Math 55

It is also a veritable legend among math 55 schoolers and college students alike, renowned as — allegedly — the hardest undergraduate math class in the country. It has been mentioned in books and articles, has its own Wikipedia page, math 55, and has been the subject of countless social media posts and videos.

Math 55 is a two-semester freshman undergraduate mathematics course at Harvard University founded by Lynn Loomis and Shlomo Sternberg. In the past, Harvard University's Department of Mathematics had described Math 55 as "probably the most difficult undergraduate math class in the country. Formerly, students would begin the year in Math 25 which was created in as a lower-level Math 55 and, after three weeks of point-set topology and special topics for instance, in , p -adic analysis was taught by Wilfried Schmid , students would take a quiz. As of , students may choose to enroll in either Math 25 or Math 55 but are advised to "shop" both courses and have five weeks to decide on one. Depending on the professor teaching the class, the diagnostic exam may still be given after three weeks to help students with their decision.

Math 55

Prerequisites: Mathematical maturity appropriate to a sophomore math class. Credit Option: Students will receive no credit for 55 after taking Computer Science Description: Logic, mathematical induction sets, relations, and functions. Introduction to graphs, elementary number theory, combinatorics, algebraic structures, discrete probability theory. Textbook: Rosen, Discrete Mathematics and its Applications, 8th edition. Week 5: Euclidean algorithm, modular exponentiation, solving congruences, Chinese Remainder Theorem Sections 4. Week 6: Induction and recursion, recursive algorithms Sections 5. Week 7: Counting, pigeon hole principle, permutations and combinations, binomial coefficients, distributions, generalized permutations and combinations Sections 6. Week 8: Discrete probability theory, conditional probability, independence, random variables Sections 7. Week 9: Bayes' Theorem and applications Section 7. Week Recurrence relations Sections 8.

It has been mentioned in books and articles, has its own Wikipedia page, and has been the subject of countless social media posts and videos, math 55. Myth 2: Just take a graduate class, instead Math 55 is hard.

On a Wednesday morning on the fifth floor of the Science Center, 20 or so students mill about while Professor Joseph D. He draws arrows and circles and greek letters on the board. He discusses topologies and neighborhoods and endpoints. Thirty minutes in, Harris pauses drawing his diagrams, which by now take up the entire chalkboard, and turns to face the class. Welcome to Math 55, the undergraduate course surrounded by what is perhaps the most intrigue and infamy of any class at Harvard.

On a Wednesday morning on the fifth floor of the Science Center, 20 or so students mill about while Professor Joseph D. He draws arrows and circles and greek letters on the board. He discusses topologies and neighborhoods and endpoints. Thirty minutes in, Harris pauses drawing his diagrams, which by now take up the entire chalkboard, and turns to face the class. Welcome to Math 55, the undergraduate course surrounded by what is perhaps the most intrigue and infamy of any class at Harvard. Even outside of Harvard, Math 55 has garnered outsized attention. The course has its own Wikipedia page and has inspired many TikToks, one of which has racked up over , views. And for a while, it seemed like the Math Department itself was in on the mythologization of the course.

Math 55

It is also a veritable legend among high schoolers and college students alike, renowned as — allegedly — the hardest undergraduate math class in the country. It has been mentioned in books and articles, has its own Wikipedia page, and has been the subject of countless social media posts and videos. Most recently, Harvard junior Mahad Khan created a TikTok video dedicated to Math 55 that has received over , views to date. Over the years, perception of Math 55 has become based less on the reality of the course itself and more on a cumulative collection of lore and somewhat sensationalist rumors. At the end of the day, however, Math 55 is a class like any other. Below, we take a stab at busting some of the more well known and persistent myths about the class. Or, at the very least, offering an extra layer of clarity. Most articles or mentions of Math 55 refer to it as filled with math competition champions and genius-level wunderkinds. The class is supposedly legendary among high school math prodigies, who hear terrifying stories about it in their computer camps and at the International Math Olympiad. There are even rumors of a special test students have to take before they are even allowed into Math

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Although preparation varies, all Math 55 students I spoke to had extensive experience with college- level mathematics. ISBN Math 55 - Discrete Mathematics -- [4 units] Course Format: Three hours of lecture and two hours of discussion per week. Still, Ashvin A. March 3, In , for example, students studied the differential geometry of Banach manifolds in the second semester of Math Hidden categories: All articles with dead external links Articles with dead external links from January Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata. From to , less than seven percent of Math 55 students were female. Harvard Crimson. Why do women avoid classes like Math 55? But Woodruff also stressed that the instructors are very aware of this and actively take steps to curb that kind of toxic behavior.

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Numbers of students dropping are due in part to the tendency of undergraduates to "shop around" for appropriate courses at the start of each semester. By Eileene Lee. Summers made Friday suggesting that biological differences between the sexes may be one explanation for why fewer women succeed in mathematic[s] and science careers. Still, Ashvin A. Some view enrolling in the class as proof of their mathematical gumption and competence. The difference is we go through it at a faster pace, maybe with more challenging homework, and ideally as a community of people bringing our heads together. Myth 4: less than half of the class makes it to the second semester Math 55 is just as infamous for its attrition rate as it is for its difficulty. Thirty minutes in, Harris pauses drawing his diagrams, which by now take up the entire chalkboard, and turns to face the class. When he arrived at Harvard earlier this year, Jonah C. So while students are discouraged from taking too many difficult classes and extracurriculars in the same semester as Math 55, they are also not expected to spend the time equivalent to a full-time job on their problem sets every week. Others start out in Math 25 and, if not sufficiently challenged, switch to Math