[HN Gopher] He dropped out to become a poet - now he's won a Fie...
___________________________________________________________________
He dropped out to become a poet - now he's won a Fields Medal
Author : digital55
Score : 302 points
Date : 2022-07-05 07:31 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
| paulpauper wrote:
| This shows the power of IQ. Having a sufficiently high IQ means
| you can become a world-class master at a hard subject quickly,
| easily surpassing others who have decades of experience. It's the
| ultimate cheat code or power-up in life, second to have rich and
| well-connected parents, I suppose. Freddie Deboer is right that
| parents consider IQ to be very important, as much as society may
| try to downplay its importance or predictive value.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| Jordan Peterson always says that, when it comes to predicting
| success in life, IQ has the highest predictive value of all the
| traits that we can currently measure.
| astrange wrote:
| Koreans might be discouraged there because their national
| example didn't do anything with his IQ.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Ung-yong
|
| The other problem being that "high IQ explains everything"
| people don't actually go around personally going around
| giving people IQ tests. They just read somewhere that X guy
| has IQ Y and then decide that's evidence for something.
| gfd wrote:
| "Good, he did not have enough imagination to become a
| mathematician.
|
| [Upon hearing that one of his students had dropped out to study
| poetry]"
|
| -- David Hilbert
| ken47 wrote:
| This passage caught my attention:
|
| _He proceeds just as deliberately when doing mathematics. Wang
| was shocked when he first witnessed it. "I have this math
| competition experience, that as a mathematician you have to be
| clever, you have to be fast," he said. "But June is the opposite.
| ... If you talk to him for five minutes about some calculus
| problem, you'd think this guy wouldn't pass a qualifying exam.
| He's very slow." So slow, in fact, that at first Wang thought
| they were wasting a lot of time on easy problems they already
| understood. But then he realized that Huh was learning even
| seemingly simple concepts in a much deeper way -- and in
| precisely the way that would later prove useful._
|
| Having gone through the American education system, I felt like I
| was in a factory being evaluated as a potential end product.
| Steamroll through as much material as quickly as possible.
| Optimize behavioral patterns for the next performance metric.
| Rinse and repeat. Is this really the best system we can come up
| with? Can the pace of mathematical and scientific advancement be
| optimized by steamrollers? I wonder how much potential we've
| missed as a society because the education system has been trying
| to force everyone through the same hole, and destroying
| intellectual curiosity in the process.
|
| Personally, my experience with this educational system turned me
| off from "math." It was only much later in life when I learnt
| that the mindless algorithms that I had to personally execute for
| years on end to get into university could barely be considered
| math at all. Only then could I begin to appreciate how elegant
| real math could be. And I doubt I'm alone in my experience.
| buchoo wrote:
| That passage reminded me of a remark by the 2002 French Fields
| Medalist Laurent Lafforgue:
|
| "My specificity today among French mathematicians is not to
| know more mathematics than others, I can even admit that I know
| less mathematics than most French and foreign mathematicians.
| It's not about being 'great' either, I'm not great at all, on
| the contrary I have a rather slow mind. When I listen to a
| seminar, I'm probably one of those who understand the least
| what is being said: an idea in an hour, for me, that's already
| a lot. No, the only explanation for the successes that I have
| been able to obtain in mathematics is my being imbued by the
| reading of the great classics."
|
| https://www.biennale-lf.org/b22/index.php?p=https://www.bien...
|
| As for your experience, you are indeed very far from alone.
| ask_b123 wrote:
| I wonder which great classics would those be.
| buchoo wrote:
| Not very specific, but he says:
|
| "In my parents' house, there were a lot of books: all the
| great authors of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries,
| translated foreign authors. I spent my youth, and still
| today I spend most of my time, reading literary works, and
| particularly those of French literature."
