I think the equivalent of the Nobel prize for Mathematics is the Abel prize not the Fields Medal. The former rewards lifetime achievement.
The Fields Medal should return to its roots
111–120 of 146 posts
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#112Ok 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.
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Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#113I 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…
From my experience in my friends that have pursued math degrees is that the job market is extremely competitive to become a professor. You either attempt to cash out in finance after learning how to code or start working for the local community college. Even if you do try to get a tenured track position you will be an assistant professor or worse unless you do everything perfectly.
This will come across as harsh, but that isn't my intention. My intent is to explore ideas, so I apologize in advance.
Are your friends aware that scientific breakthroughs have not typically come with rewards to the observer/identifier/mathematician? If so, they likely selected for a role that benefits the other humans but not themselves; if not, perhaps they are unrealistic about expectations as a thinker.
We all seem to love new thinkers so much, but telling people what they've built is incorrect has rarely been personally profitable. Outside of the maths/sciences, hell, they freaking crucified Jesus for his social policies.
The entire structure of human civilization suggests its unprofitable to tell people they're wrong. It requires that wrongness to "create new paradigms". People who buy into the system are unlikely to overturn it, so the complaints become less "they dont like me for my ideas because they're recolutionary" and more "they don't like me because my ideas aren't as mainstream as theirs".
If your metric is the latter, can you help me understand what the problem is?
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#114I 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…
Mathematics contests have about as much to do with actual mathematics as programming/algorithm contests have to do with software engineering.
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#115I think the equivalent of the Nobel prize for Mathematics is the Abel prize not the Fields Medal. The former rewards lifetime achievement.
Totally agree, but it should be pointed out that unlike the Fields Medal, the Abel Prize is relatively new, and perhaps intentionally set up in a way to invite comparison to the Nobel (whereas the Fields wasn't).
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#116Earlier 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.
I once did some calculations to explore the expected effect of that difference in standard deviation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14997524
I'm on my phone right now and can't redo it for the gender ratio of Fields medalists, but I expect that the effect would cover most of the difference, since the cutoff for the award does seem quite high.
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#117Ok 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.
> It's like a pro-athlete. You don't expect Michael Jordan to be playing with a small local team.
See Srinivasa Ramanujan for reference.
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#118Earlier 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…
Interviewers get a perk? That's news to me. I can see recruiters getting a perk, but wouldn't it be a perverse incentive to give interviewers a perk?
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
> It's like a pro-athlete. You don't expect Michael Jordan to be playing with a small local team. See Srinivasa Ramanujan for reference.
But how many other examples do we have? It's a rarity to see such an occurrence. That's why Yitang Zhang's work was such a surprise.
Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots
#120Earlier 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.
The penchant for math is probably randomly distributed between men and women. But all that is overshadowed by the fact that culturally and societally women are heavily discouraged from entering and succeeding in fields like math. This begins right from childhood, where an abacus may make a good toy for a boy, while the appropriate toy for a girl would be a mini kitchen set. Fortunately a lot of this is changing, howe…
> The penchant for math is probably randomly distributed
between men and women.
> But all that is overshadowed by the fact that culturally and
> societally women are heavily discouraged from entering and succeeding
> in fields like math.
> This begins right from childhood, where an abacus may make a good toy for a boy,
> while the appropriate toy for a girl would be a mini kitchen set.