YSP Day 2: Intro to Knot Theory and Kauffman's Polynomial

I promised myself that I would write more because I decided that the math and sciences really suck, and that if I ever want to stand a chance mixing with the humanities flowers, I'm going to need to write frequently, so I can write better. Basically I want to be like John Green and other authors whom I have yet to read, but I'll never to go to a small liberal arts college. Instead, I'm going to review YSP, because no one writes reviews about YSP.

Young Scholars Program, University of Chicago
Advanced Geometry, Knot Theory, and Proof-Based Calculus or Something, Grades 11 and 12

I took the train with my father to the Union Station today. When I stepped into the city, I felt the rush of windy freedom, but mostly, I stumbled across a couple streets and fell promptly back alseep on the bus with Narnia grasped between my palms and my backpack. We talked briefly to a CS Major at UC and I pretended not to be interested in anyone so I could be totally ignored, left in peace to draw the classroom.

We were split into groups, and I was tested into the highest levelled one. It turns out calculus is good for something, or at least Mrs. Moore has done her students well again, even if I haven't done well for her. I ate too much, so I was uncomfortable and fell into my routine AP Chem 1:00 PM food coma, but no before catching several things about our Singaporean transfer counselor, Eldin.

"Who cares about knot theory?" he said, referring to the subject on which we will be spending two of the next four weeks. "Its not deep, not wonderful. Its just a testing base. If you want to impress people, tell them you're studying topological quantum field theories." He proceed to explain that we were studying projections, embeddings, but of course for all intensive purposes, we are studying real knots.
So heres the thing. Circle O is equivalent to the knot diagram of figure 8 (8. duh.)
"What the hell?" Eldin rhetorically posed. On the sliding chalkboards, he wrote in proficient and chicken scratch like letters: Kauffman thing. He paused.
Kauffman thing/polynomial, he added. That's what he meant. Of course the only term I was mildly familiar with, he forgot.
He explained the Kauffman polynomial ("What the hell, we mess the variables?"), and I pretended to care about staying conscious. I fell asleep after another high achieving mathlete applied the Bromian rings (it was denoted on the chalkboard: This is a good one. This is a thing. It should be easier.) to Kauffman. The answer, by the way, is a^2c^2+2abc+b^2c^2. I can't even type in LaTex.

Eldin ended with one last note on his opinion of math.
"You know the stuff they do in the other levels, with probability like that, blue ball, red ball, pick two blue balls? That's bullshit. PDE is where the money is at." Meaning we should all be partial differenial equation theorists one day.

I visited the bookstore and the medical campus later. Mostly the bookstore. I bought Slaughterhouse-Five for $7.99 and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close for $4.95. The day, in all of these senses, wasn't the worst. Spirit wear is still too expensive.