What did you want to be?

[alias_sqbr]

I have an idea for a poll (inspired by this one and it's comments), but first need some data. So: what career(s) did you seriously consider in your youth? Lets say school-age, 5-17, since before that you're too young to know much, and after that you've plausibly started actually training for it. Any extra interesting information you feel like adding is welcome :)

Myself? In order: Writer, teacher(from early childhood till I did work experience as a teacher in year 11 :)), actor/comedian, astronomer/theoretical physicist (which lasted until my first astronomy lecture in second year :/)

Plus lots of vague ponderings that didn't last long.

And of course I got to combine a lot of these working at Scitech, which was fun for a while but reaffirmed that I do not, in fact, want to be a teacher or actor. Doing My Phd, and my webcomic, have somewhat satisfied the writing bug too.

Comments

[elaran.livejournal.com]

Doctor was pretty much it from the start. It was encouraged and I went along with it though I was thinking more along the lines of research for a fair while.

The only other two I considered were being an astronaut [along with being an astrophysicist with it - but this was more of a dream because I didn't ever think I was smart enough or dedicated enough for it in terms of maths] and a lawyer.

[elaran.livejournal.com]

Er, to be more specific, doctor was always there, so from age 5 onwards. In primary school you're meant to tell them what you want to do when you grow up and I always wrote down 'find a cure for cancer and HIV'. :P

Astronaut+astrophysicist was from about 8-14 [because I got really really interested in stars and space and then I wanted to be Sam Carter and then I started sucking at maths and didn't think it would practical].

Lawyer from 14 til I actually wrote down my preferences for uni when I put Med as my 1st preference because if Med isn't the first preference, you're not even considered.

[alias_sqbr]

Mm, I read your post on cesperanza's lj. Poor Sid, btw! I can recommend some good maths-for-interested-laypeople books if you like. I've found podcasts of undergraduate courses a good way to explore missed educational paths, but that might appeal more to me as someone who has no longer has asessed undergraduate studies to deal with :)

See, the problem with me and astrophysics was partly the hardness but mainly the fact that the practicalities of being an astronomer turn out to be really dull. I think I'd have preferred quantum mechanics or something pure mathsier, but actual pure maths turned out to be better still :)

[elaran.livejournal.com]

Hah. yeah. I read the post, wanted to rant about something and kinda cut lose. I'm thinking I should friend fanthropology actually given that I love reading this kinda stuff.

Sid's actually showing some interest in med for now and I'm a partly worried that if he started geeking out on maths he might lose interest in med again. =/ All that said, may I have the recs anyway?

the practicalities of being an astronomer turn out to be really dull.
This is true. And didn't even vaguely cross my mind when I was 12. :P

[alias_sqbr]

Totally, it's a fun little comm.

I didn't realise how dull astronomy was until the first lecture on it in second year uni, when the lecturer spent 45 minutes talking about the electromagnetic spectrum and which types of telescopes pick up what sorts, and then set us the homework of counting stars in a photograph.

Ok, recs! Off the top of my head:

Chaos by James Gleik, about chaos theory. Haven't read this since highschool (where it persuaded me to do a maths major :)), it might be a bit easy if he's done any uni level differential equations.

"Goedel Escher Bach, an eternal golden braid" by Douglas R Hoefstadter, on Goedels incompleteness theorem and other intersections between maths and philosophy and stuff. I love this book :)

The Colossal Book of Mathematics" or anything else collecting Martin Gardner's columns on mathematical puzzles

The fiction of Greg Egan, especially the stories in Axiomatic

[elaran.livejournal.com]

Thaaank you! He's gonna love that. I was talking to him a little bit back about cesperanza's post and your post and he started geeking out again and yeah, he's looking forward to those books now. :)

[flyingmopsy.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read "Fermat's Last Theorum" by Simon Singh or "The Book of Nothing" by John D. Barrow? If so, did you like them? I really (REALLY) enjoyed the former. I have enjoyed the latter so far, however I have left it half-finished for a very long time; I'll probably have to restart it when I go back to it.

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, Fermats last theorem! Also "The Man Who Loved only numbers", though that was more interesting as a biography.

I haven't read "The Book of Nothing" but really enjoyed "Zero: biography of a dangerous idea" by Charles Seife.

I've heard good things about Simon Singhs "The Code Book" but got put off by the fact that apparently it formed the basis for the Codes and Ciphers course I was the tutor for, and thus wouldn't contain much I don't know :) The course materials are online, unless it's changed it's pretty easy (for a third year maths unit) and kinda fun:
http://www.maths.uwa.edu.au/Units/math3334-s2-2007-crawley/view