Does deferring admissions to PhD affect future (post-PhD) career path? I'm currently in my final year of undergraduate study, and will be applying to physics PhD programs (for condensed matter theory) soon. Without going into details, I am convinced that deferring my admission for a year, i.e. taking a "gap year", would be beneficial for me personally, and it is my understanding that most schools permit a one-year deferral. I would most likely work in the tech industry for this time.   I am not worried about my physics/math abilities atrophying; I plan on actively keeping up with my studies independently during this time.   Assuming I am permitted to defer for a year, are there any negative perceptions related to time off before graduate school that might affect my future academic career, after the PhD?  Will some people in the community look down on me for taking time away from academia, or is this considered a fine thing to do? Could this hinder me in the future when applying for postdocs (both the year away from academia and the fact that I am probably finishing my PhD a year later than I otherwise would)?  I am asking about the general perception of a gap year as it pertains to and affects a career path, not about how a gap year impacts a PhD application (which is addressed in ).
What is the perception of students who take a gap year between their graduation and starting graduate school? I am an undergraduate mathematics major, entering my fourth year. I plan on applying to graduate school, but I have not yet taken the GRE exams, and there a few key courses (Topology and Algebra in particular) that I have not taken yet, so I am hesitant to take the Advanced Math GRE too soon. (If you're wondering why I haven't taken Topology and Algebra yet, it's because I was trying to secure a CS degree, which sidetracked my mathematical studies last year. It was a healthy branching out experience, and one that helped me realize my true academic passion.)  My main question: what is the perception of students who take a gap year between their graduation and starting graduate school?  I think I will take the GRE tests this fall, a) for practice and b) if I score high, then I might as well apply sooner rather than later. However, I ask this question to gauge how much energy I should put into preparing for the tests this fall. If I hear, "You should really do your best to avoid any gap in your education," then I will work my butt off in preparation for the tests. But if I hear, "It's totally okay take a gap year before going into graduate school," then I would give myself more freedom in terms of my non-standardized-exam studies, extracurriculars, and in general social activities. I figure the answer to this question won't be as cut-and-dry as I hope, but any advice would be appreciated!  Just to clarify, my gap year would not consist of me sitting at my desk taking practice GRE exams all day... That would be a pitiful use of my time. I definitely plan working either as an intern or a research assistant at a successful organization. It seems like the general consensus is that taking time off is okay, and potentially beneficial, assuming you actually do something in that gap.
Make square image How can I stand on the ground? EM or/and Pauli? There is this famous example about the order difference between gravitational force and EM force. All the gravitational force of Earth is just countered by the electromagnetic force between the electrons on the surface of my feet and the ground.  But also wave-function of electrons(fermions) do not overlap each other due to Pauli exclusion principle.  So which one is the true reason of me not flopping inside the earth forever? Is it only one of them(my guess is Pauli exclusion) or is it both? The left-nav is great - I like it, users who don't can disable it. Perfect world. Now it's stickied it's always there too, which is really useful.  When I'm navigating in areas not directly linked to in the left nav and have scrolled down, I often want to re-use the other navigation. This means scrolling up. Which is fine, of course it's how websites work.  However, if the left-nav had a "Top" link which took the user to the very top of the page it would be great for getting back to specific contextual menus and things that are not linked to in the left-nav.  For example, if I'm viewing questions on a specific tag and I've scrolled down, I sometimes want to get back up to the top to remove a tag, or change from "Latest" to "Featured" etc. Although clicking the "Questions" link in the left-nav takes me back to the top, it removes the tag(s) I was searching with.  There are other use cases where this would be useful, like long questions and answers (Etc). So I think a "Top" link in the left nav would be very useful.    I think this is different to the  as it doesn't mention the left-nav, and my question is suggesting this idea because we have a good place to put it and it'll be a useful addition to the left-nav. Literature: 'Why' at the beginning of sentences I’m currently reading George Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire novels in English. As a non-native speaker (I’m German), I stumbled upon some grammatical constructs that I’ve never seen before, one of them being the Why at beginning of sentences.  Examples:   Tyrion gave the rotting head a second look. Why, it almost looks as if those lips are smiling. Did he use that word? Why, the boy has a singer's soul . . . though if you believe that song, you may well be dimmer than the first Reek.   These kind of sentences are obviously different from sentences like Why is the sky blue?  I’d like to know if that construct is archaic, or could be used in everyday language, and how one could rephrase that kind of sentences. Can it be rephrased at all? To me it seems like the Why is just used to give the sentence a kind of “cynical” taste. How to analyze lightly varying senses of adjective *very* Use of very as an adjective is (in my experience) most frequently attested in phrases like     ...the very person I was looking for.   To use adjective very with the indefinite article sounds quite bizarre in this case:     ?...a very person I was looking for.   But consider this sentence, where indefinite a is used:     Visualizing a very transformation of the master-slave relation, Thomas presses further: the slave is brother to the master, even doubly a brother.   