First exam done, went great!

I had my first exam yesterday and it went absolutely fantastic for I got the grade 13. It was an oral exam in Real Analysis, I got a question where I had to talk about the Lebesgue integral of a bounded measurable function over a set of finite measure.

Part of my LaTeX notes for the exam That was a pretty good question, I started by defining the Lebesgue integral of a simple function, and then proceeded by proving that the supremum of integrals of simple functions phi; dominated by a given function f equals the infimum of integrals of dominating simple functions psi; if and only if the function f is measurable. After that we talked about other things until my lecturer and the censor were satisfied and I left the room. They then discussed the grade for what seamed like a very long time… finally Jørgen Vesterstrøm came out and told me the good news.

To put things into proper context, I have to mention that I’m not the only one who got 13 at this exam. Mikkel Krøigård also made it all the way to the top, and so did at least five other, I’ve heard about a total of seven 13’s at this exam alone. But this is because of the way things work at these exams: if you make a performance that’s 98% correct, then they’ll give you 13. And with the exams in mathematics it’s actually possible to do this reliably because we get the list of questions before the exam. It’s also easier to judge people at these exams because the material we present is so objective — there’s no arguing in math, it’s either correct or wrong.

So now I’ll have to get started with the next exam which lies a little more than a week ahead. See you then!

One Comment

  1. Martin Geisler:

    The exam notes (in Danish) are now available.

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