twanvl comments on A Rational Education - Less Wrong

12 Post author: wedrifid 23 June 2010 05:48AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 24 June 2010 05:38:54PM *  2 points [-]

I haven't got enough time perspective to know what's useful in the long run. I also just graduated in math.

Fun/easy: a class in ethics and public policy. I find that it's much easier to deal with contemporary debates from the perspective of political philosophy.

Fun/not so easy: Fourier analysis, complex analysis, random processes.

Classes I wish I had taken: any computer science. I had an irrational fear that I'd be blown out of the water by "hacker kids" -- now that I realize there are things I want to do that require more advanced programming, I'll have to self-teach.

Classes that changed how I see the world: intro econ, Fourier analysis

Comment author: twanvl 24 June 2010 06:01:53PM 2 points [-]

Could you explain how Fourier analysis has changed the way you see the world? I can't imagine how it would change anything.

Comment author: [deleted] 24 June 2010 06:25:22PM 8 points [-]

well, looking at things in terms of a decomposition into frequencies is kind of a universal insight. At least to me. And it inspires different kinds of bases and dictionaries for signal processing. "What's the best basis to expand this in?" is a question I find myself asking about just about everything these days. Getting meaning from observations is, to me, finding a sparse basis representation.

In other words: it kind of only changes how you see the world mathematically, but for me that's a big part of the world.