Maths Rant

Rants about my love/hate relationship with Mathematics

Skip to content
  • Home
  • About the Author
  • Behind the Blog
  • Resources I love
Search

Oxbridge

On Gaining Perspective

September 13, 2025September 28, 2025 / Shub Das / Leave a comment

Last year, I was rejected from Oxford. No interview, just a flat-out rejection for Maths. In hindsight, that became one of the biggest turning points in my life and gave me something much more valuable than I expected: perspective. You don't always get what you want. Sometimes, you don't even get what you might deserve. … Continue reading On Gaining Perspective

Recent Posts: Maths Rant

31 Posts and a Violin I Haven’t Learned to Play

On ‘Feeling the Feeling’

On Mathematical Anxiety (and the Courage to Ask Anyway)

On (not) being able to do all the things

Facing the Facts: How Eigenvalues Unlocked Your Phone

The Exam Fear Strikes Back 

Ryan Gosling, Revision, and Reasons to Care

On Writing Like a Human (Whatever That Means Now)

The Missing First Page of Most Maths Notes

On the Value of Mathematics in the Age of GenAI 

Today marks one year of mathsrant. 31 posts, 4,300+ views, 2,300+ visitors, and readers in over 50 countries; none of which I expected when I wrote the first post twenty days after my last A-Level exam, still processing what I can only describe as post-exam grief. Watching a group of Year 7s sit through a lecture on gravity and black holes earlier this week as part of an outreach event made me feel almost envious. They weren’t afraid to give an answer and get it wrong, or even afraid to ask a question that might sound silly. They just blurted things out, no judgement attached. I couldn’t help but wonder, when did we lose that? I have unlocked my phone with my face probably thousands of times. Never have I ever once thought about it. Then, a few weeks ago, I sat in a lecture about something called eigenfaces. And now I cannot stop thinking about my phone May the 4th be with you. Spoiler warning: This short post contains spoilers for Project Hail Mary. If you haven’t watched it yet, go watch it! A lot of maths notes feel like they start on page two. You see a theorem, then a proof, then an example. As I slowly but surely work through catching up on lectures and revision, one of the questions I’ve found myself sitting with is this: I often find it hard to come up with ideas for things, and that probably shows in the spontaneous nature of both the topics and timing of my posts. One of the things I didn’t expect to miss at university was doing school maths challenges.
Blog at WordPress.com.
  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Maths Rant
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Maths Rant
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
Loading Comments...