Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by sho_hn » Thu, Oct 13, 2022, 9:30 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #95

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…

Someone once told me, “comparison is the thief of joy.” I’m confident this is a famous quote. But once I heard it, it kept resonating. Then years later I watched Bluey with my kids and mom says, “just run your own race” and it all clicked. I’m so thankful that it clicked because I feel liberated from this self-imposed sense that I need to absolutely maximize my time here, which is an impossible task.

Learning a new and at the time somewhat obscure (in my setting) foreign language when I was around 30 taught me this lesson at the time. I did well in the small class I attended with others, but not as well as some of the far younger students with both more free time and perhaps better age-given baseline performance at language acquisition (though this is not entirely clear-cut scientifically).

I realized it didn't matter. What mattered is that I progressed toward my goal at whatever pace I could muster, not making it a race. Interestingly, this mindset has made me willing to take on much larger and more complicated challenges in general, one day at a time, without feeling overwhelmed by the mountain to climb ahead.

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

#102

Post by goy » Thu, Oct 13, 2022, 9:34 PM UTC

Nobody is talking about the proof, but about the fact that the person who produced it was younger than them and they are trying to explain the achievement by innate abilities or parent influence. The fact is just that most of people don't want to do something like that. They just want to be someone who do things like that.

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

#103

Post by klyrs » Thu, Oct 13, 2022, 9:35 PM UTC

phaedrus wrote: post #84

JadeNB wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

What's funny is I was that guy (not literally the same guy, but did similar things) as GP describes who could type in a program implementing the math lesson in the time it took the teacher to describe it. And. I. Struggled. So. Much. with math classes. Could never get homework done because I couldn't focus due to undiagnosed (and thus unmedicated) ADHD. On tests it'd take me the whole hour to do three problems out of…

I struggled a lot in math too. Got a D in calculus, nearly dropped out of high school. I'd absorbed my dad's excuse, "I'm bad at math." What a crock of shit. Turns out, I was bad at doing work in absence of motivation. But my parents didn't believe in ADHD, so I couldn't have that.

Went back to community college after some time as a web dev, and had a teacher with a booming voice and a gentle attitude, who explained that we were going to be doing a lot of homework. Like your instructor, he'd spend class time working problems, and then I'd go home and do an hour or two of homework every night while it was still fresh. That kicked off a trajectory that resulted in a PhD and a very fulfilling job as a mathematician.

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

#104

Post by Waterluvian » Thu, Oct 13, 2022, 9:49 PM UTC

sho_hn wrote: post #101

Waterluvian wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone once told me, “comparison is the thief of joy.” I’m confident this is a famous quote. But once I heard it, it kept resonating. Then years later I watched Bluey with my kids and mom says, “just run your own race” and it all clicked. I’m so thankful that it clicked because I feel liberated from this self-imposed sense that I need to absolutely maximize my time here, which is an impossible task.

Learning a new and at the time somewhat obscure (in my setting) foreign language when I was around 30 taught me this lesson at the time. I did well in the small class I attended with others, but not as well as some of the far younger students with both more free time and perhaps better age-given baseline performance at language acquisition (though this is not entirely clear-cut scientifically). I realized it didn't m…

Yes! I love that. Thank you for sharing.

This is the mindset that got me to do so many projects where a younger me thought, “someone smarter has already done a better job at that…”

I now write software for me. Sometimes I publish it.

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

#105

Post by feoren » Thu, Oct 13, 2022, 9:53 PM UTC

misterprime wrote: post #83

dekhn wrote: post #75

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 t…

Agreed, but this brings up the topic of nature vs. nurture, and perhaps even the previously (~90 years ago now?) popular concept of eugenics. I think society settled on a response of "yeah, but we shouldn't actively do anything about it as a group." It seems to be best left to individuals to seek out parental partners and enjoy the outcomes on a personal level.

> I think society settled on a response of "yeah, but we shouldn't actively do anything about it as a group."

