Fame, fame, fatal fame

I found out yesterday that I have been selected to take part in a pilot scheme that the university are tentatively calling "PhD Idol". The idea is to schedule several PhD students' vivas on a single day in the newly opened University Place (formerly the "Scan Building"), and invite curious undergraduate students to make up the audience. The university are hoping that the event will boost the number of undergrads staying on to study for doctorates.

So why "PhD Idol"? Well, in addition to each of us facing our subject-specific internal and external examiners (as is customary for a viva), we will have a third examiner, who takes part in all of the vivas, and assesses our presentational skills - are our explanations clear? Can we cope with pressure and criticism? And so on. This guy is supposed to be something of a Simon Cowell figure, and we have been told to expect some pretty acerbic comments from him, in part, to gauge how we cope with the scrutiny, but mainly to keep the undergrads interested. They'll enjoy seeing us hapless postgraduates getting a grilling.

At the end of each viva, the audience have to applaud/cheer/whoop for joy accordingly, and if your performance excites a clap-o-meter (specially rigged up by the Physics department) enough, you will be offered either £100, or the chance to upgrade your viva result by one grade. So a "pass with major corrections", becomes a "pass with minor corrections" and so on.

They're hoping that this sounds enough like Pop Idol/X-Factor to pique the undergraduates' interest, but not too close, to prevent Simon Cowell himself from coming along and suing the university...

So why have I agreed to this? Well, I think that I can impress the third judge sufficiently, and due to my infectious charisma and neat handwriting, the audience are sure to cheer the clap-o-meter to a frazzled death. Trust me, I'll be fine.

If you want to come along and clap for me, it's free for students and staff at Manchester, and £1.04 for everyone else. I'll post up the precise time and date when it is confirmed. And if you can't make it, well, they're streaming the lot via YouTube (again the university is getting down with the kids), so you can see me squirm there.

Broken record time

Hello, thesis fans. Aside from a few minor points, I've completed all the corrections and edits to chapters 1-6, as suggested by my supervisor. He wants to see what shape it's now in before he tackles the final (knotty, complicated, intricate etc.) chapter, so I've been proof reading the latest version this weekend.

I suddenly have job interviews, tests and open days to attend, so most of this checking took place in the less-than-ideal surrounds of Virgin trains. But despite all the extra time spent planning my glorious future career in, "erm, I'm not quite sure", I'm managing to keep on top of my thesis. I have to resolve a couple of annoying little details early this week and then hopefully I can give it back to my supervisor.

There is a rush to be finished now as we have a provisional viva (oral exam) date of "some time in June". So I need to submit the thesis in May, which means I need to be correcting the final chapter before April (as I expect it will be a big job). And there will be yet more edits for the rest of my thesis, so time is quickly running out.

Of course, having now tempted fate and posted this provisional date to my blog, the cosmic viva gods will no doubt be chortling to themselves and pushing it a few months further back...

In other news, I noticed that the university now have a policy about graduate students writing blogs.

• Blogs and wikis.

I think it's good that they are pointing out the dangers of people nicking your research (whether with malicious intent or otherwise). In fact, I was terrified that might happen to me when I first started blogging. Of course, since any explicit discussion of maths died out around here at least a couple of years ago, it's not really been a problem for me.

Making stuff less wrong

For the past three weeks I've been editing the first half of my thesis. I drew up a marvellously intricate To Do list, which had two sub-headings: "Easy" and "Hard".

I made a gentle start and ticked off most of the simple stuff, like fixing typos and lost references, and expunging any dodgy notation I'd invented. Before long the easy list had vanished beneath the red ink of crossings out.

Having flexed my muscles I then tackled the heavier stuff. To my relief a lot of the editing simply involved rewriting to change the emphasis of various sections, or even cutting and pasting to re-jig some of the ordering. I had to finally pin down some concepts that I'd never before understood, and do a couple of proofs, but nothing too strenuous.

Now there's only a couple of "hard" tasks left, and a few other simple bits and bobs, and then the first half will be very close (I hope!) to its final form. On Monday I should get my next batch of corrections from my supervisor.

In many ways it has been a rather pleasant couple of weeks. I have a much greater knowledge of the area that I've researched, and I am really getting an intuitive understanding of the ideas I've worked on. If you've forgotten, I'm supposed to be an algebraic topologist. That means I use algebra to study geometrical, topological objects (see here, here, here, here or (if you like ice skating!?) here). There have been a couple of times lately where I'm looking at a scuzz of complicated algebra and suddenly I can see so clearly how it describes some wonderful geometry. Then I think "Wow! This is why I signed up for a PhD in the first place." To rediscover some of my lost enthusiasm for maths has been a lovely feeling.

