Math 55

On a Wednesday morning on the fifth floor of the Science Center, 20 or so students mill about while Professor Math 55 D. He draws arrows and circles and greek letters on the board.

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.

Math 55

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. In the past, problem sets were expected to take from 24 to 60 hours per week to complete, [4] although some claim that it is closer to 20 hours. In addition to visiting their professor during office hours, students are encouraged to work together on homework assignments. Students typically typeset their homework in LaTeX and essentially write their own textbook for this class, [3] which ends with a take-home final exam. In , Math 55 covered almost four years worth of department coursework in two semesters, and subsequently, it drew only the most diligent of undergraduates. Of the 75 students who enrolled in the offering, by course end, only 20 remained due to the advanced nature of the material and time-constraints under which students were given to work. Kominers, familiar with the stated attrition rates for the course, decided to keep an informal log of his journey through the section: " 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.

Most articles or mentions of Math 55 refer to it as filled with math competition champions and genius-level wunderkinds. But today, math 55, the math department takes a different approach to how they present the course.

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.

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.

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.

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ISBN Archived from the original on October 19, But one, there is a world of difference between 24 and 60 hours that is never explained, and two, this timeframe is quite misaligned with reality. Woodruff herself believes that will be the most likely path for her, and several faculty members in our own Department of Mathematics took Math 55 during their days as Harvard freshmen. Most recently, Harvard junior Mahad Khan created a TikTok video dedicated to Math 55 that has received over , views to date. Math Until recently, Math 55 professors had great latitude with how they taught the course. Thirty minutes in, Harris pauses drawing his diagrams, which by now take up the entire chalkboard, and turns to face the class. Below, we take a stab at busting some of the more well known and persistent myths about the class. By Eileene Lee. Principles of Mathematical Analysis 3rd ed. Archived from the original on May 16,

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Finite-Dimensional Vector Spaces 2nd ed. Welcome to Math 55, the undergraduate course surrounded by what is perhaps the most intrigue and infamy of any class at Harvard. Auroux frequently sends out surveys to his students asking how long homework takes them and the average for most is closer to 15 hours a week. 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. These topics typically culminated in the proof of the generalized Stokes theorem , though, time permitting, other relevant topics e. But while familiarity with proof-based mathematics is considered a plus for those interested in the course, there is no prerequisite for competition or research experience. The course has its own Wikipedia page and has inspired many TikToks, one of which has racked up over , views. One argument is that the course helps structure and systemize the knowledge with which many students come to Harvard. March 3, Demographics of students taking this course over the years have been used to study the causes of gender and race differences in STEM. He had a background in math research and hoped to explore it further. Dean David N. But his father, a high school math teacher, advised him not to take Math