The title pretty much explains the question but here it is
Is it off-topic to ask for advice on what courses/subject areas to study in preparation for PhD study in a certain area of mathematics?
The question is really about the closure reason
Questions seeking personal advice for choosi...
@MartinSleziak The problem is that I'm not sure whether or not it falls under "too opinion based" or "doesn't really have an answer". Clearly if there are experts working in a specific area, they know what areas of mathematics are useful in their subject area. The question isn't "what should I study so I will be accepted by institution $x$" or "what is a good place to study". — Ed_443420 mins ago
Let's hope other users will give you a better advice about this. The only thing I can think of are these two possibilities. A) Simply try to ask the question and you will see whether it will get closed. (Judging by your rep, you do not have to worry about post ban if a few of your questions get closed.) B) Have a look at similar questions from the past to see how they were received. (But it might be not very easy to find such posts. If I am able to find something, I will post it here in chat.) — Martin Sleziak11 secs ago
could you rank these classes in terms of necessity to take if I intend to pursue a Ph.D in pure math? I don't know if I can fit everything, but I want to make sure I take the most important ones:
Ordinary Differential Equations
Geometries
Applied Regression Analysis
Chaotic Dynamics
Probability
...
I am doing a PhD in economics and I have the chance of taking one subject a semester in the maths department (I would like to do more, but "unfortunately" I have to work on my thesis). I want to have a plan so that I start with subjects I might know a bit but making sure I have all the basis, whi...
I am starting my MSc in Mathematics next Fall (European university) and I intend to lean more towards number theory.
Each semester, in addition to some elective courses in number theory, I have to choose 1 or 2 core courses such as:
Functional Analysis, Algebraic Topology, Algebraic Geometry, ...
Consider a situation when a user votes to close a question as duplicate (or flags it as a duplicate if they do not have sufficient rep to cast close votes), and then the post is not closed. If the user still thinks that it is a duplicate, what they should do next?
Is it enough to make a comment...
@quid Letting aside the specific case, talking in general: In the case of non-obvious duplicates I think that it would be advisable if the close voter explain in comments why the post is a duplicate. (Some reviewers do look at the comments.) Other possible action would be mention it in the dedicated chat room. And I'd guess that non-obvious duplicates would be ideal for the dedicated thread - creation of such thread was suggested not so long ago. I think that the actions mentioned... — Martin Sleziak9 mins ago
...here would be preferable to flagging for moderators attention. (Or at least they are worth trying before flagging for mods attention.) — Martin Sleziak8 mins ago
@MartinSleziak yes, I agree with all of this. — quid1 min ago
Aren't these questions similar?
Factorial Proof by Induction Question?
Prove if $n \in \mathbb N$, then $\frac{1}{2!}+\cdots+\frac{n}{(n+1)!}=1-\frac{1}{(n+1)!}$
I flagged the first one as duplicated but it is declined. Why? I know that it happens when three users voted to let it open. But why...
While waiting for Alex Gruber to recharge his batteries, the moderation is working slowly. For instance, on September 3 I've voted to close this question as a duplicate. I was certain from the very beginning that my vote is a waste of time, since one needs some knowledge and willingness to percei...
But I am not sure what would be an apt title for that.
Relevant comments from the older discussion:
@quid I am not sure. (Is +4 sufficient to consider a community consensus?) I certainly do not have anything to post in that thread at the moment. — Martin SleziakAug 18 at 10:34
@Martin: I think that we should keep this as a get out of jail card for now. When it's useful to have this, let's pull this ace out and get out jail. — Asaf KaragilaAug 18 at 10:48
@MartinSleziak as I said in chat, what's clear is that most users simply don't care. Among those that cared enough to vote, it is 5-1, so there is a more than 80% percent majority for this. Or differently, there is exactly one user that expressed an opinion against this. // On the general subject, I might make some more remarks on the content of the thread. But then I think we should just launch it. — quidAug 18 at 13:18
One thing to decide is the precise scope; at one point I expressed skepticism as to whether request for dupe-direction reversals etc should also be posted there on the grounds that it is better a mod handles them. But then I think it could still be useful to have them there. As it would leave a trace of the request.
@MartinSleziak no. Except for the above. ^^ But this is slightly orthoganal.
To avoid confusion with double negations let me restate: I am in favor of starting the thread.
If you with to do start it, feel free to go ahead.
If not, I will probably start it during the weekend with the text from the revision linked above.
I don't think I will forget about this until then.
Whoever posts it, I guess it will be reasonable to ask the mods to disassociate the question from the OP - so that the OP does not receive too many pings. (I know this was done for sandboxes. I am not sure whether it was also done for other large threads, such as tag management or reopen requests.)
Of course, it is still possible that hardly anybody will use the thread. (So far I usually posted in crude room.)
As far as the issue of duplicate direction changes is concerned, perhaps we will see after starting the thread whether somebody will be using it for this purpose (i.e., changing direction of a duplicate) at all.
I am starting my MSc in Mathematics next Fall (European university) and I intend to lean more towards number theory.
Each semester, in addition to some elective courses in number theory, I have to choose 1 or 2 core courses such as:
Functional Analysis, Algebraic Topology, Algebraic Geometry, ...
Consider a situation when a user votes to close a question as duplicate (or flags it as a duplicate if they do not have sufficient rep to cast close votes), and then the post is not closed. If the user still thinks that it is a duplicate, what they should do next?
Is it enough to make a comment...
