René Descartes

Topics

These classes are there for your benefit and will be infintely more succesful if you tell me what you want them to be about. We can go over bits of the lectures, go through tricky exercises, look at more examples or expand on topics which get little attention in lectures.

When I write "we" I mean it. These classes are meant to be interactive. You'll ask me questions and I'll ask you questions.

If there is anything you would like me to talk about, send me an email. Just do it. Don't hesitate. Don't wonder whether your question is important enough or whether you will sound stupid or overly keen. Don't worry how to address me. Just write down the question or topic and click send.

Advice

Talk to your fellow students. In my opinion this is the single most important piece of advice if you are a Cambridge undergraduate.

Maths links

There are many places where you cand find answers to maths questions you have. Your lecture notes can be suprisingly useful. Talking to other students is invaluabe. People like me are happy to answer your questions in supervisions and examples classes.

There is also the internet. It is perfectly legitimate to look up things in wikipedia or mathworld or even here, as long as you don't have blind faith in what you read. There are also places on the internet where you can ask (or answer!) specific questions, for example Mathematics StackExchange or Ask NRICH. But be aware that at Cambridge you are priviliged to be surrounded by a lot of keen, smart and friendly mathematicians. Make the most of it. It is almost always better to ask people in real life before putting your questions on one of those sites.

There is a number of extremely useful discussions related to the Numbers & Sets course on Tim Gowers' old course website. If you feel you are on top of the course material, spend some time with the enthusiast sheets. The rest of Tim Gowers' website is very interesting as well, and by now he even has a blog. He also gave this inspiring lecture on the importance of mathematics.

For something pretty, here you can find some visualisations of Möbius maps.

On Studying

There are several places which offer help on study skills, for example this site maintained by the CUSU Academic Affairs officer. Specifically for mathematicians you have all received this booklet which is worth reading if you haven't already done so. The University Counselling Service has some very sensible leaflets online, dealing with procrastination, work-block and other, possibly more serious issues.

Please keep in mind that all advice is just that. What worked for others need not work for you. If you feel that some advice does not apply to you, it can be best to ignore it.

If you are unhappy with your studies and find none of the above useful, do talk to somebody. I am more than happy to be emailed in confidence, as are both your DoS and tutor.

A word on exams