Comics about mathematics, science, and the student life.

Long Exposure

A graph of "Comfort with a subject" versus "Time". The graph is linearly increasing way past the point of one's competence at the final exam. At a later point, there's an annotation: "Wow, I wish I was this good in the class!"

Of course, this is for subjects that you still use! For myself, this subject is linear algebra. I was pretty confused about it when I first learned the subject, but ever-so-slowly, I’ve become much better at it. What subject is this for you?

31 May 2025

Belonging

A graph of "Time spent volunteering" versus "Feeling like you're part of a community". The graph steadily increases.

Volunteering isn’t easy, but in my experience it’s usually worth it.

24 May 2025

Filler Packaging

Left panel (Good Writing): A person opens a package with an idea that fills the entire box. Right panel (Bad Writing): A person holds up a very small idea in a big box with plenty of filler packaging. They say, "This is it?"

Note, this is not to say that all books should be essays! Rather, find the appropriate container for your idea.

17 May 2025

Forgetting Curves

A graph of "Memory" versus "Time". The baseline curve (solid line) is just a smooth decay over time. The "Spaced repetition" curve follows the same decay shape, but periodically "resets" the memory to the maximal value and then decays more slowly. "The educator's dream" curve is dot-dashed and never decays.

As a sports coach, I’m very familiar with that baseline.

10 May 2025

Performance Trajectories

A graph of "Performance" over "Time". The "Lone wolves" trajectory increases at first, then plateaus. But the "Those in community" trajectory steadily increases, and even accelerates.

As a lone wolf by default, this is a reminder to myself.

03 May 2025

Partitioning Skills

Different levels of partitioning skills for readers. Level one: A fiction and a non-fiction book. Level two: Two fiction books. Level three: Two fiction books in the same genre. Level four: Two fantasy books.

You know things are bad when you’re deep in the obsession phase for a story but you start mixing in characters and plot elements from the other book you’re reading.

26 Apr 2025

Noticeable Gap

A graph showing two quantities over time. "What I know" linearly increases with time, while "What I don't know" increases even faster. The gap is "What I notice".

Mastery is becoming at peace with an ever-widening gap.

19 Apr 2025

Compactify

A graph of "Complexity of notation" over "Time". At first, the complexity increases as you're learning a new topic. But then it decreases as you learn how to write equations in a simpler way.

Unfortunately, we often present mathematics in the opposite order, where we show the nice and tidy formula which only makes sense to someone with a lot of experience and intuition on the subject.

12 Apr 2025

Bankruptcy

A graph of "Size of reading list" over "Time". The size steadily increases until the person declares "reading list bankruptcy" and purges the list.

Who am I kidding: I sometimes get nervous about deleting anything, and so I just let the list languish. Sometimes, I switch to new services to achieve the same effect!

06 Apr 2025

Event Horizon

Someone asks their friend, "So, what's next after your PhD?" A thought bubble for the graduate student shows a timeline between now and graduation, with a bunch of question marks after graduation.

Any other graduate students feeling the same way?

29 Mar 2025