I have a test coming soon

So this week at ASU was also pretty interesting. In terms of my research project, I'm still writing programs that can calculate win probabilities of certain game scenarios in nim. I'm trying different types of recursive approaches in hopes of getting a better understanding of what actually is happening in the game. One approach I'm using is looking at the win probability of one player in terms of the other and vice versa. The other approach tries to eliminate the second player from the game entirely in the recursive function. Now, there really isn't a point in writing two programs that do the exact same thing, but I was hoping that looking at the problem from two different angles would help give me insight mathematically (since computer programs just spit out numbers and that's no fun). I'm still programming, but I'm gonna try to bring you guys some cool math for next week.

Also at ASU, my differential geometry class has been going well. I really like the class (and the lecturer) and have almost caught up. We had a quiz on definitions and basic problems today that went well. I forgot to name the book we're using so i'll do that now. It's called Differential Geometry on Curves and Surfaces, written by Do Carmo.

What's also cool is that we have our first midterm on Tuesday, meaning I gotta study ( a lot). This is going to be my first non-Ms. Bailey college level math test so I'm pretty excited. I also need to catch up on homework in the class, since I joined late. I might post a bit about some of the cool things I learn in class or about interesting problems I studied  during my time at ASU.

Lastly, ASU has really great math seminars. Once every two weeks, ASU hosts ASU math circle, where the math department gives a lecture on a cool new topic of research in mathematics in a manner that is understandable to high schoolers. Also, each friday, ASU math department also holds a geometry seminar. While these might be a bit harder than the math circle talks, these are really cool in that the professors at ASU present on topics that they are studying or hope to study soon. Going to these talks is a nice way to see how research at ASU math is going.

Funny thing is, this week, Noam Elkies came to give a talk at ASU. For those of you who don't know who he is, he's a pretty big mathematician. He's the youngest tenured professor at Harvard and just a straight up genius. I had been looking forward to his talk for weeks now, but I totally forgot about it this week. So yeah... that was sad

OK thats all
bye~