In a way this has come too late. If I could have gained this insight a year ago, or even spent the last six months of my third year continuing my original research (rather than starting, almost afresh, on another line of enquiry), then perhaps I could have found something really brilliant.

So while I've been feeling a tinge nostalgic, and a little sad at leaving maths behind, I keep reminding myself that it really is the best thing for me. I've been applying for jobs and doing other careers drudgery. Plus I have quite a lot of teaching this semester, so on top of my thesis I'm really busy right now.

On the whole, things are going well. I hope it stays that way... I'll keep updating as my thesis gets closer to it's final form.

It's mostly "phew"

I met my supervisor yesterday and had about half of my thesis returned, along with his comments and corrections.

The good news is that, so far, there are no howling errors. He also said that he didn't have to change a single sentence due to dodgy grammar or spelling, so I'm chuffed about that!

We spent a couple of hours going over some issues that he felt I was confused about. So I got confused. But eventually everything stopped swimming in front of my eyes, and I slowly began to understand where my emphasis or presentation had been skew-whiff. In some cases I don't have to rewrite a thing, I just have to be prepared to explain myself when I'm up against the blackboard in the oral exam (aka "viva").

So aside from these gaps in my understanding, there's only minor slips to correct. Well, I must admit that I've been too scared to go through the whole document properly yet. The idea of starting to rewrite and edit is quite daunting. However, I'm currently buried under a hummock of exam papers that I have to mark, so I have a great excuse to abstain from editing for a few days yet.

I'm also teaching again. I did some Matlab with the first years today, and tomorrow morning I have my linear algebra supervision groups for the first time this semester.

Now, some blog news. From here on in, I've decided that I must write here less frequently.

The main reason is that I still suffer from RSI (repetitive strain injury), and though it has improved hugely since I was first diagnosed (and even improved while I was typing my thesis all day, every day for months), I am still not over it completely. However, after two computer-less weeks over Christmas and new year, I had absolutely no pain for the first time in years. Unfortunately it has flared up again in the past week, and so I've decided that in order to try to keep it at bay, and get over it for good, I'm going to cut back on my computer use drastically. So the blog will continue, but updates will now be weekly at most.

I don't want to send it to the great recycle bin in the sky, as I've almost blogged all the way to the end of my PhD, and I would like this to be a complete record of the experience. Hopefully I can keep you informed of my progress as I pass some of the important milestones - submitting my thesis, and defending it in the viva. And I surely have to post up my thesis here when it's finally finished!

So apologies for this, but once again, thank you all again for reading, and emailing and commenting on the blog, and even if I have to do it one-handed, I'll keep you posted as to where I'm at with the PhD every week or so. Thanks!

Oats and bran and rock 'n' roll

I reached a low on Thursday night. Draped over the sofa, watching MasterChef in my undies, and eating bran flakes straight from the cereal box, I suddenly thought: "Enough! Look at yourself, man. You're a disgrace."

[Okay, I'm exaggerating slightly - I did have my socks on as well.]

I threw down the bran flakes in disgust and resolved, somehow, to end the recent void in my life. On went the computer, and lo! An email. My batch of exams were ready for the red pen treatment.

And everything else has been cranking into action: I have two bouts of exam checking (that is, checking the exams have been marked correctly); two first year linear algebra classes to supervise; six weeks of Maths Workshop (to cover another postgrad, who's away); and half a semester demonstrating on knot theory. This lot should pay the rent for a month or so, while I'm finishing off my thesis.

So this was the deluge after the drought. But the time away has been useful, not only for giving me the impetus to starting thinking about a future career, but also to have a full and proper break. It's easy to forget how stressed and miserable I was, how much maths became anathema to me in the past year. Hopefully the time away will make the denouement of my PhD a little easier.

I'm going to go into uni today to get on with the marking. Perhaps it's guilt over being such a bum lately ("bum-guilt"?), but the thing about marking is that you have to be as consistent as possible. It's not enough to have a markscheme. You have to also remember how you dealt with all the weird and wacky answers, and make sure that you administer the same, sage judgement (usually a mark of zero) to everyone else who makes a similarly bizarre attempt. I hate the idea that I might hold the three-hundredth exam to a different standard than the first (and in fact, I usually mark the first dozen or so exams again, half way through, just to make sure). So I don't like to take huge gaps in between grading each packet of papers.

Finally, in the Graun yesterday there were a few stories that might interest the mathematically minded out there. The first gave a readable explanation of what went wrong, mathematically, at Societe Generale last week,

• Dicing with disaster.

And the second link is a more thorough review of The Indian Clerk, the novelisation of Ramaujan's life, which I mentioned last week,

• Adding up to a life.