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| He totally learned Abstract Algebra from Dumas.
| Agingcoder wrote:
| Thanks, this made made laugh :-)
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| The Three Musketeers -- Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and
| D'Artagnan
|
| If this doesn't make you think about math, nothing will.
| nmfisher wrote:
| I felt the same way, but interesting that he grew up in South
| Korea. From what I gather, it's very similar to the Chinese
| system over there, particularly when it comes to maths. Endless
| rote learning and an overwhelming focus on standardized test
| results, to the exclusion of the type of slow, deep, "playful"
| learning referred to in the article.
| Azrael3000 wrote:
| Well if you look at todays economy what do companies require?
| Fast and faster is the way. The schools are here to produce
| fast workers. There's hardly a day a year where you can sit
| down and work on a project without time pressure.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| Ah, the pleasures of agile development! There is never time
| to implement something properly, but at least we are sure
| that all developers are kept busy every week.
|
| If you think about the problem, discuss it, and then
| implement the solution properly, it's only one ticket. But if
| you make a half-assed solution, change it twice, and fix
| seven related bugs, that is _ten_ tickets, with a potential
| to make even more tickets in the future.
| rfrey wrote:
| My kid was enamored by math from the earliest age, and pretty
| good at it too. He read proofs for fun at about age 6, and was
| writing them for fun by 7. Calculation seemed to come pretty
| easy to him as well.
|
| But he is slow! He did a bunch of cognitive tests where he was
| testing 3rd std deviation on most tasks. Except processing
| speed, where he was in the 2nd percentile. You'd present him
| with his times tables, and he would take 15 seconds to get
| "8x7"... but he didn't slow down as as the psychiatrist
| progressed through the test. He'd get to some 6th grade
| problem, and it'd be the same 15 seconds and blank look before
| the solution came out. He was an O(1) machine with a huge
| constant.
|
| And school utterly killed his interest in math. From grade 2
| onwards it was speed competitions and public humiliation in
| front of his class. After grade 3 he refused to do anything
| related to math outside of what's required because he was "way
| to stupid for that".
| colineartheta wrote:
| I'm curious why you didn't get involved as the parent and
| possibly engage his interest outside of the classroom, or
| even put him in a different school or situation where he
| wouldn't be humiliated? I'm sorry for how this is going to
| sound, but your anecdote reads to me more that you killed his
| interest in math through your own (in)actions; the school
| simply serves as a useful copout.
| kshahkshah wrote:
| I don't think the 6 year old was getting access to proofs
| to read on their own. It sounds like OP very much did
| encourage his interest.
| Agingcoder wrote:
| Laurent Schwartz (former fields medallist) states in his
| autobiography (which I do recommend) that he was particularly
| slow - however being slow doesn't mean you're bad. It just
| means that you're slow, but this has no implication as to how
| far you'll go!
| agumonkey wrote:
| make haste slowly
| blabberwocky wrote:
| Curiosity negative feedback loop aside, I wonder if the
| steamrolling incentive is also why so many people eventually
| "hit a wall" in their math studies. You can only get so far
| without a solid base for a cumulative knowledge area like math.
|
| The bar for SATs and similar college admissions tests is set
| remarkably low, though, such that one may never run into this
| problem without going into a mathy field. But it does seem like
| a slow-and-steady approach taken by a greater number of people
| could encourage more interest and deep thinking, and possibly a
| greater contribution to the field and society overall.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| > I wonder if the steamrolling incentive is also why so many
| people eventually "hit a wall" in their math studies. You can
| only get so far without a solid base for a cumulative
| knowledge area like math.
|
| There is a known (but mostly ignored) educational method
| called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastery_learning -- you
| should teach kids until they _actually get it_ , and only
| then move to the next lesson. This method may be slower at
| the start, but later gains speed because kids with solid
| background understand the new concepts faster, and do not
| need to relearn the old concepts all the time.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Without school systems failures, there's a value in not
| rushing. I used to be quick, I'd iterate thousands of times in
| my head, until I could find an answer. But I didn't grasp the
| breadth of mathematical beauty, the coherence of abstractions,
| the various ways to interpret them, play with them. I was
| obsessed by finding "one answer".
| jebarker wrote:
| I am both a slow thinker and forgetful, but I've learned that
| those are not required skills for being good at maths.
|
| When I started my undergrad in maths (in the UK) they gave us a
| day 1 test to check we could recall certain pre-requisites from
| school. I did poorly because I had forgotten all the tricks for
| those particular exam questions and was put in an additional
| "catch up" class. It was a real gut punch and I questioned
| whether I was cut out for maths at all. Fast-forward six years
| and I ended up with a PhD in pure maths from the same
| university. Turned out that when given the time to read and
| think at my own pace and allowed reference to books and my own
| notes I was pretty good at abstract math.
