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HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

hessix.com

71–80 of 122 posts

Re: HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

#72
post #58

Nice idea, +1 for LaTeX titles! But the registration system should be way more open, you're discriminating against many math PhD's who are no longer in academia. I would have posted my paper there but I guess "@math.ohio-state.edu" isn't elite enough so I'll post it here and probably get more traction than all the papers on OP's entire site combined. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.2869.pdf "Infinite graphs in systematic…

Wow, yeah. Came here to say the same. I could understand somewhat making a distinction between emails that end in .edu and those who don't -- at least during the early days -- but this system does seem excessive. I do think the ideas in the paper are pretty cool! One question: have you considered or attempted some sort of generative models based on this system? You'd have to do some clever symbolic manipulations to d…

Not sure what you mean exactly by "generative models" but it reminds me of Rohde et al 2004 (https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02842) which is all about modelling this sort of thing. In fact, some of the results of Rohde's paper are quantitative things which Rohde et al discovered by simulation and which my paper provides theoretical explanation for (see my paper's Proposition 6 and the last sentence of the abstract of Rohde et al).

Re: HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

#73
post #58

Nice idea, +1 for LaTeX titles! But the registration system should be way more open, you're discriminating against many math PhD's who are no longer in academia. I would have posted my paper there but I guess "@math.ohio-state.edu" isn't elite enough so I'll post it here and probably get more traction than all the papers on OP's entire site combined. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.2869.pdf "Infinite graphs in systematic…

Math has a culture where author affiliations are often mentioned only as a footnote, at the end of the paper, and not at the front of the paper. For a field with such culture, where it has repeatedly been shown that quality work can come from many places, this kind of coarse gatekeeping creates a very unpleasant environment. I'm trying to imagine the motivation of the platform creators, but drawing a blank. Maybe it's a ham-handed attempt at spam filtering.

Re: HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

#74
post #69
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MO is definitely high level, but like all SO/SE, I've always found their format to be really restricting. Not everything can be phrased as an objective question. Sometimes the best stuff have come out of something like "I was thinking about xyz, here are some things I noticed, thoughts?" I've even had/seen actual questions closed on SO/SE sites closed because of reasons I think are pretty silly. It's also just not me…

> Sometimes the best stuff have come out of something like "I was thinking about xyz, here are some things I noticed, thoughts?" I think this is a matter of preference. I see where you're coming from, and there's a lot of value in that kind of unrestricted brainstorming, but I've always preferred to have those types of discussions in person with some whiteboards available for fleshing out ideas. When I'm brainstormin…

>I've always preferred to have those types of discussions in person with some whiteboards available for fleshing out ideas.

Not everyone has people to talk to in person that understand their subfield. In a small institution it might be 100 miles to the nearest person who could converse fluently in what it is you're thinking about, even if thousands of them exist.

Re: HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

#75
As I see, that you require a math phd address. Why do you think that only PhD in math might contribute to the discussion? You are just making it impossible for people with non standard background to participate. You are reinforcing opinion widespread in academia that only people from the right background could do any meaningful research.

Re: HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

#77
post #58

Nice idea, +1 for LaTeX titles! But the registration system should be way more open, you're discriminating against many math PhD's who are no longer in academia. I would have posted my paper there but I guess "@math.ohio-state.edu" isn't elite enough so I'll post it here and probably get more traction than all the papers on OP's entire site combined. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.2869.pdf "Infinite graphs in systematic…

Their guidelines [1] state that they need your e-mail because "an algorithm uses it to determine if you are a genuine PhD candidate in math/stat." It seems that the site is meant for PhD students rather than PhD recipients.

[1] https://www.hessix.com/guide

Re: HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

#79
post #29
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m sure a maths researcher can handle it No, not at all. Each maths researcher will understand (and care about) only a fraction of these. Maths research (like most subjects) is broken into highly specialised subfields, and experts in one often cannot readily understand research in others. New research papers are the cutting edge of the field, pushing out the boundary between known maths and unknown maths, and this…

Mathematics has a problem that also crops up on the fringes of programming; if a genius creates something at the limits of their understanding it is typically very hard to follow. Academics as a whole doesn't really tackle the issue of taking knowledge and bedding it down into digestible form. Individually a lot of people do great work, but as a body they don't seem to see as that as their role. So far the solution i…

Cutting-edge research is by nature difficult to understand. You have to know everything that lead up to the work to understand it, plus the new stuff being built in the paper. It's difficult to keep track of so many layers of abstractions, and unraveling them all for every statement until you have understandable chunks would make the paper too long and unreadable.

We already use a subjective measure for rating explanations. It's called elegance. Academics tend to prefer shorter, more elegant proofs in my experience. It just takes a long time to get there. If you want to understand the latest research, you have to be a specialist in that subject area. Even the elegant proofs can require years of study before you have enough background knowledge to understand the concepts needed to make it digestible.

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