Maths Rant

Rants about my love/hate relationship with Mathematics

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Facing the Facts: How Eigenvalues Unlocked Your Phone

May 9, 2026May 9, 2026 / Shub Das / Leave a comment

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.

The Case for Side Projects

August 7, 2025August 29, 2025 / Shub Das / Leave a comment

I used to think (and honestly, I still do sometimes) that I needed to “learn everything first” before starting a programming project. I’d spent hours reading textbooks or watching YouTube videos feeling like I was “being productive”. But I’ve never actually code. Part of me was scared of getting it wrong, of producing something “rubbish”. … Continue reading The Case for Side Projects

Recent Posts: Maths Rant

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 

One Step at a Time

On the Joy of Problem Solving

Measuring by Eye

The Things I Cannot Control 

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. I think my first memory of cooking involves burning pasta. And at the time, I decided cooking simply wasn’t for me. People often say “focus on what you can control” as if it’s that’s simple and isolating variables in life is as easy as it is on a problem sheet. There are so many things behind the phrase “let it go.” History, attachment, hope, ego, fear, unprocessed conversations, futures that only existed in your head. Life isn’t a well posed problem. It’s chaos, entropy, with boundary conditions you didn’t choose. You can’t always cleanly separate the controllable from the uncontrollable when the thing you want sits right at that boundary.
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