|
| Fast-forward another ~15 years and I'm a machine learning
| researcher for a SV company. The same issue rears it's head now
| as an inability to contribute usefully in meetings. I can't
| think fast enough to keep up and don't have anything useful to
| say when put on the spot. I much prefer to read written
| communication and take the time to formulate my responses. This
| is not the company culture though, so I do suffer problems with
| effective collaboration.
| lordnacho wrote:
| This thread struck a nerve with me. As a kid I loved math,
| did all the math contest stuff, even won one at one point,
| skipped a year in math. I went to visit my old retired math
| teacher a couple of weeks ago, he's in his 80s.
|
| In school I never had a problem with speed or understanding,
| nor at university. But what hit me was the realization that
| "actual math" is probably not a load of little riddles. I
| often wondered how I'd ever solve something that someone
| hadn't contrived to have an elegant solution, something
| completely new and insightful that nobody had proven before.
| There's quite a leap from your tricky olympiad problem that
| you can find a good video for, and proofs of things in higher
| math.
|
| The other thing that struck me was that our current system
| destroys all appreciation for beauty. There's so many
| beautiful things in math, but we're forced to calculate,
| quickly. Especially in the engineering side I went into, it
| ended up becoming very mechanical.
| filipmrc wrote:
| Your post made me create an account because I'm in a very
| similar situation. I was not "good" at math until later years
| of undergrad, where more abstract topics made me fall in love
| with it. I never could follow courses by going to class and
| had a much easier time just reading and taking notes. I'm now
| finishing a robotics PhD where I had the opportunity to do
| pretty well as a slow thinker by taking the time to
| understand and apply concepts from computational algebraic
| geometry.
|
| Currently I'm doing an ML research internship at a SV company
| and this problem of "slowness" at meetings is really
| resonating with me. I have a hard time following quick verbal
| communication, I just need the time to think in order to
| contribute. I don't know it's like I just phase out or forget
| what we were talking about.
|
| Have you found any useful techniques to do better in this
| type of environment? Is there any advice you would give your
| younger self?
| pessimizer wrote:
| The modern world wants you to be spontaneously correct. To
| answer quickly and confidently. To be thoughtful without
| thinking about it.
| amelius wrote:
| Good thing. If he had dropped out to become a programmer, be
| probably would have ended up addicted like the rest of us :)
| rrishi wrote:
| need a clarification ... addicted to what?
| rizzaxc wrote:
| to money and a lazy life I assume
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| I come to HN for such nuanced insight /s
| Veen wrote:
| Nor is "developer" if we go by the traditional definition of
| the professions.
| cinntaile wrote:
| If you get paid for it, it is.
| aqme28 wrote:
| If you can get paid to do it, is it not a profession?
| circlefavshape wrote:
| I'd have thought a profession was something you made a living
| from, not something you sometimes got some money for - I
| sometimes get paid to play music in bars, but music is not my
| profession. Neither Philip Larkin nor Seamus Heaney made a
| living from poetry, so I'd guess nobody else does either
| martyvis wrote:
| Depends on how you think about the act of professing. Taking
| it literally it would be those that profess - articulate,
| exude, demonstrate, apply - their knowledge, skill and
| experience. Remuneration could be seen as irrelevant in this
| context.
| FreakLegion wrote:
| _" 'Poet' must be used cautiously; it names an aspiration, not
| an occupation. In other words: not a noun for a passport."_ --
| Louise Gluck
|
| Your statement is too short to read much into, but I'm amused
| at the negative response given its similarity to Gluck's. For
| anyone who doesn't know, Gluck is a former US Poet Laureate and
| won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature.
| astrange wrote:
| There was also a Twitter incident where a poetry magazine
| editor got cancelled and lost their job for saying that most
| people don't read poetry.
|
| https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/barren-poetry-magazine-
| fire...
| seoaeu wrote:
| > I want to be very explicit that I didn't get 'cancelled'.
| Everyone made a series of decisions and those decisions
| have consequences. That's it. It is merely consequential.
| astrange wrote:
| I suppose it's in the eye of the beholder, but that seems
| like a situation where they'd want to be careful not to
| hurt their industry relationships, or end up right-wing-
| coded by becoming "cancelled".
