ESP Biography



CYRUS RULE, MIT freshman doing what he can



Major: Mathematics

College/Employer: MIT

Year of Graduation: 2029

Picture of Cyrus Rule

Brief Biographical Sketch:

Hi! I'm Cyrus. I'm a freshman at MIT who loves math and does not think most schools do it justice. I anticipate a lot of what I teach will be math that I wish someone would have told me about sooner because it would have massively changed the way I think. I enjoy helping students see patterns, think creatively, and get excited about ideas that at first might seem intimidating. Outside of math, I row for MIT's Heavyweight Crew, play Pokémon, and listen to a lot of music (please talk to me about hip hop or soul).



Past Classes

  (Clicking a class title will bring you to the course's section of the corresponding course catalog)

M16212: INFINITY in Splash Fall 2025 (Nov. 22 - 23, 2025)
Has someone ever told you that "some infinities are bigger than others?" Does that not make much sense? In this class, we'll dip our toes into set theory, the language behind most modern math. Specifically, we will explore cardinality, the art of telling when one group of things is bigger than another, using the power of an underappreciated tool you already know: matching. Along the way, you will encounter a hypothetical hotel and at least two kinds of infinity. By the end, you will be equipped with ideas that broke math less than 150 years ago. (Disclaimer: the first person to study these ideas lost his mind. Enroll at your own risk.)