a question on the quals. This is so that the institution can boast about having a bunch of undergrads in the grad-level courses. (Yeah, the institution is scummy like that.)

Calc I and II are single-variable differential and integral calculus. Calc III is usually multivariable. The Harvard students who take these courses aren't the ones who go into mathematics, though maybe one or two of them do.

The average American is pretty bad at math. I'll give you that. Calc I and II is usually taught between junior (second-to-last) year of high school and first year of college. Then a semester of linear algebra/differential equations, I guess? At Harvard, it's all covered in Math 23 and below, I think. I'm not entirely sure, since I'm not taking these courses myself.

>>9748841
Do you happen to know if that freshman knows the material of 221, 232A/BR? If not, then why is he taking 233A? Does 233A not assume these courses?

>>9748915
The freshman who took 233? He's a close friend. He took 131 with Dennis "Satan of Mathematics" Gaitsgory and got really buff at Grothendieck math. Second semester, he dropped 55 and took 233. Requisites in the math department are pretty lax. If you understand the first lecture and feel comfortable with the material, you are free to take the course. In most cases, you can sign up for the course without having to get the prof's approval.

>>9743647
Why are American STEM students such a joke ?

>>9748980
So yeah, he knew the material in 221 and 232. I'm pretty sure he did a bit of light reading over the break, too.

>>9748991
Err, what does topology have much to do with algebraic geometry other than some of the basic point set definitions. Did he not take 221 or 232A/BR then? I wouldn't say that self-studying the material is a suitable introduction those courses. He might have been better off taking 221, since he will have to revisit 233 afterwards anyways.

>>9743811
just checked, the US has higher nobel laureates per capita then France so guess you should stfu :)

oh and here's a little something extra, you fucking retard.

>>9743647
No one cares about (((((Ivy League))))) universities.

>>9749040
don't be butthurt m8 we're talking about math not some meme subjects, plus researchers are not part of university but more commonly part of ENS in Fr. Eg. there currently are 13 Nobels including 8 in physics in ENS alone. British universities are considered to be meme tier in Fr
see >>9746508 and >>9743768

>>9749008
Two words: Dennis Gaitsgory
aka the guy who introduced protective space as the functor it represents (via Yoneda)
The guy's a madman, and if you survive one of his courses, you come out a different person.

>>9749040
all American recipients are jewish or foreign as stated earlier btw.

>>9749125
How does that discount their accomplishments?

Many of the French recipients of the Fields Medal aren't ethnically French either. Laurent Schwartz is Jewish, which you evidently discount. Artur Avila was born in Brazil and is ethnically Latino. Ngô Bảo Châu is Vietnamese and doesn't even work in France, so attributing his medal to your people doesn't make sense at all.

Wendelin Werner and Grothendieck were both born in Germany, which makes them foreigners to France. If you applied your logic to your own nation's accomplishments, you would divide the number of French field medalists nearly in half.

If you do want to include them, then fuck it, Terence Tao is an Australian accomplishment.

>>9749163
itt french people who don't do math try to say stuff about the state of math research

>>9749108
And the course follows Munkres, not Hartshorne. I am not going to argue whether Gaitsgory is a hard professor or not, but certainly he did not teach algebraic geometry in a topology course.
Just curious, what level of generality did he introduce the projective space? Did he consider the space over the reals, an arbitrary field, or over a ring?

>>9749163
That discounts the country and the universities not the recipients. Schwartz isn't a post 2000 recipient btw and I never pretended to include Avila or Ngô Bảo Châu, their medal is shared between several universities anyway. But at least the majority remains ethnic French (like Lafforgue or Villani) while America and its 200 million white Americans have 0 post 2000 ethnic American recipient.

>>9748987

>not posting the Freshman's Dream in here somewhere

You had one job anon. Also I will tell the sad stories of my American education. This thread has me self-conscious because I have a four-year math degree and I never actually took any topology, and only skirted analysis very slightly. Cue tittering French laughter and American guffaws, frankly deserved in my case. >>9744112 While I'm engaged in self-flagellation, I only learned of Fubini in senior year with the slight-complex-analysis course.

