do you know any graduate students in math, or any math professors?

They sort of became slightly more human around, wait for it, the World Cup, at least the foreign students did.

i studied math for a while, amst. i'm not sure what you're looking for - i get the impression you either want some preconceptions confirmed or rejected - but math graduate students and professors are nerdier than your average, unsurprisingly. and then of course some will be the most out there people you ever meet. but, again unsurprisingly, they are not nerdy as a rule, nor are they uniformly nerdy. some are quite sociable; mathematics is, like any other scholarly field, one that calls for collaboration and interaction with fellow professionals, even if in a very constrained way.

in this way, and relative to the greater population, i would say that students of higher math are not significantly different from others working in the hard sciences. and then, not extremely different from other academics in general; being a jane austen scholar, e.g., isn't guaranteed to make you THAT much greater at relating to people, though admittedly humanities students e.g. are called upon to relate to others in ways much less remote from the everyday than mathematicians are.

as for differences between applied mathematicians and pure mathematicians, i can't help you. i would guess that applied mathematicians are and are perceived to be more worldly, but i don't know how significant that's supposed to be.

In undergrad, the math and math/physics people I knew were more introspective than the pure physicists, i.e. they were true to the expected stereotype.

I think most grad programs, no matter what the subject, are composed of 1/3 pure nerd, 1/3 undisciplined animal, and 1/3 mix between the two extremes (the smartest people are usually in the last group and are the ones that end up getting faculty positions). In my experience, Comp. Sci. is an exception, the breakdown is probably (3/4, 1/16, 3/16).

FYI: I began grad school in the "mixed" group and steadily progressed toward the "animal" group. The tipping point was probably around summer 2001.

But anyway, yes, I was one a graduate student for a year. Without fear or favour I can confirm that maths lecturers are pretty strange, and more prone to breakdowns than most.

haha LOLs.

when i was at berkeley one of my math TAs was a grad student named - i kid you not - OGG. OGG had long, waist-length blond dreadlocks, a big fuzzy beard, wore no shoes, had feet like the yeti and would only dress in denim overalls covered in embroidery and patches and nothing under them. OGG dropped out of graduate studies in math (topology, i think?) in his 2nd year to be a subsistence farmer.

haha LOLs.

when i was at berkeley one of my math TAs was a grad student named - i kid you not - OGG. OGG had long, waist-length blond dreadlocks, a big fuzzy beard, wore no shoes, had feet like the yeti and would only dress in denim overalls covered in embroidery and patches and nothing under them. OGG dropped out of graduate studies in math (topology, i think?) in his 2nd year to be a subsistence farmer.

she is currently in knoxville for the summer hanging out with mathematicians!

i think most math professors are really good, interesting people and don't fit the stereotype. my advisor, for example, spent time in england studying philosophy, really likes chess and woodworking, and goes ice skating with students sometimes. some mathematicians have sort of strange ways of getting along with others and going about their business but even they are usually fine people.

the grad students i know are awesome, but i'm sure there are lots who are really maladjusted and weird. even though i sometimes don't like math, i think i want to marry a mathematician because i think they're great.

Addendum:
Can somebody help me figure out a mathematical method for determining when it is best for a mass transit system to behave more like an elevator and when it is best for it to behave more like a train?

1. Trains stop at every stop
2. Elevators only stop when requested

Variables include: Number of people riding at a time, total number of riders to be served, time between stops, time at stop (to load/unload), number of concurrent rides available

distance is only important if we want to factor in competing modes of transport such as stairs or aeroplanes, which is like a whole nother can of worms.

would it be possible to make trains function like elevators at certain times? And elevators to function like trains at certain times?

The most important thing of course is that if you plan to ever make a train behave like an elevator you have to put the buttons up high enough so that children can never, ever reach them.

I am actually planning to start a blog so I don't have to use napkins anymore. Also: Tax write-off (Adsense here I come)

"Yes"

"Would you say that the defendant is a transcendental number that most people are familiar with?"

"Yes"

"And is it possible for any other number to be defined both by the two limits described in Exhibits A and B, as well as the infinite series discovered in Exhibit F?"

"Not to my knowledge"

"Therefore is it possible, at all, for another number to be responsible for this crime, given the identifying evidence you have seen?"

"No"

"No further problems"

on the boston green line trains start to act like elevators (or buses, or trolleys -- which they are) once they get out far enuf that there's a chance at all that they might not be asked to stop at a certain stop.

they also do funny things like only collecting fare in one direction to speed things up at rush hour, etc.

I teach A-level/AS level/O-Level as well as key skills to adult learners and basic skills to those who, er, need basic skills.

I'm an excellent chess player and represented England schools at a 15 year old and I also own an anorak which has patches on the elbows (not leather unfortunately)

I also write strange little songs, but mainly about cats rather than squirrels or whatever.

I suppose I am a bit nerdy..check out my profile and let me know...but I can communicate with students through the medium of music (we have a lending library which meets once a week where we swap anything from Wu tang to Boney M and most thins in-between

i could be an expert witness because i like being called an expert but i want to do something with reproductive rights or human rights or some other crap.

You'd need a statistical analysis of passenger patterns first - find out how frequently there are no people making use of stops, before you investigate the savings. I doubt it's worth the bother, really.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTby_e4-Rhg

I'm a math professor, with a doctorate in math and in one of the humanities (mostly teach in the humanities these days). I don't think I'm particularly freakish at least relative to ILX (or ILM, but I don't post enough for any of you to really know)...relative to my students though (at a pretty average big state school), yes, I'm a freak. I think it's mostly a degree of intensity. I mean to bother posting on ILM you have to be pretty intense about music. Math folks, in my experience, tend to be intense about whatever they're interested in. More generally, smart folks tend to be intense. Whereas my students aren't intense about much of anything from what I can tell.