Husband with IQ of 158

My wife directed me to this post as, what you have written, is an almost exact carbon copy of myself!  About the only difference is that I am thinking about studying law rather than maths

Have people seen this on the iPlayer?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bn6wtp/magic-numbers-hannah-frys-mysterious-world-of-maths-series-1-1-numbers-as-god

First two episodes now available.

also i have autism too! 

yeah, im currently studying maths for my astronomy degree and my brother nor my family do not understand what i say or talk about when discussing space sciences or maths related. they ask me a space question or maths question so i tell them the answer and they lose me mid-conversation, which is frustrating sometimes.

it does kind of suck to have nobody to talk about science or maths when they do not understand you.

The Elephant in the Classroom: Helping Children Learn and Love Maths

Useful for me

By the way, as your supervisor my name goes first on any papers you publish - it's to help your credibility you see so you have more chance of getting published.  Plus a very reasonable 20% of that prize is mine as "future grant and sponsorship funding."  It's so difficult to get EPSRC funding these days don't you know!

I'm not sure your stuff is sufficiently "reform" enough - I'd have to check with Jo Boaler - are you sure these are low floor high ceiling? :-D.  Me though, I'm more a child of the "New Math".  My O-level and A-level were SMP.  It turns out a lot of that "abstract" stuff that all the parents really hated because they hadn't done it at school, couldn't understand and thus couldn't help their children cheat^wwith their homework and coursework is really useful for things like Computer Science :-D.

Have you heard of the Riemann hypothesis?  Good - you've heard of some PhD(+) level maths.   There's a library over there, and here's some pencils and paper.  I understand the computer centre have these new fangled computing thingies and if you're lucky you can probably find a spotty undergrad who can explain how to use them.  If you have any other questions just ask.  If you can prove it there's a PhD and a million dollars involved.  Now don't slack - get cracking boy!  :-D.

Get involved..

mobile.twitter.com/mrcrossland1

Guest lecture as well 

that's the wrong planet link: https://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=1

I'm also a secondary school maths teacher...but my subject knowledge doesn't stretch to PhD level though! Are there any online forums he could use? I know on wrong planet there is a specific maths/sci/comp sub-forum. Like sunflower says, what about professional bodies?

I'm near Watford - always up for a nerd-fest somewhere.

I consider my background to be what I call "Computer Systems Engineering", which I categorise as being the hardware and software infrastructure bits that make computer systems usable for other applications.  So as well as the hardware and the networks that connect them also things like the operating systems, compilers/interpreters, databases etc.  In a lot of respects I find "applications" somewhat boring as it's the computer bits I'm interested in rather than the applications per-se.  I'm not saying that the applications are uninteresting or a waste of time or anything, I appreciate that it's actually applications that sell computer systems, but I'm happy for other people to cover that area and I don't necessarily feel the need to do that myself.  I wouldn't consider myself an expert or specialist in any area of computing but I'm a very strong generalist and I can usually overtake the knowledge of "norms" in any particular area quite quickly (which is a bit of a blessing and a curse...)  The "norms" consider me to be "overly academic" though...  I don't think the same way they do and on the whole they don't seem to be interested in learning my way of thinking.  My way of thinking works quite well for me though.  They seem to be a lot more haphazard and I think they could learn something from my way of thinking but they'd rather blunder around and try and do things randomly than sit down and do a bit of work upfront.  Me, I'd rather "train hard, fight easy..."  I like to think of myself as "constructively lazy" - I like working on things that save me having to do work in the future.

My education was somewhat hit and miss but despite that I eventually ended up with a 1st class degree in Computer Science where I was second in my year at my college at the UoL. (In the interests of full-disclosure Computers had been my special interest since about the age of 12 and I'd already done three years of a five-year part time degree in Electronics Engineering, so by the time I got to University full-time I already have a good grasp of large chunks of the syllabus so doing well was quite achievable.)

After my (batchelor's) degree I started working on a PhD in compiler theory working four days a week with a day release.  I found though that didn't really work for me since I found I needed longer blocks of time to work on my PhD stuff and it meant I had little free time.  Also I had parental pressure "to get a job" so I stopped doing the PhD and went to work full time.  In retrospect that was probably a bad choice and things may well have worked out better for me if I'd found a way to do the PhD full-time.  I think though I made the best decision I could at the time with the information I had available then.

