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To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

quantamagazine.org

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Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#91

Post by SilasX »

afterburner wrote: post #62
Koshkin wrote: post #45

Well, mathematics is hard. It takes a lot of effort to really learn it, a lot of dedication and (self-)motivation. Not everyone can do it, and, frankly, very few people - even among those who have spent many years studying mathematics - could say that it is the best way to live your life.

This reminds me of when people say the best career is the one they happen to have, and everyone should do what they do. But... people are different.

It's the fallacy that has led to the extreme oversupply of post-graduate academic job seekers: far too many people are in college, getting advice from professors who think, "well, it worked for me, you should do it too!"

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#92

Post by Balgair »

110011 wrote: post #63

As a counterpoint to the overly exuberant article let me chime in as a graduating theoretical computer scientist. Math is hard and despite its beauty and allure academic life doesn't take place in a vacuum- ergo there's a lot of politics and pettiness from your peers. You should expect to invest years of your life into making progress on some hard problem with little encouragement in the meantime, this takes a tremen…

Chiming in from Bio: Yep, this is true here too.

I can't find the citations right now, but there was a recent study done through Elsiver's website. The group got a hold of the servers for Elsiver and took a look at page views. They wanted to know what the rates of papers being read was. It was... disheartening. They found that ~46% (again, not sure here as I can't find the source) of papers will never be looked at outside of the authors, reviewers, and the editors. The articles are not only never downloaded, but the pages are never even loaded. The stats were, to me, confusing, but hey that is what peer review is for. Still, if you take this paper (that I can't find now) to be true, ~half of all papers are effectively lecturing into the void. I admit, I drank a bit after reading that one.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#93

Post by navd »

johncolanduoni wrote: post #78
gthtjtkt wrote: post #8

Based on all the supposed benefits of doing math, it sounds like people would be better off studying philosophy. Same benefits but a much broader appeal, and far more applicable to most people's everyday lives. When I finally "discovered" philosophy in college, I was angry that we hadn't been exposed to it at all in middle or high school. Instead, I'd been forced to waste years on things like math, biology, etc. that…

Why is it so hard for people to accept that it's probably a good thing not everybody wants to do exactly the same things as they do? Do you really think that if everybody focused their life on any single intellectual venture you picked, we'd live in a better (or even functioning) world? Or that people who enjoy X and don't like Y (or simply don't like it as much!) should just deal with being unhappy so you can conclu…

I don't think that's the argument being made. But that by learning X or Y, you can add a lot of substance or perspectives to your life that you may not have had before. These 'things' more likely than not can bring many positives to aspects of your life that aren't related.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#94

Post by contravariant »

110011 wrote: post #63

As a counterpoint to the overly exuberant article let me chime in as a graduating theoretical computer scientist. Math is hard and despite its beauty and allure academic life doesn't take place in a vacuum- ergo there's a lot of politics and pettiness from your peers. You should expect to invest years of your life into making progress on some hard problem with little encouragement in the meantime, this takes a tremen…

I don't think pursuing a career in academia was what he had in mind when he said 'do mathematics'. In fact he said specifically:

>Teaching mathematics shouldn’t be about sending everybody to a Ph.D. program. That’s a very narrow view of what it means to do mathematics.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#95

Post by cbsmith »

110011 wrote: post #63

As a counterpoint to the overly exuberant article let me chime in as a graduating theoretical computer scientist. Math is hard and despite its beauty and allure academic life doesn't take place in a vacuum- ergo there's a lot of politics and pettiness from your peers. You should expect to invest years of your life into making progress on some hard problem with little encouragement in the meantime, this takes a tremen…

Yeah, I'd argue a very un-Good Will Hunting thing: if you can be convinced you suck at math, you probably should not pursue a career in academia in math.

However... being a math major is really different from a career in academia. People really should be encouraged to major in math.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#96

Post by dalbasal »

110011 wrote: post #63

As a counterpoint to the overly exuberant article let me chime in as a graduating theoretical computer scientist. Math is hard and despite its beauty and allure academic life doesn't take place in a vacuum- ergo there's a lot of politics and pettiness from your peers. You should expect to invest years of your life into making progress on some hard problem with little encouragement in the meantime, this takes a tremen…

Leaving aside the politics and economics, what do you think a better feedback mechanism might look like?

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#97

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

searine wrote: post #89
cryoshon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So the career path of a junior scientist is pretty crushing mentally this is true throughout the sciences. it's a big issue.

Do you think it's the culture of science or the inherent uncertainty? From my own experience I think it's the latter. Jumping off the edge of human knowledge and hoping there was a result to catch my fall was very mentally taxing. Not many other careers force you to grabble with the uncertainty of creating knowledge, and I think it takes a toll.

The uncertainty of investigation pales to the uncertainty of funding.

The former is a thrill to many, and the latter is at best a chore for all.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#98

Post by andrewflnr »

Su seems almost blind to the fact that you can do math outside an academic environment. You don't need to go to school for math to experience truth, beauty, play, etc in the context of math. You can read books, play around with the results, read articles on places like Quanta. You probably won't discover new things this way, but it will enrich your life.

If your goal is for math to make people's lives better, then assuming school is involved at all is another unnecessary restriction.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#99

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

Balgair wrote: post #92
110011 wrote: post #63

As a counterpoint to the overly exuberant article let me chime in as a graduating theoretical computer scientist. Math is hard and despite its beauty and allure academic life doesn't take place in a vacuum- ergo there's a lot of politics and pettiness from your peers. You should expect to invest years of your life into making progress on some hard problem with little encouragement in the meantime, this takes a tremen…

Chiming in from Bio: Yep, this is true here too. I can't find the citations right now, but there was a recent study done through Elsiver's website. The group got a hold of the servers for Elsiver and took a look at page views. They wanted to know what the rates of papers being read was. It was... disheartening. They found that ~46% (again, not sure here as I can't find the source) of papers will never be looked at ou…

IIRC a lot of that has to do with spammy 'publication mill' journals. If you just look at 'decent' journals, the situation doesn't look nearly as dire.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#100

Post by apocalypstyx »

ThomPete wrote: post #50
jcoffland wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I find math much more interesting. Philosophy is vague. It's all guesses and interpretation, with the exception perhaps of pure logic. I like the purity of math. It's all a matter of preference.

The concepts you deal with in philosophy are vague, the challenge is to provide very precise analysis of these vague (fuzzy?) concepts. But yeah I don't think one is better than the other. Each provide value. I would actually claim that to live your best life, be an engineer. They seem to me at least to be living in that sweet-spot between the abstract, creative and the concrete.

Along with a increased chance of being a creationist and/or jihadist.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Salem_Hypothesis

http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2007/11/11/the-salem-hypothesis-...

http://www.theness.com/index.php/creationists-mechanical-eng...

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