Credentials and prizes are heading the way of the dodo because we're slowly realising that while neither knowledge nor significance can be measured our opinions can be swayed by prestige and politics.
The Fields Medal should return to its roots
71–80 of 146 posts
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#72I think the age limit for the Fields medal reinforces this idea that "mathematics is a young mans game." It's one of many reasons why I got discouraged into entering mathematics when I was young because of this and math competitions. When I was younger , I would visit websites such as AOP , and ask questions and then be treated in a condescending way by students who were my age or younger who would then boast about t…
> It took some time to realize that having parents who are academics/engineers helps significantly in guiding you in a career such as mathematics. This is true of every good job. I'm trying to get hired at big 4 tech right now. Every person interviewing me is a rich kid. All of my competition is rich kids. Touring these big tech companies was discouraging. They're all very diverse. Rich white kids. Rich Asian kids. R…
How do you know the people interviewing you are rich kids? I work at a big 4 company and I grew up in a low-middle class household.
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you accept the idea that a penchant for math is randomly distributed among all people, then the odds of 55/56 men winning by chance are very, very, very low.
That gap also exists in the middle-school and high-school levels [0] (at least in the US), so it fully reduces to the simpler question of why that's true. We should be able to agree that by the time we're discussing professional mathematics there's no expectation that it would be randomly distributed among genders. [0] https://economics.mit.edu/files/7598 (admittedly a bit old; maybe a lot has changed in ~10 years?)
Still true globally at the high school level. Found some quora answers with perspectives on IOI(programming olympiad) and IMO(math olympiad) which both have low single digit percentage female participants:
https://www.quora.com/Why-are-there-few-females-in-competiti...
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-boys-outperform-girls-in-math-c...
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you accept the idea that a penchant for math is randomly distributed among all people, then the odds of 55/56 men winning by chance are very, very, very low.
All it would require is just that the standard deviation for math ability in men (whether by nature or nurture, I am making no judgment either way) is only very slightly higher than for women. Since we are looking at the tail of the distribution, the result would not be surprising.
As Helena Cronin noted of men: "more dumbbells but more Nobels" [1].
[1] https://www.edge.org/annual-question/2008/response/10670
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It took some time to realize that having parents who are academics/engineers helps significantly in guiding you in a career such as mathematics. This is true of every good job. I'm trying to get hired at big 4 tech right now. Every person interviewing me is a rich kid. All of my competition is rich kids. Touring these big tech companies was discouraging. They're all very diverse. Rich white kids. Rich Asian kids. R…
Wow. Lots to digest here, and I think I detect some strong frustration. My sympathies on that. I have worked at the big 4 (MS) but I'm a consultant now. I do a fair bit of interviewing and what I propose is that you don't actually have a clue what the finances of your interviewers are like, and you don't actually have a clue what the finances of your competitors are like. You would be far better served putting it out…
He’s talking about culture fit.
Where does your average Stanford, Berkeley, MIT grad come from? A: A collection of a couple hundred high schools. Those schools aren’t where middle America comes from.
From what I can see, the Valley kicks that up a notch. I considered working for a big 4 after seeing what seemed like a fantastic salary offer. Then I started looking at the cost side of the equation. Forget it — unless you have cash, it does not compute.
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Class is profoundly salient in the United States. Unless you've been on the outside it's very difficult to see, because the gradations are more subtle, but they run no less deep.
I've been outside the US. People care much less about where you've come from than in the places I've been (in Asia and Europe). Of course class exists in the US, but if you're able to move up in a tax bracket people won't judge you for having come from a lower tax bracket.
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Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#77I think the age limit for the Fields medal reinforces this idea that "mathematics is a young mans game." It's one of many reasons why I got discouraged into entering mathematics when I was young because of this and math competitions. When I was younger , I would visit websites such as AOP , and ask questions and then be treated in a condescending way by students who were my age or younger who would then boast about t…
You gave up Maths because you felt you couldn't win the Fields medal? Do you also not cook, since you won't be Ramsay? Or not swim since you won't be Phelps? You must do nothing but contemplate the void, then.
HN usually is trying to uphold a tradition of addressing the strongest, not the weakest, interpretation of others' arguments. I believe this is why you are downvoted.
Impostor syndrome is a real thing, and just repeating the comparisons you used in the tone you used, does not help address it.
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
why is it shocking?
If you accept the idea that a penchant for math is randomly distributed among all people, then the odds of 55/56 men winning by chance are very, very, very low.
> If you accept the idea that a penchant for math is randomly distributed among all people
Is there any experimental support for such an assumption?
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#79Ok so what awards ceremony selection process isn’t political? Any guess on who is in consideration of the 2018 prize? I imagine those under consideration are already at top tier institutions. Is no noteworthy mathematics being done at less prestigious institutions? (Loaded question I know) but it would be cool to see some undiscovered mathematician doing ground breaking stuff at a lesser known university.
> Is no noteworthy mathematics being done at less prestigious institutions? People with high-potential are detected early on and can choose to work in the most prestigious institutions. It's like a pro-athlete. You don't expect Michael Jordan to be playing with a small local team.
I think people are psychologically averse to acknowledging this level of "filtering" even though it's mostly true, because it suggests an uncomfortable level of inequality.
However I do think that there might be just a little too much focus on contest-math when it comes to identifying the country's best mathematicians. It's easily seen that the best contest mathematicians usually become the best professional mathematicians. In aggregate, though, most contest-math participants come from a very particular demographic (i.e. they live in big cities in wealthy areas, have very supportive/tiger parents (this is the key), go to magnet schools, obviously practice a lot, etc.). These people are still probably much more likely than average to become professionals, but it filters out a lot of bright people from less wealthy families or areas, or in regions where culturally math competitions are barely even a thing.
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you accept the idea that a penchant for math is randomly distributed among all people, then the odds of 55/56 men winning by chance are very, very, very low.
All it would require is just that the standard deviation for math ability in men (whether by nature or nurture, I am making no judgment either way) is only very slightly higher than for women. Since we are looking at the tail of the distribution, the result would not be surprising.
That hypothesis got Larry Summers in a lot of trouble.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers#Differences_b...