I have been an MBCS, and I expect I could get Chartered status, but in IT there isn't a particular professional requirement for it unlike Civil/Mechanical/Electrical engineering where I first started work.  I find at age 47 I'm going off my IT career because I find the social aspect of what I have to do drains me and causes problems on a fairly repeatable basis (mostly bouts of depression/stress/anxiety). This was what finally led to me getting my ASD diagnosis at age 46 last year.  I find that the technical problems are not really the difficult bits in IT, it's the people issues that are actually usually the real problem and those one the ones that are most difficult to actually do anything about.  So I've begun looking at trying to change what I do to something that would suit me better.

These days I'm trying to think of myself more as an applied mathematician and I'm trying to work towards really bringing my maths skills up to a high level and filling in the gaps in my maths knowledge that resulted from my haphazard education - missing a lot of time plus changing schools several times is not good for mathematical development!  I'd like to become more of a mathematician and less of a computer person.  In particular, the area I've become interested in is developing ways of teaching mathematics from the beginning to an adult audience that is more in the style of mathematics as known by professional mathematicians and less of the way it is currently developed in schools.  So for example:

* we try and show how the currently accepted mathematical ideas developed over time and what problems led to their development,

* concepts have clear definitions that can be used for reasoning,

* as much as possible theorems are given current development level appropriate proofs,

* we explain not just how to use algorithms, but why they are interesting, how/why they work, and how they relate to mathematics now, how you're most likely to use them in practice.  For example, you're very unlikely to be using the full-blown addition, subtraction, long multiplication and long division algorithms on a regular basis to get exact answers for real-life numbers - you'd just use a computer or a calculator.  But they're still useful for "back of the envelope" calculations to get quick rough estimates with simpler numbers so you know that the answer your calculator or computer is giving you isn't completely implausible.

I too have a similar problem to your husband in that I like talking about/discussing things that I find interesting, but I've found finding people who share similar interests and can have and are interested in having sensible discussions about them difficult. 

It sounds though as if your husband and Plastic and possibly others may have similar interests and we can probably have some good "nerdy" discussions.  I live in Windsor but I don't mind reasonable travel for meetups - possibly somewhere central to all of us.  Also, maybe there are more people on the forum who have similar interests as well and we can see if we can setup a social group?

I've also been halfheartedly looking for collaborators/discussion people for my maths education ideas so if anybody else is interested in that area I'd be happy to get into discussions in those areas too.

Yes, this does sound familiar. My daughter has just qualified as a secondary school maths teacher. She loves her maths, just like your husband. She sometimes goes to talks organised by a professional body - maybe this one? https://ima.org.uk/events/talks/ Although there are other people there you don't need to interact much and talking about maths is less stressful and boring than social chitchat. 

Universities have talks open to the public which I enjoy going to. Some are held on campus and some are outreach events held at other venues. Cafe Scientifique, the ESRC annual event (think it might be called Being Human), even Philosophy Cafes can stretch the mind in interesting ways. You can just sit and listen there's no pressure to speak to anyone if you don't want to. For me it's a good way to be around other people without getting stressed. Perhaps the Maths department at your local University might have something suitable?

I have also attended techy groups I found on MeetUp.com. There was one that brought together digital and creative people for a series of short presentations on new innovations. There was a bit of social mingling but generally it was OK as the focus on conversation was mainly on the digital technology. Good luck with your search for suitable opportunities. It's really lovely that you are supporting your husband like this.

I'm in the same boat - I'm a chartered engineer - I'm super-nerdy and always worked in high-tech.  Myself & the guys did a big project at work which ultimately ended with our redundancy. They were all much older than me so took the cash & then retired & moved away from the area. I'm left behind with no-one to go and do geeky stuff with.

I've been searching without success for the last 3 years for new friends who appreciate science & technology.

I've joined Meetup.com and I go out for coffee, lunches, bowling etc. but they are all either retired (old) or non-science people so it's not ticking my box.

I tried the local model engineering club - they have a similar level of nerdiness - but they are all 30 years older than me and are (literally) dying out.

My Aspergers means that although I'm now 52, I still feel like a teenager inside so like going to theme parks and animated films. All the people around me are just sooooo old.

So I'm prretty much on my own. I have little in common with anybody so spend most of my time alone in the house. My wife says I'm deteriorating through the lack of mental stimulation.