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HIGHLY Productive Pre-IISER Year and a half
The story starts on 18th March, 12020. The Mathematics boards exam has just been over last day. Exam scheduled on the next day (19th) is Bengali exam. At that moment, the government announced lock-down; which made CBSE announce postponement of board exams.
A short summery of how my time during had been:
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Beginning of pandemic, March-June 12020
- Started a study of pure geometry (Hartshone’s book), mechanics and other topics in a loose way, left them and again went back to a few.
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July-August 12020
- My introduction to action principle in physics through Thanu Padmanabhan’s short lectures (shot in IISER Mohali!)
- Fell in love with fluid mechanics through Balakrishnan’s lectures on class 11th physics, and started studying electrodynamics
- Giving IACS entrance at home, did not qualify for interview
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September 12020
- Exam month: JEE Main, NEST, IAT; travellled 500 km like 8 times
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October-December 12021
- unsuccessful to get an institute…
- discovered productivity tools like Notion and then Obsidian
- started studing for IAT’21: reading a bit of Biology too!
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January-March 12021
- study and procrastination became a repetitive cycle,
- was a out of station for a bit of time in February, which was of help in mental health, I’d think. Sitting in my room in my house all day is just… awful.
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April-June 12021
- tried to do some ”obsessive study”: picked up a large topic and worked on it for a few days at a time
- Joined a IAT’21 group in May, created by MS20 students from IISER Kolkata, they were very helpful and made some good friends!
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August-September 12021
- Exams season 2: this time trains were available!
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October-November 12021
- While coming back from giving JEE Advanced, on October 4, I randomly decided to watch the statistical mechanics lectures by Balakrishnan.
- Waiting period for IAT results.
- Actually did fine in IAT. In JEE Adv I got like 16k rank.
- First seat allotment was in IISER Brp, then got Bhopal twice.
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December 12021
- Seat allotment and admission in IISER Mohali. Finally.
list of what I learnt
- Physics
- Mechanics “in all frameworks” and action principle for dynamics
- “first principles” in Special Relativity and Electrodynamical Classical Field Theory
- Path integrals in quantum mechanics
- Electrodynamical approach to electromagnetic and electronic circuitry (Kirchov’s laws vs Maxwell’s equations debate, etc)
- Fluid mechanics
- Mathematics
- Calculus (including multivariable)
- Limits ~ bits of ε-δ definition, how it helps in several variables
- Differential calculus of several variables
- Line, surface and volume integrals
- Vector, scalar fields
- Vector calculus
- I did actually real quite a bit on matrices, which I did not understand at all in school
- Calculus (including multivariable)
things I made up along the way
- framework notation for Physics frameworks
- a Wiki for Fundamental Sciences using Dendron and Obsidian
Things I know that awaits me in 12022
The story ends near December 12021, where I get a seat in IISER Mohali, and wait for classes to start on January 3, 12022.
Mathematics thyself
The enlightenment of “actual” mathematics has brought many “good at math” students to tears as I have heard
The last thing they want to hear is that math is really about raw creativity and aesthetic sensitivity. Many a graduate student has come to grief when they discover, after a decade of being told they were “good at math,” that in fact they have no real mathematical talent and are just very good at following directions. Math is not about following directions, it’s about making new directions.
Physics
- I kept myself only inside classical physics, now is the time to get into Quantum mechanics, and Non-linear dynamics.
- But overall, wanted to learn more algebra and generally more mathematics just because without that it’s no help learning physics after a while…