数学的诞生

有这样一则笑话：物理学家、天文学家和数学家走在苏格兰高原上,碰巧看到一只黑色的羊。     

Hard Lessons for Lifelong Learners? Age and Experience in the Graduate Labour Market

The expansion of the higher education system and widening access to undergraduate study has led to growing diversity within the graduate labour supply, including increasing numbers who studied for their degrees as mature students. Analysis of graduates entering the labour market prior to the major expansion in the early 1990s indicated that those over the age of 30 had considerably more difficulty than younger graduates in accessing the career opportunities for which their education had equipped them. Is this still the case for more recent graduates? Drawing on a major qualitative and quantitative study of a class of graduates who completed their undergraduate degree courses in 1995, this paper explores early career development and employment outcomes according to age at graduation. Although we find considerable diversity among all age groups, mature graduates were more likely than their younger peers to experience difficulty in accessing appropriate employment, had a lower rate of earnings growth and expressed higher levels of dissatisfaction with their jobs.     

Differential effects of endurance and resistance training on central fatigue

The effect of long-term endurance and resistance training on central fatigue has been studied using transcranial magnetic stimulation by exercising the biceps brachii to exhaustion and recording motor-evoked potentials from the non-exercised homologous biceps. Three groups of eight healthy individuals took part: two groups of individuals who had more than 8 years of athletic training in either an endurance or resistance sport, and a group of controls. The size of a motor-evoked potential (area of averaged rectified response) was significantly depressed in all three groups in the non-exercised arm after exhaustive exercise of the opposite arm. Recovery of motor-evoked potentials occurred earlier in endurance athletes (20 min) than in control participants (30 min) and resistance athletes (>30 min). Dexterity and maximum voluntary contraction of the biceps for the non-exercised arm were not depressed in any group. In a separate session, the limit of endurance time for the biceps was reduced significantly following exhaustive exercise of the biceps of the other arm for resistance athletes and control participants, whereas there was no change in the endurance athletes. Our findings suggest that athletic training has an effect on the mechanism of central fatigue that may be specific to the nature of training.