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The Fields Medal should return to its roots

nature.com

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Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#121

Post by rimliu »

majos wrote: post #67
cc81 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One argument that some have is that men have a more extreme distribution of IQ and mathematical ability and when it comes to things like the Fields medal it is the few extreme ones that make an impact. I don't know how well done those studies are though. EDIT: I doubt it is that big though.

I used to believe this, but now I think a confounding factor here is that girls are socialized away from extremes in general.

Ok, I can get you can somehow socialize a person to pretend be dumber than they are, but how do you socialize someone away from being dumb? And why does that not work for boys?

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#122

Post by Lio »

Retric wrote: post #59
smallnamespace wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean—why would you assume there is a fat tail expect in the first place, and not something approximating a normal distribution? And even if you presume something like a Pareto distribution, the likelihood ratio between two distributions grow through the tails if their variance is not identical. edit: I see you bring up longevity, but I don't see why this is relevant to a discussion about varianc…

Based on a wide range of ability testing we see fat tails (edit: more black swans than expected), it would be more surprising if they where skinny. Granted, we can't measure very high ability very well due to sampling bias. I am simply saying even if there is a modest bias that's not enough it would have to be huge to account for these numbers. So, I am bringing up something else with the kind of distribution we are…

Life span here is interesting.

If it’s affected by things like work place deaths because men are more likely to take on dangerous jobs, e.g. sea fisherman, military service, etc. would that overlap with the section of the population likely to be working on pure mathematics?

Suicide, another cause of that difference in average life span, would overlap though I guess.

It would be worth properly investigating as I suspect there’s a lot of complexity hidden here.

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#123

Post by kkylin »

jhshah wrote: post #97
pducks32 wrote: post #89

I recently got to meet a fields medalist who will remain nameless but he mention a really really interesting statistic. No Field’s medalist has ever been the mentor to another Field’s medalist. I (my opinion here not his) think that this glorifies these young mathematicians who never go onto mentor or yield another similarly gifted mathematician. We should be finding great mathematicians who discover great math colla…

Quibbling about the Fields Medal mentoring claim: Schwartz -> Grothendieck -> Deligne is a counterexample.

Also Avila & Yoccoz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artur_Avila and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Christophe_Yoccoz.

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#124

Post by [deleted] »

pducks32 wrote: post #89

I recently got to meet a fields medalist who will remain nameless but he mention a really really interesting statistic. No Field’s medalist has ever been the mentor to another Field’s medalist. I (my opinion here not his) think that this glorifies these young mathematicians who never go onto mentor or yield another similarly gifted mathematician. We should be finding great mathematicians who discover great math colla…

[deleted]

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#125

Post by ocfnash »

jhshah wrote: post #97
pducks32 wrote: post #89

I recently got to meet a fields medalist who will remain nameless but he mention a really really interesting statistic. No Field’s medalist has ever been the mentor to another Field’s medalist. I (my opinion here not his) think that this glorifies these young mathematicians who never go onto mentor or yield another similarly gifted mathematician. We should be finding great mathematicians who discover great math colla…

Quibbling about the Fields Medal mentoring claim: Schwartz -> Grothendieck -> Deligne is a counterexample.

Also Atiyah supervised Donaldson (albeit jointly with Hitchin), Mirzakhani was supervised by McMullen and others I'm sure.

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#126

Post by subroutine »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #105
subroutine wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the reasons is, half their cells are using one X chromosome and half are using the other, so they're more likely to get their performance dragged down by deleterious mutations. This statement is wrong 2x. 1. Lyonization is a process of inactivation that happens early in embryotic development so only one X is dominant in all somatic cells. 2. The chromatin packed X is not completely inactive, so if the domina…

It's not "disorders" but anything that affects math ability. This is plain regression to the mean. If half your cells would make you capable of being an IMO gold medalist, if the whole brain were made from them, but the other half would make relatively stupid so that you could only barely qualify for the USAMO (~top 300 in USA or so), guess what making a brain from the combination of the two will get you.

Like I pointed out above, thats not how it works. And if it were, then women would be at an advantage. If genetics confers any difference in math ability, it's due to the Y chromosome. Period.

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#127

Post by user5994461 »

twic wrote: post #30
snoman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 The point isn't about the wealth of these people, it's about their background, and the resulting confidence and comfort with which they can negotiate the social structure of interview and employment at these companies. > The other interviewers and I can te…

The big company is half of rich privileged kids and half of people who just moved in to the most expensive city in the world and don't know if they can pay rent the next month.

You'll meet both types of people in the interview panel.

Interviewers are just people who happen to be here at the moment, they have nothing special. They have the power to grant you the job or not but that doesn't mean anything about their personal life.

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#128

Post by user5994461 »

learc83 wrote: post #106
meri_dian wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People don't judge you openly or likely even consciously. But fitting in is fairly difficult. Rubbing elbows with rich investors and CEOs from affluent backgrounds is definitely more difficult for someone from a lower class background.

I think the issue of the original poster was being a math graduate. Little to do with class or social economic background.

With maths, you can work as a professor or work in finance. Two domains with limited demands that are highly competitive.

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#129

Post by Chris2048 »

tinymollusk wrote: post #113
zitterbewegung wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 se…

But "disruptive" tech is like that, but rather than tell the old guard that they are wrong, you just try to displace them..

Re: The Fields Medal should return to its roots

#130

Post by Chris2048 »

Retric wrote: post #59
smallnamespace wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean—why would you assume there is a fat tail expect in the first place, and not something approximating a normal distribution? And even if you presume something like a Pareto distribution, the likelihood ratio between two distributions grow through the tails if their variance is not identical. edit: I see you bring up longevity, but I don't see why this is relevant to a discussion about varianc…

Based on a wide range of ability testing we see fat tails (edit: more black swans than expected), it would be more surprising if they where skinny. Granted, we can't measure very high ability very well due to sampling bias. I am simply saying even if there is a modest bias that's not enough it would have to be huge to account for these numbers. So, I am bringing up something else with the kind of distribution we are…

> Based on a wide range of ability testing we see fat tails

What kind of ability? Mathematical? IQ?

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