Modulo Errors

I’ve never really intended for this blog to chart my personal experience of the PhD process - more eloquent authors have already captured the highs and lows of mathematical research. So I don’t intend to start now, save to note that the algorithm I’ve been working on for the last month or so has ultimately proved to offer no advantages over the competition, a situation which is of course disheartening. The process itself went smoothly: from initial experiments to conjectures about behaviour to proof, with a hefty amount of coding hurdles overcome along the way- so I’m fairly happy with my performance; I just have nothing significant to show for it.

It also leaves me casting around for a new topic: as the drought of posts recently might suggest, I’ve been working on the same material - group order calculations in genus 2 - for quite some time, and having put in the foundations (mathematically and computationally) I wouldn’t want to stray too far. I’m meeting my supervisor tomorrow to relate all of this, but then I’m off to the Utrecht summerschool for a fortnight. Perhaps for the best, as it’ll let me draw a line under my current work and possibly offer up some new directions. There’s also the more closely connected ECC in Dublin shortly after, the titles for which sound fascinating, so that should provide some motivation too.

At the very least, it’ll mean some more regular updates to the site as I play with various ideas!

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 4:37 pm and is filed under PhD.