OED treats the two uses as separate senses of the word, with the following definitions:           (first use):&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;With limitation (usually expressed by the or a possessive) to particular instances      (second use): Really or truly entitled to the name or designation   Here are two respective examples quoted in OED:     What would you say to me now, and I were your verie, verie Rosalind? (1616)   Thence we went into Queen Mary's room, and saw that beautiful portrait—that very queen and very woman. (1857)   Clearly, the difference in meaning between the two senses is quite light, and it seems to me like a kind of difference which is recurrent enough to have its own term. What is the proper term? Are there other English words having similarly related pairs of senses? And lastly, is OED jumping the gun in treating these as two senses? Could the difference in meaning instead be due to the choice of determiner? Viewing computer screen through 3D glasses, why the asymmetry? I have 3D glasses made up of plastic.  First case: When I hold front side of the 3D glasses (by this I mean that side on which light falls) in front of a computer screen, light coming from screen is not blocked, at any angle of rotation. But I see somewhat (slightly) bluish screen when 3D glasses are held horizontally; and yellowish (slightly) screen when glasses are held vertically.  Second case: Now I flip the side of the glasses i.e. "back" side of glasses is in front of screen and "front" side is closer to eyes. In this second case, when glasses are held horizontally, the light is blocked. When glasses are held vertically, light is not blocked; I can see the screen. For intermediate angle, intensity of light varies from minimum to maximum.  Questions:   Why I get slightly colored screens in the first case and why light is not blocked ? Why light is blocked in the second case ?   I know (after reading somewhere) that glasses consists of a pair of circular polarizer and linear polarizer. Circular polarizer in my first case will be near to computer screen and linear polarizer will be near to eyes; and in second case vice versa. does not appear to actually define what a rigid shape is. Rather it defines 'same shape' and 'rigid transformations' without giving any definitions of what is necessary and sufficient for a shape to be considered rigid.  For instance, I've seen the following image:    I understand intuitively why the triangle is rigid and quadrilateral is non-rigid. It is also my understanding that inserting a single diagonal connection into the quadrilateral would make the shape rigid? However, given the following image (labeling the shapes $S_1$, $S_2$ and $S_3$ in sequence left to right):    If $S_1$ had a single diagonal connection AB, it would be possible to flip ADB over axis q to obtain a shape similar to $S_2$ with the addition of connection AB (my explanation may not be the greatest). This shape is clearly not the same as $S_1$, so how can we say $S_1$ with a single diagonal connection CD is rigid? I feel I am unclear on what the definition of rigidity actually is. Is there exist a function defined on the real or complex numbers that, restricted to the integers, is equal to the factorial? Showing that $e^x > 1+x$ Suppose $\sum a_n$ converges absolutely and $\sum b_n$ converges. Give an example where the Cauchy product does not converge absolutely. Problem:  Suppose $\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} a_n$ converges absolutely and $\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} b_n$ converges. Give an example where the Cauchy product, defined as $\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} c_n$ where $c_n=\sum_{k=0}^{n} a_k b_{n-k}$, does not converge absolutely.  Question:  I have been scratching my head over this for a while. What would an example be? What are the advantages of using the optical viewfinder over live preview to take photos on a DSLR? Forgive this novice question, I am basically a complete newbie to photography.  Really, all I've ever used for most my of short life have been point-and-shoots; I've only recently started to pick up some curiosity.  Anyway, from what I've gathered, reading through many of the  questions, most serious photographers use the optical viewfinder as their primary tool to determine what makes a good shot.  Live-preview isn't used much at all; it seems its help is to primarily set up the shot.  Reading a Wikipedia article seems to confirm this view, adding that      [l]ive preview in DSLRs does not typically serve as their principal means of framing and previewing before taking a photograph, with this function still being mainly performed with optical viewfinder. While initially largely a novelty feature, live-preview functionality has become more common on DSLR cameras...    My questions are:   What are the myriad advantages of using the viewfinder over live preview, what does it help one accomplish in achieving the goals of photography? What are some interesting ways serious photographers use live preview to take better shots they might have otherwise missed? You can't see the question owner's special color When the owner of a question comments on their question or an answer to their question or self-answers their question, they get a special color for the box around their username.  The problem is, you can't see the box:        Can you please make this not white on white? Find count of all combination of numbers whose sum is x Closed form for the sequence defined by $a_0=1$ and $a_{n+1} = a_n + a_n^{-1}$ Replacing a toilet, when I turn the water valve off there is still water running into toilet? When trying to replace a toilet, the water valve to toilet will not stop water supply even when valve is shut off. I have opened and closed the valve several times but water continues to be supplied to toilet. For $V$ vector space of dimension $n$ under $\mathbb C$ and $T: V \to V $ linear transformation , show $V= \ker T^n \oplus $ Im $T^n$ How to mount read-write an ext4 partition on Windows? Is it possible to add images to comments? I was wondering if it is possible to post a comment with an image.  Recently, during a question about data-visualization in Cross Validated, there was a controversy about using one type of chart for another.   I had posted a question about pie-charts, after reading some references I decided to build an example and clarify the point of using waffle-chart vs pie-chart. In a way, my example was not an answer it was more properly a comment on waffle-charts. But it seems to be impossible to post a comment with an image (Maybe, there is a way but I can't figure out how).  I don't know if it is relevant to post images in comments in other SO sites. So, if there is no way to post images in comments... why not making it possible? And if there is a way to post an image with a comment, how I can do it? Is there a "best practice" or standard to make a few iptables rules permanent? I mean: automatically applied upon a system reboot?  I am using a VPS with Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx).  Thank you.  BIG EDIT: I don't want ANY rule to be persisted (like iptables-persistent package does). I want only my own specific set to be reloaded... if other rules are eventually added by running iptables, these should be discarded... Proving the AM-GM inequality for 2 numbers $\sqrt{xy}\le\frac{x+y}2$