I would also like to state for the record that later in high school, I realized that I actually liked math (such as I am able to study it) and no longer cared what other people thought of that, so I wanted to take calculus, such as it was in an American high school of course. I was informed that it was too late in terms of scheduling to fit it in during high school (I had maybe a year left by this point). So the first exposure to calculus in my case followed a typical American track-first thing in college, mandatory for anyone in the sciences. So basically I confirm the OP's thing and am at the same time a sort of victim of """American education""". We still have all the bombs though and we put a man on the moon so I don't lose too much sleep, I console myself this way.

Apart from math, I lobbied to take AP coursework on multiple occasions, or expressed interest in same. I was actively discouraged by my teachers in this at least once (Spanish, it's not worth it, it won't translate meaningfully to college credit), and in another case (chemistry), the guy was fairly down on it as he felt there simply wasn't enough interst among the student body: "it'd be nice to do a class like that, but only like 5-10 kids have any interest at all and we couldn't justify it as a class."

I wasn't in some shitty inner city or rural school either (relatively). This was a relatively decent public high school in a mid-sized, mostly white town with a liiiitle bit of culture.

>>9749181
I didn't take the course. I just talked to him while he was psetting on a blackboard. He was working on a proof involving sheaves. I think he mentioned that they departed from the textbook partway through the course, but don't quote me on that. Again, I don't know what the course covered. Still, the CA (also a friend) told me he was doing remarkably well in 233, so certainly he knew what he was getting himself into.

>>9749196
For a bit of context, the CA was a sophomore who took 231 as a freshman.

>>9749188
Assuming you were posting the images at the start of the thread, then it certainly looks like you were including people such as Avila or Schwartz.

>Americans have 0 post 2000 ethnic American recipient.
There are only 2 ethnic French winners since 2000, those being Villani and Lafforgue. Using this as the cut-off date, Russians are probably the most successful modern mathematicians - Voevodsky, Okounkov, Perelman (not technically a winner, but still relevant), and Smirnov.

Besides that, what do you mean by 'ethnic American'? Their country has always been pretty diverse throughout history. One of their greatest strengths has been in giving a platform for foreign talent to use. Something which France also seems to do, given how diverse their Fields Medal winners are.

>>9749210
>Voevodsky
too soon :(

>>9749200
I mean, looking at the later problem sets of 131 last semester I certainly see some nice ideas about covering spaces and general category theory but certainly no Algebraic Geometry.
Do you mean the CA for 131 or 233A? Certainly the CA should not be a part of 233A if he did not take an algebraic geometry course.
I am sure he is doing quite well, but he must have had to black-box most of commutative algebra to take the course. That is fine, but it just means that his level of understanding is comparable to those taking 231.

>>9749192
I think this is more a case of you being a confused (understandably) student, who took a while to decide what to do with himself. Even the best educational systems in the world can't be infinitely flexible, so as to accommodate any last minute changes.

Many US universities offer remedial classes to get everyone up to date on certain concepts. It makes the curriculum look basic (why is a first year student learning about quadratics?), but it gives many troubled students an actual chance at majoring in STEM.

>>9749215

I did a little bean count on living vs dead medalists a while ago. Interestingly, about 3/4 are still /alive/.

This can of course be attributed both to the necessary youth of the laureates, and the youth of the prize itself. Something which I've written before on this topic is that frankly, mathematicians live very dull and comfy lives usually, which allows them to do their thing—Galois, say, is the sexy exception which just proves the rule. Judges are like this a bit, too.

Seen this way, Marzakhani's sudden death is in its own way all the more hilarious. Whoops, living token no more. I predict exactly one new woman will be tokenized in the upcoming awards, to fill the gap which had been intended to be filled, and /stay/ filled for some time by the previous award - /principles/, after all.

Unironically though, it was interesting to flip through Marzakhani's work and see the Pair-of-Pants topological object come up more than once.

>>9749227

The first paragraph is fair as it relates to myself. I personally had a "literary/humanities" phase in late middle school/early high school years, and gravitated back to the sciences later in high school. I still think it's dumb that I couldn't have just taken calc at the time, but then I was a snot-nosed kid and I didn't lobby hard enough. If I had wanted it bad enough at the time, I probably could have made it happen.