| vivegi wrote:
| At least in the Indian film industry, we have songs and
| lyricists. Popular music may call them songwriters. Many
| lyricists are published poets and identify their vocation as a
| poet/writer.
| Markoff wrote:
| Ah yeah, everyone quickly drop out to be successful... /facepalm
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
| ktownsend wrote:
| I can empathize with the gut reaction, and the title is
| clickbait-y, but the article does elaborate that it's not the
| same tired trope of privileged kid drops out of
| Stanford/MIT/Harvard to become startup billionaire:
|
| > he dropped out of high school to become a poet. It would take
| a chance encounter during his university years -- and many
| moments of feeling lost -- for him to find that mathematics
| held what he'd been looking for all along.
|
| Having taken a similar path myself -- I dropped out of high
| school due to a combination of factors, but was still able to
| get into university 6 months later -- I can empathize with
| mandatory education NOT being something people fit into, and
| where making the right career choice isn't always clear or
| easy.
|
| Not everyone who 'dropped out' did it because of unlimited mom-
| and-dad-money and boundless professional and social
| opportunities, nor wears it like a badge of honor.
|
| I get tired of the trope and survivorship bias as well, but in
| this case it seems like the author did still put in the hard
| work of learning his niche the traditional way, if in a round-
| about manner: through a lot of hours of study, personal
| investment, natural curiosity, and using the abilities he has
| to the best of his abilities.
| tester756 wrote:
| >but was still able to get into university 6 months later
|
| How does that even work?
| astrange wrote:
| Some countries' systems rely on entrance exams, not your
| high school transcripts. I've seen it claimed it's common
| to drop out of high school in Korea to focus on the exams,
| though I don't really understand the details.
| bsaul wrote:
| I must say after reading the article that i don't even
| understand the title.. He seemed to have done a regular maths
| curriculum at university.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| "it feels like you're grabbing something that's already there,
| rather than creating something in your mind."
|
| This is why the conceit of "intellectual property" has always
| bothered me. I relate to what he describes as "finding things".
| Those things are are eternally "out there" for all to find. I can
| put up a signpost or build a road to show you the way, but how
| can a mere man _own_ what is part of the infinite and eternal?
| justsomeguy123 wrote:
| But you don't "own" that. You get a temporary rent. The problem
| is society (and tech) moves so fast it feels like the rent is
| too long.
|
| The idea to incentivize public sharing of knowledge for a short
| term rent is not so stupid.
| nwah1 wrote:
| In economics there is a concept called "search costs." And
| those costs need to be compensated if you want to encourage
| searching. But, of course, as you said, such compensation
| should not be in perpetuity. A patent, in this sense, is
| infinitely more reasonable than a land title as currently
| conceived.
| andrepd wrote:
| Henry George would agree :p
| slightwinder wrote:
| Ownership is a legal right. You found/created it, so society
| gives you the right to rule about it's usage for a certain
| time. The same applies to physical objects. You own something,
| because society gives you the permission, not because you have
| the actual power to protect it with your own muscles.
|
| And there is nothing wrong with this concept; it encourages
| people to search and create, and prevents people from being
| abused by the strong and getting their findings stolen.
| Generally, this is beneficial for everyone and lets society
| moving forward and to higher levels of quality.
| bluecalm wrote:
| It's hard to say a novel you can write or a computer program is
| "out there" for everyone to find though. I find this argument
| very compelling against patents but not against copyright in
| general.
| [deleted]
| keiferski wrote:
| This assumes that Platonism is the correct model of reality. In
| mathematics specifically, Platonism is but one of many
| positions and is not accepted by all philosophers or
| mathematicians.
|
| https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mathematics/
| Koshkin wrote:
| But Platonism is not a model of anything at all. It's just a
| philosophical idea which, by the way, has no impact on
| mathematics proper, either.
| keiferski wrote:
| Platonism is a metaphysical model of the universe. It's
| also one of the most popular approaches to the philosophy
| of mathematics. This is explained in the link I posted.
| Koshkin wrote:
| In the link, they only talk about "models of a theory"
| and the "mathematical/set-theoretical universe," none of
| which has to do with "a metaphysical model of the
| universe."
| keiferski wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonism
|
| This is...basic philosophical knowledge about Plato's
| ideas. It's not up for debate.
| InefficientRed wrote:
| Interestingly, patent law agrees with you -- mathematical
| theorems, for example, cannot be patented.
