<p>If I dig a hole in my back yard, can I float around in it? <strong>Goes out to try.</strong></p>
<p>I still don’t understand what’s the difference between solid sphere or solid sphere shell in this case. Let’s say when you are 1/2 the way to the center of the earth, there is clearly more mass on the 3/4 th side than the 1/4 side no matter if it’s a solid or shell.</p>
<p>Only an MIT interview thread would go this far off topic and onto topics like what would happen if we fell through the center of the earth…</p>
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</p>
<p>This rule holds true. If you read sran’s proof again, it should tell you all you need to know (I cannot explain it any more clearly than sran did), but it is hard to visualize without a picture. I tried google, and it gave me this link:</p>
<p><a href=“http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/152.mf1i.spring02/GravField.htm[/url]”>http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/152.mf1i.spring02/GravField.htm</a></p>
<p>Scroll down to “Field Inside a Spherical Shell.”
Also, below that, it explains how I was right about the original question :)</p>
<p>By shell, I’m guessing they mean all mass is on a thin surface…it’s hollow inside.</p>
<p>If you have hollowed out the earth, and it didn’t rotate, there wouldn’t be any gravity inside. You’ll just float around the moment you entered your basement…</p>
<p>…in case anyone wanted to get back on topic…I had my interview today. It went well (i think!). Lots of questions, so I let my interviewer talk most of the time, but I don’t think I seemed shy or anything. Typical questions: Why do you want to go to MIT? What would you like to study? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? How would your friends describe you? What would you bring as a student at MIT? you know…the norm</p>
<p>Also, be prepared to rattle off some extra curriculars and possibly SAT scores and class rank (if you have one), my interviewer asked for them.</p>
<p>Hmmmmm… I’m an MIT interviewer and I almost never ask about SAT’s, Class rank, or anything else that is likely to show up elsewhere on the application. I also try to let the candidate do most of the talking.</p>
<p>The interview is one of the better opportunities that both sides have to work out the likelihood of a good match. The interviewer is trying to work out what characteristics of the candidate are unlikely to show up on paper, and to try to bring context to the application. We are also looking to identify whether the candidate shares MIT’s values.</p>
<p>The interviewee is trying to figure out if the school is right for them. I have had candidates ask me about the judo team, what it means to live in a fraternity, and about the theatre program tours (Dramashop went to the UK this year). I have also had candidates ask me “what majors are offered at MIT?” and other questions which suggest that the candidate has never been to the MIT website. That question does not reflect well on a sense of intellectual curiousity.</p>
<p>Fundamentally the interview is a (hopefully) relaxed chat. Its an opportunity for the interviewer to find out who you are without the constraints of a word-limited essay. There are of course other constraints, but that’s a separate post. I try very hard to put my interviewees at ease, and I try very hard to ensure that I reflect my candidates accurately as possible to the admissions staff. Very often the interview can be enjoyable for both parties.</p>
<p>And it works. You only have to look at the admissions statistics for interviewed versus non-interviewed candidates to see the value that MIT places on this chat. For this purpose, those candidates whose interview was waived as there was no interviewer nearby count as interviewed.</p>
<p>-Mikalye</p>
<p>I just had my MIT interview today, and it was very informal and even fun for me.</p>
<p>My EC wasn’t interested in my SATs, class rank, GPA, etc… but he did ask me about what I did to destress (how I would be able to handle the intensity of the MIT curriculum). From that we strayed onto topics ranging from chinese food to how when he went to MIT there were 700+ men and only 13 women to his wife’s baking. </p>
<p>After the first few minutes, the conversation came naturally and I didn’t even notice the time fly by until almost an hour and a half later. </p>
<p>Just destress. Relax. I know that I wasn’t went I first walked in, but it’s really sort of fun to talk about all of your own quirks and talents and have someone wanting to hear about them.</p>
<p>DS had his interview recently – he was very pleased. It was very informal and chatty. The interviewer asked for his activities list (he was glad to have brought it), and from there they talked a lot about his ECs. The interviewer had a lot of knowledge about the humanities programs at MIT, so DS was delighted to be able to get detailed info. The interview took place at an outdoor cafe and it was quite warm, so they did not talk for a long, long time. Nevertheless, DS came home feeling he’d presented himself well and picked up useful info in the process. Mission accomplished.</p>
<p>Seriously, folks – RELAX. Be yourself. Noone’s going to bite you.</p>
<p>I had my MIT interview today. It was very informal: the EC told me not to bring any lists or scores. We bascially talked about my activities, my plans, what I do in my spare time and any questions I had about MIT. He was a nice guy; we also had a nice conversation about the iPhone, music life at MIT and how the food there is apparently horrible. The whole process took about one and a half hours. I was surprised it went by so quickly.</p>
