What does a PhD in maths involve?

Tweej

In biology, physics, chemistry, etc, there are experiments to do. With maths, I just get confused. Does one sit around all day thinking until a flash of brilliance comes into your mind?

I'm just curious if anyone has done a phD in maths, and what it involves?

Yakuza

I would imagine that taking a crack at solving one of these babies would go a long way towards getting a PhD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_mathematics

TheBody

Yakuza wrote: »

I would imagine that taking a crack at solving one of these babies would go a long way towards getting a PhD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_mathematics

I've a few hours to kill today. I'll report back later with all the proofs!! :pac:

rjt

So I don't have a PhD in maths, but am in grad school, so can at least partially answer your question. There are plenty of people on boards who have PhDs in maths, so hopefully one of them will poke their head in and give you a better answer.

As to what a PhD student does day to day, there's a lot to learn, so a lot of time is spent reading books and papers. And now and then your adviser will throw some small problems your way, and you try to apply the things you've learned to at least partially answering at least some of these small problems. And then, hopefully, some of the work on these small problems will be of interest (because maybe the methods you used could be applied elsewhere, for example), and so you write up your work, and send it off to people that will publish it in a journal for other mathematicians to read.

But again, my experience is limited, so hopefully someone else can paint a better picture. I'm still at the book reading stage (and if I keep procrastinating by, say, spending time on the internet when I should be working, will probably never get passed that point!).

Justin1982

Yeah basically procrastination is the order of the day. Few cups of coffee. Probably attend some lectures in the first year or two, work as a lecturer's assistant correcting problem sets most likely to earn some dough. But mainly waiting for divine intervention while looking out the window thinking things like "Was that a ferret I just saw.......No.....Maybe......It was more of a possom than a ferret". If working as a pure mathematician.

Lot of maths grads work on applied maths phds. So may be something physics related and programing is generally a big area these days.

History of maths is another easier option I think.

Ficheall

Depends on the area of mathematics, but an awful lot of it seems to be computer programming.

yellowlabrador

This reminds me of a family joke. My great aunt and my grandmother were always boasting of their childrens and grandchildrens achievements. One of my second cousins married a boy who was doing a phd in maths, so my grandmother was very impressed. When he finished, my grandmother inquired about his new job and then came home and announced that he was selling cigarettes and what a waste of all those years, he mustn't b much good as he could have done that working in a corner shop.....It turned out he was working as a statistician for one of the major brands and had a brilliant career, he was always known as the boy who sells cigarettes,:D

locum-motion

yellowlabrador wrote: »

This reminds me of a family joke...

Well if we're going to bring up old jokes...


What's the difference between a 12" pizza and a PhD in Mathematics?


A 12" pizza can feed a family of four!


(Or was that physics... and a 16" pizza? Hmm...)

equivariant

Ficheall wrote: »

Depends on the area of mathematics, but an awful lot of it seems to be computer programming.

I think that this is very misleading. You can do PhDs in computational mathematics of course, but a PhD in pure mathematics very often involves no programming whatsoever.
Typically a PhD in pure maths involves proving a few theorems that no one has proved before. As the OP suggested that often involves a lot of sitting around and thinking very hard about abstract concepts. If you have a good supervisor then he or she will suggest a problem that is well matched to your abilities and one that she is fairly confident can be solved in a reasonable amount of time. In the initial stages of a PhD the supervisor will usually provide a lot of guidance to the student and give detailed advice on how to tackle the problem at haney d. Ideally by the time the student is writing up the thesis he or she should be able to tackle problems in their area of specialisation without too much 'hand-holding' from the supervisor.

If you are interested you can find abstracts of recent PhD theses in mathematics in copies of the bulletin of the Irish maths society, available here
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/ims/bulletin/index.php

They probably won't mean much if you don't have an honours degree in maths, but it will give you some idea of what is involved. These are just the abstarcts remember