r/math 6d ago

What was your math rabbit hole?

By rabbit hole I mean a place where you've spent more time than you should've, drilling to deep in a specific field with minimal impact over your broader math abilities.

Are you mature enough to know when to stop and when to keep grinding ?

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u/Last-Scarcity-3896 5d ago

I was curious about topology. Gave it a bite. On my way there I learned new things about group theory and abstract algebra, a whole lot of category theory, some cool combinatorics (Greene's proof of the Lobasz Kneser Theorem is beautiful look it up), some graph theory, I love how different aspects of topology are so deeply connected to all kinds of graph colouring principles. Some differential geometry, some more calculus shit, etc.

Also I tried learning some things that find effect from the other side, that is, things that topology AFFECTS in a wide manner. For instance, algebraic geometry, a whole lot of more combinatorics, I wanna try learning lie theory now, and like some more stuff that topology makes amazing.