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Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

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Re: Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

#81

Post by MauranKilom »

tmsh wrote: post #11
mensetmanusman wrote: post #3

Great work! I wonder if their expertise would be helpful in understanding deep learning, a rare field that made advances before mathematicians had fully laid the groundwork (sometimes they do a century ahead of time :)); https://deepmath-conference.com/

I just don’t get why comments like this are downvoted. But I do suspect this makes Hacker News what it is. Good at surfacing a certain x to y percentile of a certain way of looking at things. It’s not a place to brainstorm or be open minded about new ways of thinking successfully - not very very often. More a place to surface small useful bits of information that people find (a) useful and (b) that people are passion…

I'm honestly having a hard time picturing what kind of discussion or brainstorming could be had around the statement in said comment. "It might be useful to have more smart people working in [popular field]" in the context of "look at this smart person" is just... unactionable?

Further, it is unclear what the link to a conference is supposed to add - is this actually an attempt to get said mathematician to completely switch fields on a whim? Based on a HN comment? That's just uncalled for... Or is it trying to recruit random HN readers? In that case, how is this at all related to the topic?

Like in any group of humans, it takes a certain perspective and tone to communicate your ideas effectively - doubly so if you want to engage in "new ways of thinking" with others. The comment in question is lacking that (in my - subjective - eyes). I don't think "I wonder if" is misplaced on HN, but I would concur that (as you hinted at) a certain way of articulation is rewarded.

Re: Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

#82

Post by Kephael »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #61
Kephael wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong, for a programming interview FAANG and friends care greatly about mitigating legal risk and would not treat them any differently. Interviewers typically have their own questions and may have only glanced at the resume.

This kind of candidate would be handheld by a very specific part of the recruiting team who would no doubt realize that they are dealing with someone VERY exceptional... This is not to say that they would get preferential treatment in getting through the interview, but this person would not be interviewed like a regular SWE but by a specialized committee (one probably filled with more research-minded engineering staf…

There are very specific coding expectations for applied scientists and research interns at these companies. They are not going to allow someone to skip these.

Re: Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

#85

Post by darawk »

Kephael wrote: post #36
qzw wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, the IMO gold medal on his resume alone puts him into a different category. Unless the hiring company is completely clueless, he’d get special treatment from the start. People like him are not like you and me.

This is wrong, for a programming interview FAANG and friends care greatly about mitigating legal risk and would not treat them any differently. Interviewers typically have their own questions and may have only glanced at the resume.

There is no legal risk for fast tracking exceptional people.

Re: Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

#86

Post by MaximumYComb »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #40
MaximumYComb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think it would be a hot take but I had someone arguing against me that it's not a good indicator since only approx 20% of competitors get a PhD in Math. I felt that he was emotionally invested in his argument, likely due to wanting to do a math PhD and not being food at the competitions. I even agreed that you don't need to be good at competitions to get a PhD but he still kept to his argument that being good d…

> I had someone arguing against me that it's not a good indicator since only approx 20% of competitors get a PhD in Math As lordnacho says, that argument doesn't hold up at all. 20% seems really high, to me. A PhD in math isn't like scoring highly on an IQ test, it's not purely the result of being mathematically capable, it's also the result of undertaking a PhD in math. Plenty of smart people apply their abilities e…

I had multiple typos. When I made these comments I was coming off a 40.1 degree fever and was laying in bed with my phone when I saw this post. I wrote some hand notes too and they're even worse. The same word is spelled incorrectly in two different ways.

Re: Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

#87

Post by swirepe »

spekcular wrote: post #70
vjk wrote: post #20

Great article - very inspiring to hear about his collaboration with another undergraduate at MIT over 3 years, and the joint awards they've won together. My undergraduate graph theory textbook had this quote from Paul Erdos: " Suppose aliens invade the earth and threaten to obliterate it in a year's time unless human beings can find the Ramsey number for red five and blue five. We could marshal the world's best minds…

Even for R(5,5), we're probably better off with the preemptive attack, according to a researcher in the area: https://mathoverflow.net/questions/210653/algorithms-for-cal... .

>we're probably better off with the preemptive attack

This is true for most problems.

Re: Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

#88

Post by therein »

swirepe wrote: post #87
spekcular wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even for R(5,5), we're probably better off with the preemptive attack, according to a researcher in the area: https://mathoverflow.net/questions/210653/algorithms-for-cal... .

>we're probably better off with the preemptive attack This is true for most problems.

What if they had been observing us for a while and aware of our true limitations and were posting this question as a test to see if we were capable of recognizing our own limitations as a species and resolve it through rational means rather than conflict?

We would have failed greatly in that case with that preemptive attack.

Re: Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

#89

Post by lupire »

vjk wrote: post #20

Great article - very inspiring to hear about his collaboration with another undergraduate at MIT over 3 years, and the joint awards they've won together. My undergraduate graph theory textbook had this quote from Paul Erdos: " Suppose aliens invade the earth and threaten to obliterate it in a year's time unless human beings can find the Ramsey number for red five and blue five. We could marshal the world's best minds…

5 is a small number, but "Ramsey" isn't.

Re: Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

#90

Post by lupire »

runawaybottle wrote: post #38
lordnacho wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is perhaps one of my biggest downside surprises about university. Although there were plenty of fun people to hang out with, there were very few people who had a seriousness about getting work done, along with a collaborative instinct. Maybe I was unlucky, but I'd thought that an Oxbridge college would yield a few people who could keep me focussed on the academics. And yes, in another world I would have brought…

Intellectualism hasn’t matured as Barbarism has (still going through refinement). Your gym partner is never going to even attempt to prove to you they are stronger, and you yourself won’t even care if they are (or vice versa). There’s a natural understanding of the physical, and mostly we as a society realize how futile it is to exert physical dominance on one another. So you are stronger, what are you going to do, b…

What a bizarre claim. Physical competitiveness is a huge part of culture. You don't need to beat someot up to physically intimidate and dominate someone, and you don't need to mentally abuse someone to have a valuable experience in a relationship.
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