<p>I’d like to interject on the gravity discussion. I wish mine had asked stuff like that. Anyways, for the same reason that a uniformly charged, non-conducting sphere has no net force on particles on the inside, a uniformly distributed shell of mass (doesn’t even matter the shape of the shell). It’s pretty trivial to prove assuming you know that both electric fields and gravitational fields are conservative.</p>
<p>chill.</p>
<p>just be yourself, puke your soul out and hope for the best!</p>
<p>Does anyone know how the interview is used? Like does an okay interview that doesnt really add too much to your character hurt you?</p>
<p>also, do u have to visit MIT to be considered a strong candidate? cus my interviewer asked me that, and I just plainly said “nope” and then there was this split second of awkward silence. GAHhhh. what I really wanted to say was “we live too far away and the economy sucks right now and my dad just lost half his income cus he couldnt work for half a year since he almost died from heart disease, so the plane tickets were too expensive for us right now.” but she doesnt know that now. ugh, but i did tell her I read the blogs and go on the site. </p>
<p>and we talked a lot about MIT and what her experiences there but not as much about me (i would say, added up, we talked about my stuff for about 20 min, but the interview was like 1.5 hrs). is this a bad sign? I really couldn’t “read” her as to whether or not she liked me (she was really polite and all).</p>
<p>Oh, and I’m not sure if this means anything, but she said “good luck to wherever you go for college” at the end. anyone guess as to what she means by this? “your probably not good enough for MIT but good luck anyways.”</p>
<p>why do MIT people have to be so polite!! lol, she was cool though.</p>
<p>I thought I’d post here since this thread helped me in my interview (sorta). My interviewer was really nice and friendly, and I basically rambled on about myself for an hour. The interview total was 2 hours, he spent the first half hour as a “relaxing” state, I’m sure it helps others get less nervous but I wasn’t really nervous to begin with. The last 30 minutes was reserved for any questions I had for him about MIT.
He didn’t ask any hard questions 
I basically just spilled my guts and I think I managed to tell him my life story in 2 hours.
We met at a restaurant but he ordered coffee so I just ordered a smoothie.
I’d also like to know what the interview is used as. I know it’s to see if a candidate is a “good fit” for MIT, but… I hope it’s also for personality and whatnot.</p>
<p>The admissions office uses the interview as a chance to see another facet of yourself. As a previous poster mentioned just be yourself in the interview. Comments such as “I’ve always wanted to go to MIT since I was 3 years old” are not going to help. Nor will “I think MIT is so cool!”. You get the idea.</p>
<p>Be yourself and the interviewer should be able to paint a true picture of you as he/she sees you.
Some interviewers want to see brag sheets and some do not. Go with the flow and enjoy the interview. </p>
<p>Good luck to all.</p>
<p>About the original problem; how about the graph of the function resulting when lim.(Z->∞) sin(Z·X) is graphed over {x|0<X<1,X∈R}?</p>
<p>One heck of a fast and loose equation, but it works (at least in my mind). Because the function is compressed a just-less-than infinite amount [lim.(Z->∞)], and so has a just-less-than infinite amount of maxima (and minima). This should be no different from an infinite amount of maxima, which is uncountable. Of course the whole thing most likely falls apart because lim(Z->∞) is equivalent to ∞; thus rendering the entire function non-continuous. </p>
<p>Unfortunately my school isn’t very math oriented. That up there is the ramblings of a dangerously uninformed high school senior with one quarter of AP Calculus under his belt.</p>
<p>P.S. lim.(Z->∞) is used above as a quick and dirty way of getting a number “just less than” infinity. I’m sure there’s a better way (made more difficult because ∞-1=∞) but right now I’m too lazy to care.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure lim(z -> ∞) (k∞) is an aleph-naught infinity, if we’re talking about cardinality, and is thus a ‘countable’ infinity. ([Aleph</a> number - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleph_number]Aleph”>Aleph number - Wikipedia))</p>
<p>To be honest, Cantor’s distinction between countable and uncountable infinities seems so obtuse that I honestly can’t imagine having a non-cardinal (ie non-ordered field) number of maxima over [0,1] assuming that we’re sticking to a purely functional expression.</p>
<p>Wait - how about z = (sin(1/(x + yi))) ? where x and y are both in the interval [0, 1]? That seems pretty uncountable, and seems to resemble an ordinal infinity a little bit more than sin(1/x).</p>
<p>Can’t comment on your addition as I’ve never properly learned the orders of infinity. I’ll grill my Calc teacher on it and get back to you tomorrow.</p>
<p>BTW, are you using “i” there to refer to “Square root of -1” or is there another i that I don’t know about?</p>
<p>EDIT: That equation also has the unfortunate tendency to divide by zero at one end point.</p>
<p>No, it’s √-1 . Other uses of i just annoy me, almost as much as using e as a variable.</p>
<p>And the discontinuity at x + yi = 0 shouldn’t be a problem, because it still has uncountably infinite local maxima (?). </p>
<p>But yeah, my math education’s been a bit wishy-washy as well, so I’m definitely not 100% sure on this one.</p>