>>9749228
Here is a relevant essay: https://www.ams.org/notices/201501/rnoti-p21.pdf

>>9749210
>There are only 2 ethnic French winners since 2000
There have been only 14 awards.
Perelman is jewish though.
And no, the French Fields Medal winners aren't very diverse, as I said in an earlier post I'd tend to consider that France only won 3 awards because Avil and Ngô Bảo Châu are neither ethnic French neither do they originate from the French education system. Is there really a racial difference between a German from Cologne and a Frenchman from Lorraine though ? I'm not sure, and I admit I only learnt he was born in Germany from you. But as he spent his quasi entire education in France since age 9 I would argue we can legitimately consider it to be a French award.
>Besides that, what do you mean by 'ethnic American'?
White that was born in the US or came at an early age, or African American.

>>9749232
>I personally had a "literary/humanities" phase in late middle school/early high school years, and gravitated back to the sciences later
Are you me?

Depending on when it happened, you might have been able to get some recognition for doing a course online. There are a lot of open-source resources out there, that can get an ambitious student where he needs to be. I had a chance to do something similar, so as to avoid a remedial calculus subject.

>>9749242
>But as he spent his quasi entire education in France since age 9 I would argue we can legitimately consider it to be a French award.
Doesn't this also carry for Jews and other ethnic groups that were born in a country, or migrated there at an early age? Most American Jews are irreligious, don't speak Hebrew, and aside from a few cultural quirks are very culturally American.

>>9749222
The CA for 233. He definitely knows algebraic geometry. As for how he knows it? He probably took a class before coming to Harvard.

As for blackboxing commutative algebra, he and I were both familiar with projective resolutions, flat modules, Hilbert basis theorem, etc. before taking 131 and 231, respectively. We learned homological algebra and spectral sequences over the course of the year.

>>9749245
>Most American Jews are irreligious, don't speak Hebrew, and aside from a few cultural quirks are very culturally American.
I know, and this is even truer in France where atheism is even dominant in the rural white French population, adn where laicism prevails since two hundred years. What I'm interested in though, is the ability of an education system to pull someone from the population (the non jewish majority) and make a great mathematician of him. Jews have higher IQ and they would find a way to succeed anyway, despite being 1 % of the pop in France and 2% in the US.

>>9743702
You did Diff Eqs your 2nd year and not your first? Why is your school system wasting its time and resources on you? Sage this thread, Mootimer

>>9744324
Kikish University of Jerusalem ranked above Cal, what a fucking meme ranking.

>>9744182
Underrated post.

Yet I can make 300k starting doing high-school math in America while the superior europoor hs to hand out 90% of his income to muslim breed farms

>>9749252
I mean, have you and him worked through Lang's book on Algebra or something of a similar caliber? It is good that he knows some basic commutative algebra, but one is better off in the long run taking the algebra course before algebraic geometry. Algebraic topology is easier handled without such preparation.

>>9749932
This. Money runs the world.

>>9750276
I don't know about him, but I've worked through Dummit and Foote. I don't know if that's comparable. Probably not. Also, I know literally zero algebraic geometry, which is odd, since sometimes it seems like everyone and their mother is doing AG at Harvard.

>>9743647
Since the lingua franca of science is English, and most French fucks can hardly speak intelligibly, this doesn't really matter.

>>9743665
ideally those languages would be greek and latin

>>9751626
>definitely
No, Dummit and Foote is two steps down from Lang and fits better at the undergraduate level. Dummit and Foote covers a down-to-earth viewpoint of some material of Lang's chapters I, II, III, V, and VI out of Lang's 20 chapters (though Atiyah-Macdonald covers some of VII, IX, X as well, with other material of Lang's Algebra in other books). Though Harvard recommends Dummit and Foote for the qualification examination and have a single graduate pure algebra course, so I am thinking that while Harvard is great for algebraic number theory and for algebraic geometry, the insitution is very poor in algebra itself, a strange combination. I mean, I wouldn't be able to stand to have learned algebraic geometry without a proper basis in books like Matsumura's commutative algebra and Bourbaki's commutative algebra, both of which are much more thourough than Atiyah-Macdonald.
I may just be on the algebraic side of things, since I learned algebraic geometry to apply the methods to algebra.

>>9743647
Descartes combined the 3D elements of geometry with the theoretical nature of algebra. He created the Cartesian plane which all of you use today, which is the x, y, and z coordinate planes you learn in high school. The French have always been good with math, but then again Isaac Newton is British and invented Calculus.

I know that these are two individuals and not at all representative of the populations of either country but who the fuck cares

>>9752924
Thanks for telling me this. I guess I should read through Lang this summer, then.