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To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

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Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#141

Post by wbl »

maverick_iceman wrote: post #112
contravariant wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doing serious research level mathematics (or any other science for that matter) is almost impossible outside academia. Doing serious work is hard and mentally draining. Mere mortals can't motivate themselves to do it unless the incentives align just right (i.e. being in academia). Also it takes all your time so forget about it if you have another job. I know this from personal experience. After I joined industry I th…

In math we have lots of journals devoted to recreational and more elementary problems. There is a lot of low hanging fruit out there.

For instance, compute the fibbonacci numbers modulo the square of a prime and compare to modulo a prime. Are there numbers where the first zero appears at the same point? We don't know.

I'm not saying the problem is easy. I'm saying one can make some progress without much theory.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#142

Post by robotresearcher »

jerf wrote: post #120
jgamman wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"there is no world" - wasn't that what University was like before the 80s and still is in many other countries? minimal fees and some casual work and you can stay for as long as you can stand the conditions of the average student flat ;-) I think you are conflating the reality of your current culture with what was/is in other cultures.

If what you describe was even remotely the case, which I don't know, then there was some other filter in place preventing "everybody" from doing it. I can tell, because not "everybody" did. Plus I suspect you missed my "regardless of how well they do it" clause. I doubt that you can flunk every math class over and over and just keep attending. Loopholes that big get noticed, exploited, and closed very quickly.

There was a very strong filter. It used to be very difficult to get into university before they expanded tremendously from the 70s to now. You needed excellent grades. Now good grades are enough to get a spot somewhere.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#143

Post by xyzzyz »

srssays wrote: post #138
maverick_iceman wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing serious research level mathematics (or any other science for that matter) is almost impossible outside academia. Doing serious work is hard and mentally draining. Mere mortals can't motivate themselves to do it unless the incentives align just right (i.e. being in academia). Also it takes all your time so forget about it if you have another job. I know this from personal experience. After I joined industry I th…

That definition is circular. Of course research-level mathematics is done in academia, but there is a much larger field of applied mathematics that is done in industry.

That stuff has very little to do with 90% of academia math. Also, if you specialized and are interested in a certain field of math, the barrier to switch to another field is enormous. On the other hand, 90% of the applied mathematics done in industry is much, much simpler, and very often a trivialized version of what you do in academia, so one could imagine switching to be possible, but what's the joy of doing that?

(I have a MS in Math, my field was algebraic geometry. I considered a career in math research, but the industry was paying too well for it to be a reasonable)

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#144

Post by dagw »

jerf wrote: post #103
ndh2 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a counterpoint, that is exactly the point. Maybe it becomes clearer if you read the speech. Math is hard, but it's being made much, much harder than it has to be.

What's the alternative? I mean that seriously, not sarcastically or in a defeatist way; try to explore what the alternative might actually be. On the one hand, academia has become rather harsh and intimidating and there is room for all kinds of improvement. On the other hand... there is no world where whoever just wants to study math can just go study whatever they want for as long as they want, regardless of how wel…

there is no world where whoever just wants to study math can just go study whatever they want for as long as they want, regardless of how well they do it.

Certainly in Sweden, once you're in, you're basically free to hang around at University and study for as long as you want. It's not like they're going to kick you off campus.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#145

Post by cderwin »

hutzlibu wrote: post #133
kzisme wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have to agree with this, but I disagree with out math is taught by most schools. Somewhere in this thread there is a link to Francis's lectures and they are wonderful. The method/enthusiasm be has for teaching is wonderful and makes all the difference to students. Rather than going through online courses and paying for them (many university classes are mostly online math problems, and proctored during a speci…

"EDIT: The way math is currently taught really forces people to dislike math and think they suck at it. (in general)" Starting in primary school with basic arithmetik. (I help a young boy with his homework) They don't really teach them Math, how to solve thing, they tech them to memorize different algorithms, which they can handle after a while, but don't know what they are doing at all ... So the best mathematicians…

I don't think this is true.

Of course, most students do just memorize equations and follow orders. But in my experience the most successful students are always the ones who understand the material on a fundamental level and memorize very little (on some level, memorization is all but required by even the best).

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#146

Post by spynxic »

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…

> To compensate for this horrible feedback mechanism you need to basically play the popularity game

Feedback needn't be a necessity in a work. Assessments and criticism will come if the work is essential, perhaps many years in the future.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#147

Post by RandomInteger4 »

sametmax wrote: post #104

The problem with this theory, is that it completely ignores that a lot of people good at math have poor people skills. And you need people to be happy and improve your life opportunities. So yeah, math is beautiful, and if you like it, go for it. But if you look for a skill to acquire or practice, your taste no withstanding, this may not be the best investment. Sport, social skills, languages, time management, self i…

Maybe people good at math are actually great at people skills and you're just repeating a bias spread by a banality driven media.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#148

Post by vernie »

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…

[0] baby!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre's_law

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#149

Post by EternalData »

I took this to be a general call to learn and practice mathematics, and not as a summons to a career in academia, so perhaps I'm seeing it a bit differently.

I have to say as somebody who through attrition always feared math in university that it is meaningful to think about reasons why people fear embracing certain types of knowledge. It's only after the fact that I realize how useful and even how romantic applications of mathematics might be.

I might never be a starry-eyed or an often-drunk academic, but I've grown to really see my initial lack of mathematical learning to be an immensely high opportunity cost. So I can relate to anybody who thinks of structural reasons people might shy away from math and indeed all forms of intimidating knowledge.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#150

Post by clay_to_n »

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…

We need to do better at cultivating interest in math, as well as other "hard" fields, among people who are normally excluded from the system.

Su isn't as concerned with the amount of full-time mathematicians doing research work as he is the people who drop out far before that becomes an option. We should teach it better in high schools, and encourage more math undergraduates.

Su isn't saying math is a great field free of problems, but he's arguing we should focus more on getting people further along that path, regardless of the stage where they drop out. I also think the problem you're referring to exists in most academic fields, and that the solution (if there is one) will probably have to be more general than just relate to math.

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