Day 170: Remember What Happened to the Dinosaur (continued)

So after that last post about how I want to be motivated to work harder and yaddah yaddah, I am, fortunately enough, not working hard at all. But there is a reason for this! I was reading some things about projective modules and came across this quote:

"Homological algebra starts from the regrettable fact that not all modules are projective. Similarly, algebraic $K$-theory starts from the regrettable fact that not all projective modules are free."
--J. F. Adams, in an introduction to Arūnas Liulevičius's Algebraic Topology book.

And then he goes on to talk about the genius of Serre when he gave a seminar about projective modules and vector bundles. 0_0 Anyway. I just thought it was really great the way Adams worded his sentence.

I went to the library today to check out some books. I originally thought that my college's library didn't have Serre's representation theory book, but it turns out they do! Just one caveat... it's in French. I decided to get it anyway in case I wanted to look through it sometime for fun. I'd love to one day be able to learn math from books in different languages. Anyway. Serre's book. It's crazy. Most of the math books I encounter (which isn't really that many) are yellow (GTM) or blue (GSM) or orange (Dummit and Foote) or maroon (those AMS books) or something along those lines. Serre's book... wait for it... is SILVER. SILVER! Like, metallic silver! Shiny, reflective, I-look-like-I'm-made-of-metal silver! And it has a spifferific cover, too. It says "Représentations Linéaires des Groups Finis" in capital letters in this super-artsy modern typeface. Such a slick design. To match the slick maths that's written inside. In French. Here's a picture of the book:

Mmmm. Maths. ^_^

Oh, so remember when I couldn't upload pictures for a time because I lost my mini-USB-to-big-USB cable? And then I went to the store and bought a super overpriced cable? Well, I found my old cable. It works better too. I think it's faster or something? I don't know. Anyway. Bummer. I wish I found it before I had gone out and bought a new one. Then I'd be 10 pounds richer.

And now I'm going to stop blogging and work instead.