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In reply to the discussion: Jimmy Carter issues statement on Snowden. "America no longer has a functioning democracy" [View all]xocet
(4,431 posts)They would walk around together and speak English amongst themselves. The other Americans from the college that I attended and I noted that behavior and decided essentially from the beginning that we would only speak German to each other if we got together. Mostly, we went our own separate ways during that year and only seldom did anything together.
"Per Anhalter durch die Galaxis" was the first book that I read with a Langenscheidt's in hand. What a chore! Eventually, I bought a Duden.
Mathematics is definitely a cool subject. There is a lot of it in physics, but it is not developed systematically there. In hand-waving terms, matrix algebra, group theory and representation theory all make appearances in quantum mechanics. When I went to Germany, I lacked a course in matrix algebra and a course in vector calculus. The engineering college that I attended prior to going to Germany did not offer these courses except as insignificant subsections of a year-long calculus course, and, naïvely, I did not appreciate their importance at the time. I suppose that, if one were truly a master of first-year calculus, one could make due without the two courses that I just noted. However, that was not my experience.
What sort of mathematics do you like? Do you use your mathematics?