|
| In principle, a patent should cover specific
| machinery/process/material designed for a task rather than the
| underlying more ephemeral/indefinite concept powering the
| invention.
|
| The interesting thing is that, of those, machine and process
| seem like the least conceited. Composition of matter seems more
| like sticking a flag in infinite ground. But in practice it's
| the former two that power most of what I consider an abuse of
| the spirit of patent law. But perhaps that's just my personal
| bias and the bio or materials people will disagree.
|
| What can we say? Profit motive is a strong incentive and
| lawyers/judges are clever.
|
| Anyways, with 7B people and counting, a term limited right to
| one idea in the infinite space of ideas seems less harmful than
| perpetual rights to a piece of land.
| onedognight wrote:
| > seems less harmful than perpetual rights to a piece of
| land.
|
| Interestingly, society agrees with you; for the most part, we
| don't grant perpetual rights to a piece of land. Instead we
| charge property tax to ensure you are doing something
| productive with it. You have to generate enough free cash
| flow to pay the taxes or you lose the land.
| j-pb wrote:
| Except that they are in the form of software patents.
|
| We live in this complexity nightmare partly because all the
| simple and obvious solutions are easily patented.
| gsatic wrote:
| Maybe question could be - what to do about those people who
| have high loss aversion, status seeking traits, mindless
| ambition etc baked deep into their code? How to handle these
| type of people when they stumble upon something useful to
| everyone.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| That's actually a refreshing way of looking at something. The
| pathologically acquisitive are naturally a small part of the
| population suffering insecurity, often driven by early
| deprivation. Our natural instinct is to share intelligence,
| wrt food, predators, resources.
|
| I have a theory that the misnomer "intellectual property" is
| most ardently championed by (perhaps older)
| intelligent/creative people who fear losing their power. Fear
| that this may be their last great idea fosters withholding
| and subtracts from the opportunities of the many.
|
| This comes up in other contexts. In cybersecurity, if one
| discovers a new exploit the natural instinct for most people
| is responsible disclosure, even without a bounty. However,
| the temptation to privatise that knowledge as a sellable
| "zero-day" is powerful. But what we see is that it's the
| mediocre who do that more. Top 0.1% hackers are so confident
| in their ability to find more and deadlier exploits at will,
| they don't hoard as it's beneath them.
| Someone wrote:
| That logic applies as well to minerals and fossils as to
| inventions. If I stumble upon a lump of gold, how can I _own_
| it? After all, it was merely "out there" to find.
|
| Also, the question whether math is discovered or invented is an
| old one, with arguments going either way. It's not like people
| just stumble upon certain proofs, or that Newton was just
| lucky.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics#Math...
| , for example, holds that math would still exist if there were
| no life anywhere in the universe (maybe even if there were no
| universe)
| DecayingOrganic wrote:
| Although this article is well-written, I'm not convinced that he
| was "lost," or that he didn't really like math, based only on a
| few anecdotal stories. Furthermore, the article says that "he
| dropped out of high school to become a poet," but please note
| that, a number of students drop out of high school in South Korea
| to fully focus on the college entrance exam, in hopes of getting
| into better universities. This is not uncommon at all. And sure
| enough, he got accepted into the best university in South Korea,
| majoring in astronomy and physics. One of his classes was even
| taught by a Fields Medalist. If this is his definition of "being
| lost," I'm not sure if I'll ever be found.
| zahllos wrote:
| I can believe he wasn't sure mathematics was his calling during
| high school. I wasn't sure I would do a degree in mathematics
| until near the end, then I did (am no way near a fields
| medalist). But this is time up to 18-19. There's a lot of time
| after that.
|
| However he took a course high in mathematical content and it
| sounds like he must have switched to mathematics for grad
| school, I.e. after his undergraduate or masters. In other
| words, he did the preparation. If it is anything like physics
| courses I have seen they feature a lot of mathematics courses
| anyway.
|
| Some people have a lot of natural ability in mathematics but
| this is not enough to do good research. There's no way around
| hard work.
|
| Also, dropping out of high school in many places significantly
| reduces your chances of going to university because you do the
| qualifications you need at the high school equivalent.
| muh_gradle wrote:
| No even by Korean high school standards, he definitely had an
| unconventional path. Huh landing in Seoul National University
| is definitely a result of his pure, raw talent. But while it's
| not uncommon to graduate in 6 years in South Korea, I doubt
| anyone would have anticipated a Fields medal when he was
| rejected by all the US doctoral programs save UIUC. He is
| obviously beyond gifted, but he didn't take a conventional path
| to math.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| It just points to faults in the University system. If no
| University in the US could adequately judge his talent, how
| many other potential Fields level Mathematicians were also
| missed?
