Obsessing about Mathematics

Hmm, this week, I struggled with a TMA question regarding equivalence relations.  I won't go into the details, for fear of breaching Uni regs; but all I will say, is that the question asks you to prove certain aspects of a relation.  Now, there are some relatively difficult parts of the question, but these weren't the parts that I had trouble with.  No,  it was more of a mental block and some slightly rusty, algebraic skills that caused my issues.  The marks that I was chasing, were only probably worth about one or two out of a  possible one hundred, in the whole paper.

So, one could argue that on the balance of things,  I should have had a go at the part that I struggled with, and not spent more than perhaps an hour on it, before moving onto some of the 'low hanging fruit', in the rest of the paper.

But, as I found when studying MST121, I can't let go of a TMA, unless I know that I have made every effort to understand the maths and produce reasonable answers.  I think if I ever found myself having to make-do by submitting a half-complete TMA; I may end up in a mental institution.

This is a concern as, apart from taking a slightly obsesive approach to O.U Maths study; I worry that if things get out of hand, that I may end up falling behind on study material, whilst chasing those last TMA marks.

In total, this week, I have spent 6hrs, chasing those one or two marks.  I don't know how good that is going to be, long term.  However, one good thing came out of it.  That is, I was forced to spend time with my brain, a pen and a white board.  I went down about 20 blind alleys, using all sorts of crazy methods, testing and probing.

And the outcome?  I think I have solved the problem and in the process of doing so, I have done so much thinking about the study materials, that I feel like I have a much better understanding of the more subtle ideas, that weren't aparant on my first study of the material.

So, it was time well spent, but I am exhausted and may well turn to a few pints of Bishop's Finger tonight.
I think I'll post part 2 of the TMA on Monday and then really start concentrating on Group Theory; only to do it all again at the end of March, via TMA 02!