I hope there comes a day when humanity is responsible enough to handle precise gene-tailoring of humans without it devolving into a cliche Sci-Fi dystopia. Until then, I'm glad that humanity has settled on "Eugenics could theoretically work but we know we're not responsible enough to do it right, so let's not". It feels like a very enlightened stance: better than pretending selective breeding would literally not work, and certainly better than doing it badly. Why could we come to such a sensible consensus on this topic but fail to do so on so many others?

All that being said, I still want to see what would happen if Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky had a child together. You know. For science.

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

#106

Post by dekhn » Thu, Oct 13, 2022, 9:54 PM UTC

misterprime wrote: post #83

dekhn wrote: post #75

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 t…

Agreed, but this brings up the topic of nature vs. nurture, and perhaps even the previously (~90 years ago now?) popular concept of eugenics. I think society settled on a response of "yeah, but we shouldn't actively do anything about it as a group." It seems to be best left to individuals to seek out parental partners and enjoy the outcomes on a personal level.

This isn't eugenics. People are allowed to choose their mates for their phenotypes, and we don't sterilize (except in very rare, extreme circumstances, with legal approvals) people who don't have specific phenotypes.

It's a gedanken experiment, but I would expect that people who measure low on IQ tests but are raised immersed in an technical or artistic environment have as much potential to become masters as people with higher IQ, or very nearly so. Further, I think that by increasing the quality of the education system in a country, you can massively increase the intellectual output. There are probably enormous amounts of untapped potential never matched to an equivalent supply of knowledge and skill.

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

#107

Post by swayvil » Thu, Oct 13, 2022, 9:56 PM UTC

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…

It's easy to be a genius. All you have to do is give 100% of your attention to your subject, indefinitely.

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

#108

Post by Eisenstein » Thu, Oct 13, 2022, 9:57 PM UTC

Zamicol wrote: post #76

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.

I don't hear this viewpoint acknowledged enough. Society wasting and discarding undiscovered talent is one of my deepest fears.

"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." - Stephen Jay Gould

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

#109

Post by chatterhead » Thu, Oct 13, 2022, 10:02 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #95

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…

Someone once told me, “comparison is the thief of joy.” I’m confident this is a famous quote. But once I heard it, it kept resonating. Then years later I watched Bluey with my kids and mom says, “just run your own race” and it all clicked. I’m so thankful that it clicked because I feel liberated from this self-imposed sense that I need to absolutely maximize my time here, which is an impossible task.

I don't know about mathematics, but in orgies this is absolutely true.

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

#110

Post by MikePlacid » Thu, Oct 13, 2022, 10:02 PM UTC

selimthegrim wrote: post #82

MikePlacid wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elitist?? I doubt that any American family has a lower standard of living, than a Soviet math post-graduate student, single mother of two. We have no permanent beds only folding ones, I made my studies on a drawing board put over a sewing machine (do you know what sewing machine is for? It’s to repair your old clothing) our apartment was shared by two families, it has no hot water and water itself was de facto ration…

Come to New Orleans and after I am done giving you tour of some neighborhoods let's see what you say.

As one Indian professor I don’t know said to a Russian-Mexican professor I do know while the latter was giving the former a tour on some unhappy parts of Mexico City: “You want to surprise me with poverty? Look, everyone here has shoes”.

Our company moved to San Francisco in late 90s to save money before IPO. The location was right near Tenderloin, the murder capital of the US. I walked through it from time to time. Nothing special, a city like a city. I remember thinking: how nice it is to walk through American streets - so less aggression in the air…

There was a huge homeless camp though near Civic Center. There was a homeless man sleeping near a back door to our office, he once saved a girl patronizing a local bar from rape. In Soviet Union these homeless would have been rounded up and moved to some rural location not near than 100 km to any big city. Some could have been criminally tried even, like “elitist” Soviet poet Brodsky who was tried and convicted for a lack of permanent job. “Elitist” who can be tried and convicted any time authorities do not like something he says? (I kinda worried that Americans do not feel that personal freedoms had much value, and are willing to trade them for some fashionable illusion).

But I can agree that there can be found some Americans who are materially worse than our family was. Still, calling us elitists - is a sign of laughable ignorance of the world at large.