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| It's interesting UIUC recognized it early
| BeetleB wrote:
| Kinda similar to the fault in interviewing for SW jobs as
| well, right?
| geodel wrote:
| It would be a fault if there are examples of other systems
| where there are zero chances of something like this
| occurring.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| So this system has no faults because other systems have
| faults?
| Hydraulix989 wrote:
| It has to be a small number, given the rarity of the honor.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| Fields level, meaning good enough to possibly win one.
| Not necessarily actual winners.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Nothing could have made me feel more mediocre or small than
| reading this article. Was it supposed to inspire me?
| paulpauper wrote:
| it is called Quanta Magazine
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| Why? From the article you can tell that he wasn't one of
| those whiz kids who wins the IMO with a perfect score at age
| 14. He seems like one of those guys who really thinks deeply
| about something because they love the subject and not just to
| arrive at an answer.
| sicp-enjoyer wrote:
| > One of his classes was even taught by a Fields Medalist.
|
| Yeah, you don't "happen into" a course on algebraic geometry.
| He must have dedicated a large amount of undergraduate courses
| to math, or demonstrated aptitude in another way.
| tooltalk wrote:
| that's but the article also says "he had to retake several
| courses." It's no fun "retaking classes."
| thedailymail wrote:
| There's a bit more detail about Huh's student days in this 2017
| article. It does seem he was a real dropout, and aspiring poet
| prior to thinking about becoming a sci/tech reporter. He joined
| Hironaka's course thinking it would make a good journalistic
| story.
|
| https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-path-less-taken-to-the-peak...
| ken47 wrote:
| I can't say whether he disliked math, but I think it's clear
| that he didn't want to pursue it initially, for practical
| reasons if nothing else. As you can find in his bio on
| Wikipedia, he performed poorly on mathematical aptitude tests
| in elementary school, and so he thought he wouldn't be
| particularly good at it. If these are the kinds of math tests
| that I encountered as a kid (multiply, divide, solve single-
| variable equations, etc. as fast as humanly possible), it's
| unsurprising that he could still be good at abstract math,
| because these 2 skillsets have almost nothing in common.
| javajosh wrote:
| _> these 2 skillsets have almost nothing in common_
|
| Are you sure about that? I know at least some number theory
| can help with quick mental calculations. For example, I
| remember that if the digits of a number add to 9 the number
| itself is divisible by 9. I'm sure there are lots of other
| relationships like that.
| timkam wrote:
| Of course there is some correlation between the two
| skillsets (with respect to ability): people who can
| abstract well can also understand the underlying ideas that
| are useful for fast calculation, and for both one needs to
| have a reasonably good memory (to rely on in an exam and
| when developing a mathematical intuition, respectively).
| But to be the best in high school 'math' (calculation)
| requires a degree of extrinsically-driven, dull discipline.
| One can probably be best in class without taking this
| degree to the extreme, but among the best in class, many
| excel at exactly this (and not at abstract thinking), which
| I find a bit troubling.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| The bigger tragedy is how widespread the belief that
| calculation _is_ math. Even for the university educated,
| the capstone mathematical course of often some version of
| calculus ... it is even in the name!
|
| Personally, my first introduction into the more abstract
| mathematical concepts was a trigonometry class in high-
| school and later was fortunate enough to take more
| theoretical classes at university. It would be wonderful
| to introduce some of the more accessible, elegant
| concepts to kids at an earlier age.
| mmmpop wrote:
| Limits are taught in a way that gives the learner a taste
| of higher math, but when I took university calculus at 18
| I wasn't really enthused about the "beauty". 15 years
| later I finally get it and am working my way into some
| coursework that will require upward of real analysis, but
| I wonder what changed in my brain to care all of a
| sudden? How can I have been inspired earlier in my
| life/career?
