I Was Sort Of Dozing Off In Math Class Today. I Could Hear Wisps Of What The Professor Was Saying, As

I was sort of dozing off in math class today. I could hear wisps of what the professor was saying, as I fought with my body to stay awake. But then I was shocked into wakefulness, when I heard the professor say, " so we have proved that 5 is equal to 1. Okay everyone? Everyone got that? 5 is equal to 1! "

For a brief second, I was more confused and lost than I ever remember being in my life.

The professor was already moving on to the next proof. Everybody was nodding in agreement and hurrying to note it down. I looked at the blackboard and everything looked like normal stuff that we were doing before. But it felt like I had crossed over to another universe. My brain could not find any other sensible solution for the situation.

And then I finally found the statement of the proof and realized that the professor meant that we had proven that statement number 5 and statement number 1, were equivalent.

Today started with a hurricane. I woke up to a hurricane. The real life one. The ‘rain is going horizontally’ one. The ‘there is a literal white wall outside your window’ one. The ‘wind is so loud that I can’t hear you speak’ one. 

Things that made me study science and maths (mostly good books)

·       A picture in yuval noah harari’s book, ‘Homo Deus’

·       A picture in the ‘Brief History of Time’

·       The word ‘epoch’

·       The book, ‘A Brief History of Everything’

·       A superb book called Number devil

·       A college level physics textbook called, ‘Conceptual physics’

·       A book called ‘We have no idea’

·       My school maths textbook(s)

·       The software Desmos

·       My poetic disposition

 Things that still dissuade me from studying science and maths (in no particular order)

·       The essay ‘A mathematician’s apology’

·       The competition

·       The hype about this place <insert name of popular institution/college>

·       My physics and maths TEACHERS

·       My school physics textbook

·       Guys who pretend they know everything

·       Guys who know everything

·       Biographies of genius mathematicians and physicists

·       Imposter syndrome

·       My inability to crunch big numbers

You can be both closed and open. You can also be neither closed nor open. But that would be too much diversity for people to deal with.

Closed is not the opposite of Open. Closed is the complement of Open. Ifykyk

Closed is not the opposite of Open. Closed is the complement of Open. Ifykyk

When you put in more effort in the 1 credit subsidiary course rather than the 3 credit core course.