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Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#71

Post by ok_dad »

wingmanjd wrote: post #62
ok_dad wrote: post #43

I knew a guy in high school that carried around a sub-compact notebook and one day in science class we were learning about how to factor quadratic equations (a review of old math we should know) and this guy was not paying attention at all, just typing away. The teacher asked him what he was doing that was so important that he couldn't listen, and to please come up and solve the problem. This kid walked straight up t…

I wasn't as cool as this kid, but I wrote a binomial expansion program in TI BASIC back in high school that I was pretty proud of. Teacher said it was neat, but then banned calculators on our tests/ quizzes after I demoed it.

It was a while ago, and my memory sucks for those kind of things, so maybe it was you! Anyways, programming anything in the space of 5 minutes is hard enough for me, so I'm still amazed at that binomial expansion (which I had to look up, myself).

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#72

Post by wingmanjd »

ok_dad wrote: post #71
wingmanjd wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't as cool as this kid, but I wrote a binomial expansion program in TI BASIC back in high school that I was pretty proud of. Teacher said it was neat, but then banned calculators on our tests/ quizzes after I demoed it.

It was a while ago, and my memory sucks for those kind of things, so maybe it was you! Anyways, programming anything in the space of 5 minutes is hard enough for me, so I'm still amazed at that binomial expansion (which I had to look up, myself).

We're you in eastern PA in high school? Would be wild if we were in the same class!

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#73

Post by dgs_sgd »

Congratulations to him! That's an amazing accomplishment. There's a lesson in this line

> For more than a year and a half, Larsen couldn’t stop thinking about a certain math problem.

It's rare to be able to focus on something for that long without giving up.

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#74

Post by JadeNB »

ok_dad wrote: post #43

I knew a guy in high school that carried around a sub-compact notebook and one day in science class we were learning about how to factor quadratic equations (a review of old math we should know) and this guy was not paying attention at all, just typing away. The teacher asked him what he was doing that was so important that he couldn't listen, and to please come up and solve the problem. This kid walked straight up t…

> Since then, I don't feel bad if someone achieves more than me, because clearly there are some people out there that are born to solve certain classes of problems (maybe their brain structure is better for those, or something, who knows).

As a math teacher, I very much like every part of your comment except for this. There are way too many people who decide never to try mathematics because they weren't born to it. I don't believe (and it seems rather insusceptible to proof) that math is something that you are born with a talent for, or not; instead, it's all about how much passion you have for it. Genius is any field is not born of effortless gift; it is born of tireless effort. The real difference is between the people who are willing to put in that tireless effort, and those who do not wish to do so (which is a reasonable choice for something you're not passionate about!).

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#75

Post by dekhn »

I've known quite a few families where both parents are scientists or software engineers or quantitative engineers.

Very frequently, their children will have a scary intuitive understanding of concepts that took my many years to understand (I'm a slow learner; didn't really understand hash tables until my 30s) and then apply their abilities to be in the higher echelons at science in a very young age. I see a similar thing in the children of world-class athletes.

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#76

Post by Zamicol »

Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #51
ok_dad wrote: post #43

I knew a guy in high school that carried around a sub-compact notebook and one day in science class we were learning about how to factor quadratic equations (a review of old math we should know) and this guy was not paying attention at all, just typing away. The teacher asked him what he was doing that was so important that he couldn't listen, and to please come up and solve the problem. This kid walked straight up t…

And, to add to this, we need to find and nurture these minds so they don't get bored and can grow at their natural speed.

I don't hear this viewpoint acknowledged enough.

Society wasting and discarding undiscovered talent is one of my deepest fears.

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#77

Post by _zoltan_ »

kevinventullo wrote: post #67
paulpauper wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of all the millions of dollars spent on immersion and tutoring by rich parents. How many of their kids produce anything of noteworthiness at any age, let alone so young as he did? This is 99% the product of IQ/talent. It's a huuuge leap to go from merely having an advanced math education to actually solving or proving important stuff. This is mathematician-caliber work, not just someone who took advanced course…

Eh, the kind of immersion and tutoring that rich parents can buy doesn’t remotely compare to having two professional mathematicians as parents. The tutors for rich kids are likely to be local grad students who meet with the kids at most a few hours a week; you can’t exactly hire a fields medalist for tutoring. Perhaps more importantly, those rich kids are not getting singular training in math, they’re getting tutored…

I bet you could hire a Fields medalist with enough money. Might be a lot, but for sure you can. Everybody has a price.

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#78

Post by dekhn »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #66
c1ccccc1 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really true about Feynman? I thought he wrote in "Surely You're Joking" that he didn't take psychoactive drugs because he loved thinking and he "didn't want to mess up the machine".

My understanding is he was reluctant in his earlier days but did indeed experiment later in life. From: https://gizmodo.com/10-scientific-and-technological-visionar... > Nevertheless, Feynman's curiosity got the best of him when he became acquainted with none other than John C. Lilly and his sensory deprivation tanks. Feynman experimented briefly with LSD, ketamine, and marijuana, which he used to bring on isolation-…

The article you linked left out that Mullis not only took acid, he wrote a Nature paper on universal time reversal based on ideas he had on a trip in Golden Gate Park.

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#79

Post by PakG1 »

RC_ITR wrote: post #54
Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, to add to this, we need to find and nurture these minds so they don't get bored and can grow at their natural speed.

>Throughout high school, Kaczynski was ahead of his classmates academically. Placed in a more advanced mathematics class, he soon mastered the material. He skipped the eleventh grade, and by attending summer school he graduated at age 15. Kaczynski was one of his school's five National Merit finalists and was encouraged to apply to Harvard.[17] While still at age 15, he was accepted to Harvard and entered the univers…

As discussed in Good Will Hunting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XCsE5NffMA

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#80

Post by Ar-Curunir »

jbverschoor wrote: post #61
vorticalbox wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for this. I find articles like this super hard to read due to the mixing of the topic and all the "back ground". It does sometimes feel like it's only there to bulk out the article.

Lazy writers and/or who get paid per word. The writer can fix the article, or let every reader fix it in his mind.

Maybe just consider that the audience of the article is not you?
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