| javajosh wrote:
| This has happened to me several times over the years,
| where some topic only half-understood in college suddenly
| becomes clear. It feels as if some part of my mind was
| slowly chewing on it all this time, and finally finished
| its work.
| option wrote:
| Four people got Fields medal today, including second woman in its
| history. Yet, HN discusses the article with catchiest title :D
|
| https://www.quantamagazine.org/tag/2022-fields-and-abacus-me...
| zuzuleinen wrote:
| "He found the writing process too focused on the self -- and for
| him, that exploration was often painful and depressing. Moreover,
| as he later realized, "I wanted to be someone who writes great
| poetry," he said. "I didn't want to write great poetry." Now he
| sees that version of himself as almost a complete stranger."
|
| That's the reason I deleted my personal blog. I felt that when I
| was writing publicly about my life/thoughts I was focusing too
| much on my ego.
| chronofar wrote:
| This is also why I never started a blog, and don't maintain any
| social media accounts. Participating in forums like this
| already drives some self-obsessive behavior (watching for
| upvotes and proverbial nodding heads), but a pulpit I fear
| would drive near incessant "audience awareness," a constant
| reflection of my ego's shape as perceived by others. Our social
| proclivities are to easily supercharged to neuroses with modern
| technology.
|
| Or maybe I'm just lazy.
| zuzuleinen wrote:
| Indeed, everytime I take a break from sharing posts on social
| media I feel much better
| shreyshnaccount wrote:
| and i announce that by sharing a post that I'll be taking a
| break. its kinda like toasting to that I'll stop drinking
| the next morning. on a serious note tho, I don't really get
| why he says that poetry places importance on the ego- maybe
| it's a cultural difference, but a lot of great poems I'm
| familiar with are about nature and made up characters etc.
| tho i see how so many really really good poems throughout
| history are an overblown retelling of what I can only
| assume is the product of faith and mushrooms (looking at
| you, Dante)
| mgfist wrote:
| That's funny, my reasoning comes from the opposite end of the
| ego spectrum - creating a blog or any other kind of social
| media presence means putting myself out there and inviting
| attacks on my ego. So I avoid doing so to protect my ego.
| Anytime I think of doing a writeup of something and sharing
| online, my subconscious starts thinking about how people will
| perceive and judge my work and I scram back into my ego
| shelter. I won't have to face feedback and criticism if no
| one hears about me or my work :D
| mmmpop wrote:
| > Or maybe I'm just lazy.
|
| Hit me up if you figure this one out. I can't be bothered to
| get my personal website back up and it's just an nginx
| configuration away for about a year now.
| dubeux wrote:
| I think it's quite obvious we're working hard to build an ego-
| centered, self-destructive society. While I wholeheartedly
| agree with the idea of realising it, and trying not to endorse
| it, I wonder if it wouldn't be healthier, more effective and
| fulfilling to look for ways to make one's thoughts, ideas,
| questions, epiphanies, ramblings somehow public, so that one
| could eventually connect with like-minded, develop deeper
| thoughts, relationships, actions, towards gathering some
| meaning in life.
| kkleindev wrote:
| > I felt that when I was writing publicly about my
| life/thoughts I was focusing too much on my ego.
|
| Why do you want to avoid that?
| noisy_boy wrote:
| To avoid over-feeding the beast known as ego?
| lupire wrote:
| Agamus wrote:
| Because ego is the enemy.
| zuzuleinen wrote:
| I felt I got into this point where everything was revolving
| around me. It was all about "me, me, me". And at that time, I
| suspected that most of my problems were generated by putting
| my opinions/ego on a pedestal.
|
| I still write sometimes when I want to clear things for
| myself in a notebook nobody will see. I think it can be
| therapeutic at times.
|
| But I'm in a point in my life where I think I need to get
| myself out of the way, be humble and enjoy everything else
| _out_ there.
| pqs wrote:
| I'm glad you found this problem. I also had this problem
| (me, me, me) and realizing this has improved my life and
| the life of people surrounding me, a lot.
|
| Our ego is not our friend.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > Moreover, as he later realized, "I wanted to be someone who
| writes great poetry," he said. "I didn't want to write great
| poetry."
|
| I absolutely love this distinction.
|
| In Polish there's a saying "Chce, ale mi sie nie chce." which
| is hard to translate but it's something along the lines:
|
| I want ... but I don't want to.
