An undergrad that I was a T.A. for recently asked me what my research is in. I decided to write up an answer as a blog post, in a way that is accessible to the average early undergrad student in STEM. I study logic. More specifically, I study semantics. In linear algebra, you start off with a certain formal algebraic language, the language of vector spaces - it has certain distinguished constant symbols you are permitted to use, like "0" for the zero vector, or any real number; you are permitted to use variables v, w, ... that range across the vectors; there are also special symbols that represent functions, like "+", for addition. There are also certain axioms, written in the language. One also has a list of formal logical laws that allow you to combine the axioms in various ways to derive theorems in the theory of linear algebra. Linear algebra from this point of view is the collection of all formal statements in the language of linear algebra that c...
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