It bums me out that the fields medal is largely considered the top prize in mathematics, yet it has age restrictions. To people outside the field, this means that significant developments may go underreported. Edit: Let me address the down votes / polarization on this comment: Ageism in the most esteemed prize of a particular field seems obviously wrong to me. Is there a better alternative available? (That said: kudo…
You're right. It does seem ageist, when seen in isolation from the outside. It seems to suggest that the field of mathematics only and solely cares about the work of young mathematicians. Yet, is it perhaps possible that this position may signify a person possessed of a wonderful opportunity to become more educated? The Fields Medal is not intended to be the capstone recognition of a mathematcian's career any more th…
Hence my ask in the edit: which specific prize / award / recognition can I follow as an amateur math afficionado that doesn't suffer from age bias?
You didn't mention one, beyond saying that it exists or that it's given in special circumstances... Which is the challenge re:Fields being the most prestigious.
It bums me out that the fields medal is largely considered the top prize in mathematics, yet it has age restrictions. To people outside the field, this means that significant developments may go underreported. Edit: Let me address the down votes / polarization on this comment: Ageism in the most esteemed prize of a particular field seems obviously wrong to me. Is there a better alternative available? (That said: kudo…
I agree. If you look at what a mathematician does they sit around and think. You don't have that sort of luxury if you are from a poor family and have to worry about basic survival. In many cases (not all) the people that complete major accomplishment X at young age Y is from an upper middle class to upper class family with lots of life advantages. Not everyone have these advantages early in life and may eventually g…
Is this a problem only in countries where you have to pay a lot to study? I did not had to pay for my higher education and the people that had a high talent and potentials achieved good results, there was no need to work to make money for studying and if you are good you got positions at University or get jobs at high paying companies.
You're right. It does seem ageist, when seen in isolation from the outside. It seems to suggest that the field of mathematics only and solely cares about the work of young mathematicians. Yet, is it perhaps possible that this position may signify a person possessed of a wonderful opportunity to become more educated? The Fields Medal is not intended to be the capstone recognition of a mathematcian's career any more th…
Hence my ask in the edit: which specific prize / award / recognition can I follow as an amateur math afficionado that doesn't suffer from age bias? You didn't mention one, beyond saying that it exists or that it's given in special circumstances... Which is the challenge re:Fields being the most prestigious.
I was attempting to encourage you to engage in the wonders of self-education through research, rather than spoon-feed you particular answers. Please accept my apologies for mistaking your desires.
You're right. It does seem ageist, when seen in isolation from the outside. It seems to suggest that the field of mathematics only and solely cares about the work of young mathematicians. Yet, is it perhaps possible that this position may signify a person possessed of a wonderful opportunity to become more educated? The Fields Medal is not intended to be the capstone recognition of a mathematcian's career any more th…
Hence my ask in the edit: which specific prize / award / recognition can I follow as an amateur math afficionado that doesn't suffer from age bias? You didn't mention one, beyond saying that it exists or that it's given in special circumstances... Which is the challenge re:Fields being the most prestigious.
I agree. If you look at what a mathematician does they sit around and think. You don't have that sort of luxury if you are from a poor family and have to worry about basic survival. In many cases (not all) the people that complete major accomplishment X at young age Y is from an upper middle class to upper class family with lots of life advantages. Not everyone have these advantages early in life and may eventually g…
Is this a problem only in countries where you have to pay a lot to study? I did not had to pay for my higher education and the people that had a high talent and potentials achieved good results, there was no need to work to make money for studying and if you are good you got positions at University or get jobs at high paying companies.
In countries like the US it starts at birth. Families in rich areas will send their children to elite, selective high schools that cost upward $30,000+. Some of these schools have strong math and science curriculum and are considered direct feeders to elite universities, such as the ivies. These poorer kids could be high IQ'd just like the richer ones, but with less access to resources, may be very behind their richer peers. These richer kids will get into the elite schools, while the poor kids may go to lower end ones or not go to colleges at all. Rich parents can hire their children SAT tutors, ensure their children go to good STEM schools, have various college prep resources for their children, while the poor parents don't know anything about college, sent their children to lesser high schools, and have children that may be just as bright, but essentially ones that have no chance to be admitted to the places they otherwise might have gotten into. College admissions at elite colleges favor children from the elite that had the resources to prepare their children for such pedigree. There are exceptions to the rule, but many poor families face deep struggle. This is regardless of however high IQ'd their children may be.
It bums me out that the fields medal is largely considered the top prize in mathematics, yet it has age restrictions. To people outside the field, this means that significant developments may go underreported. Edit: Let me address the down votes / polarization on this comment: Ageism in the most esteemed prize of a particular field seems obviously wrong to me. Is there a better alternative available? (That said: kudo…
Abel Prize is pretty popular and has esteemed winners. The only requirement is that the person being nominated be alive.
It bums me out that the fields medal is largely considered the top prize in mathematics, yet it has age restrictions. To people outside the field, this means that significant developments may go underreported. Edit: Let me address the down votes / polarization on this comment: Ageism in the most esteemed prize of a particular field seems obviously wrong to me. Is there a better alternative available? (That said: kudo…
It is in fact age limited precisely to combat ageism of the early 20th century. Otherwise only elders would get it (would they outlive the queue of their masters), when it's irrelevant to their career development (but beneficial to the prize's prestige). It was intentionally set up with this reasoning - not to be about lifetime contribution (which really compounds linearly in mathematics, there is no age dropoff "in the data" if you will) but making career easier for a very few young upstarts.
Is the Fields Medal going to still be relevant in 10 years, when most of the the major mathematical discoveries are made by deep learning and deep reinforcement learning systems? Already systems are learning to reason about concepts [1] and
of course there is classical work on proof checkers [2]. It's very likely that the 2028 Fields medal will be awarded to a programmer, not some mathematical super-genius (assuming that the committee is fair, and not biased against machines).
For those who don't know, Constantinos Daskalakis, one of the winners profiled, proved that finding a Nash equilibrium (for example, in an economy) is a PPAD-complete problem: if anyone discovers an efficient algorithm for finding Nash equilibria, such an algorithm could be used for efficiently solving all other problems in the PPAD complexity class. PPAD problems are widely considered to be intractable. No algorithm is known for solving them with running time bounded by a polynomial function of input/problem size. The implications in many fields, starting with economics, are clearly significant. Daskalakis's prize is well-deserved.
There is a fantastic introductory MIT video lecture on this work by Daskalakis himself available on YouTube.[a] His enthusiasm and passion in that video lecture are contagious -- matched only by his ability to explain his work in an intuitive manner. Highly recommended for those HNers who have computer-science or economics backgrounds and are interested in computational complexity but are not yet familiar with Daskalakis's work.