All this free time and I still couldn't think of a good title

By last week I'd grown tired of thinking about jobs, so I went back into university. A week later, I still have nothing to do. I'm waiting to get the first draft of my thesis back from my supervisor, but he's off sick at the moment. I'm also waiting to do some exam marking (and checking the marking of other examiners), but again, that has yet to materialise. So I just roam the corridors like an aimless, gloomy spectre.

And I'm sure I'm starting to annoy everybody by shaking my chains and complaining about having no work to do. Yes, only I could moan about having a holiday forced upon me. But I feel like time is slipping away, and that the headstart I had on writing my thesis has slowly eroded. It's not unusual to still be working on it at this stage, but I feel like if I'm not careful, I'll still be editing the cursed thing by the time summer comes around.

Without a firm idea of when I'll be finished, I feel trapped between PhD-land and whatever comes next. Like I can't throw myself completely into looking for a job yet.

As you near the end of the doctorate, you become more dependent on other people. You're increasingly in need of your supervisor's feedback and advice, waiting on your examiners (for the "viva", or oral exam), and getting tangled up in university bureaucracy. It comes as quite a shock to find that you have to obey official regulations and edicts, after three years of doing as you please.

But this sort of thing happens to everybody. And most graduate students I've spoken to have their own gory horror stories about interminable waits for their viva, crippling post-viva corrections or collapsing theses. So while I am moaning, I am by no means particularly unfortunate. I'm not even slightly "unfortunate", but there's still plenty of time to get attacked by sharks on my way to the viva yet...

I'm sure in a week or so I will be snowed under with work and begging for a break again, so I will try to complain less. In fact, I should be meeting up with my supervisor soon, and emails are starting to arrive to announce details of the marking, so I'd better enjoy the lull while it lasts.

And if you're very busy right now, please don't hate me.

Maths street preacher

At the weekend I read a review of yet another mathematical novel (see also "A Certain Ambiguity and Measuring the World"). This time the focus is on the relationship between Hardy and Ramanujan in The Indian Clerk. Here's the lowdown,

• Solving it.

The review also mentions the Stephen Fry film on Ramanujan's life, which I pondered here. But I'm not sure whether the reviewer actually knows that it's going ahead, or is just repeating the same info that I also blogged about in that post last month.

The appearance of Hardy has just reminded me of a recent post on God Plays Dice, which links to a free electronic version of A Mathematician's Apology. It has the distinction of being the only book I've ever read while walking along the street. In this case, to and from my job at a bookmakers one summer. No, I don't know why either...

• A Mathematician's Apology available online.

According to another blog I wandered onto, Marcus du Sautoy has made a BBC documentary titled "The Story of Maths", which will be broadcast later this year. It charts the development of maths through four programmes on Greece, Egypt, Babylon and India; the latter programme featuring Ramanujan, among others. The full details are here,

• Ancient India and Maths.

If anybody else has read some mathematical novels lately, please feel free to share your thoughts and recommendations!

Bend me, stretch me

I saw this article in the Guardian on Friday,

• Advanced maths A-level 'needed to stretch prodigies'.

It begins,

An advanced form of the maths A-level should be introduced to attract the prodigies who are not stretched by the current qualifications, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said yesterday.

Isn't that what the Further Maths A-level is for? Ah, but reading on we find that "the [ordinary maths] A-level should be separated from the further maths A-level which should stretch the most able."

I find this quite interesting because they can't really make the normal maths A-level extremely difficult, as the step up from GCSE (which, as I recall, doesn't take the student very far) will be too lofty. Therefore they are thinking of overhauling further maths instead.

That makes sense, because when I was at college, further maths was simply the harder units at the end of (or way beyond) the maths A-level, not really a stand alone course. And so different schools and colleges would teach a different selection of units, which would then comprise "further maths". Perhaps for universities, it would be clearer if they knew exactly what students had covered when they see "further maths" on their application form. [Then again, don't varying units make up the normal maths A-level?]

Perhaps it would also be more attractive to students to have a separate course, which fits in better with the ordinary A-level. Further maths made my ordinary classes almost redundant, since we'd covered most of the syllabus in our advanced sessions already. If they could make the two courses rub along more amicably, that'd be a good thing.

They give scant details about how anything like this might happen, or even if this is what they have in mind.

[Note, it's been a while since I was at college, so take all of the above with a handful of salt!]

I have fond memories of the further maths A-level. It was perhaps the only lesson that I enjoyed while I was at college. A small group of us would meet a few times a week, with a friendly, enthusiastic teacher, and it was like our own secret little club. Those lessons opened my eyes to how exciting maths can be, and without them, I'd have never have considered undertaking a maths degree. It seems funny when I look back now, at how besotted I was. It feels like a long time ago...