| shreyshnaccount wrote:
| thats seems like a very delightful phrase, can you share a
| more in depth meaning?
| [deleted]
| lupire wrote:
| I want to write a book, But I don't want to write the
| words.
|
| I want to win the World Cup, but I'm not getting out of bed
| to go to the gym.
|
| I want to be rich and famous, but I don't want to do the
| work.
|
| I want to be a bride, but I don't want to build a
| relationship.
|
| I buy books but don't read them.
|
| I buy tools and supplies but don't build.
|
| I read books but don't do exercise.
|
| I want to be a person who does great things, but in each
| moment I don't do the work.
| [deleted]
| shreyshnaccount wrote:
| just that? felt it's a bit deeper
| svnt wrote:
| Here's an alternative: I wanted to be a magician, but
| when started to learn how to cast spells I realized that
| to become one I would have to embody the disenchantment
| of my world.
| corrral wrote:
| How strange to see
|
| That I'm exactly the person that I want to be
|
| - Amanda Palmer, "In My Mind"
| [deleted]
| astrange wrote:
| He has very good handwriting.
| tarentel wrote:
| It's really quite beautiful. All but one of my math professors
| had terrible handwriting.
| evermore99 wrote:
| The new Norma Cenva - Butlerian Jihad Fank Herbert. The beginning
| of time travel
| [deleted]
| evermore99 wrote:
| The new Norma Cenva. Time travel beginning. Folding space.
| Butlerian Jihad -Frank Herbert
| amoghs wrote:
| lol "later that year, Kim gave birth to their first son, Dan.
| While in labor, she caught Huh doing math."
| astrange wrote:
| It's actually best practice to make the dad do something
| pointless. It's not like he has anything better to do.
|
| Traditionally this would be the midwife making him go out to
| fetch hot water repeatedly.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Labor for the first kid is often long - over 24 hours is
| common. There's nothing exceptional in what Huh did.
| spraveenitpro wrote:
| BigglesB wrote:
| Don't want to "diagnose at a distance", but it's difficult to
| read this and not see a lot of the guy's quirks as being quite
| typical of someone incredibly smart who also has ADHD.
|
| Also don't want to diminish his quite remarkable achievements in
| any way, either!
| ramraj07 wrote:
| It's clear the article wanted to convey that as well (esp.
| given the photo of his lecture notes).
| user_7832 wrote:
| Yes! I literally ctr-F'ed the comment section for ADHD to see
| if someone had mentioned it already. I wonder if June himself
| knows, because and ADHD diagnosis and treatment can majorly
| help quality of life. Fortunately he seems to be already doing
| decently.
| gtsnexp wrote:
| Interesting article highlighting the relevance of a having a good
| mentor on early stages. However, I feel there is a slight issue
| with the "he is a genius and geniuses don't have to work hard"
| tone.
| jdcampolargo wrote:
| Why did he leave UIUC?
| foldedcornice wrote:
| His full reasoning wasn't reported on by Quanta, but an article
| in 2017 noted that faculty from the University of Michigan
| invited him to transfer after hearing his talk on his proof of
| Read's conjecture.
|
| From the older article [0]: "Soon after he posted his proof of
| Read's conjecture, the University of Michigan invited Huh to
| give a talk on his result. On December 3, 2010, he addressed a
| room full of many of the same mathematicians who had rejected
| his graduate school application a year earlier. By this point
| Huh's talent was becoming evident to other mathematicians.
| Jesse Kass was a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics at Michigan
| at the time. Just before Huh's visit, a senior faculty member
| encouraged Kass to watch the talk because '30 years from now
| you can tell your grandchildren you saw Huh speak before he got
| famous,' recalled Kass, who's now a professor at the University
| of South Carolina.
|
| "Huh's lecture did not disappoint.
|
| "'The talk was somehow very polished and very clear; it just
| went to the right points. It's a bit unusual for a beginning
| graduate student to give such clean talks,' said Mircea
| Mustata, a mathematician at Michigan.
|
| "Following his talk, the Michigan faculty invited Huh to
| transfer, which he did in 2011. By that point he'd learned that
| Read's conjecture was a special case of a larger and more
| significant problem -- the Rota conjecture.""
|
| [0] https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-path-less-taken-to-the-
| peak...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-07-05 23:02 UTC)