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Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

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

#251

Post by polynomial »

goy wrote: post #102

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.

Of course that's just the first (coarse) filter. Once you've selected for those who actually want to solve the problem (and not just "be" the one who solves it) there is still the the incredibly fine filter of who actually has the ability- that confluence of nature/nurture that is itself such a subject of debate.

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

#252

Post by absolutelynobo »

RC_ITR wrote: post #202
lmm wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Letting them get ahead is usually the best way to respect an intelligent student. I wouldn't put a lot of stock in one classmate's opinion about someone's emotional state, and a driving license is hardly the be all and end all (I didn't have one when I went to university, and never missed it). "Don't put students of any age through interrogation-style experiments that are designed to stress them" is probably a better…

Sure if you want the student to never be around same aged peers and struggle to develop a social life so they instead focus on their work, I agree.

Yes. It is a brutal existence. Social isolation can continue long past when you would expect it to end, after graduation from high school or college, because of the exploitive behaviors of employers and the self-exploitive nature of someone who only finds solace in work.

What is the solution? I will not spoil it for you, but it does not involve giving up.

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

#253

Post by absolutelynobo »

RC_ITR wrote: post #249
Zababa wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being at the same ability level matters way more than being at the same age. Speaking from personal experience, the whole "let's try to pretend that this kid is normal and that with enough time he will fit in" has had terrible consequences on my mental health, and even on my social ability with the rare people that I feel comfortable with. I think that in many case, trying to pretend that people are the same when the…

You realize there are plenty of places like Exeter, Andover, Stuyvesant, Boston Latin, Bronx Science, etc. full of genius children, right? I agree those places are much better than a given average High School. The problem is putting a child in an environment where they are surrounded by adults all the time. Like being 17 and having your 'peers' be 30 year old post-docs who are getting married and having children is a…

Why are you so focused on the NYC high-end high school segment? It is utterly unrelatable to 95% of all students and conservatively 85% of users here.

Being surrounded by adults all the time is only a problem if you never spend time around actual peers. Nobody should be forced to isolate themselves like that.

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

#254

Post by absolutelynobo »

Manu40 wrote: post #240
tambourine_man wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry Manu40, I’m just saying this whole growing up thing isn’t easy and with few correct answers. Most are still struggling to get over it decades later, myself included.

I mean, who can blame any of them, ourselves included. Instead of doing the right thing and setting the little snots straight, they instead hampered our progress all to make things easier for themselves while placating a bunch of children who needed to be taught the reality of the situation, not coddled into thinking they were 'just as capable' (when clearly they weren't). Quite frankly, I think we all should be band…

Surely there’s more to life for the top 1% of learners than trying to get retribution against public institutions. One might ask if you’re really as brilliant as you say if you can’t see that - or maybe you were just early as a child, and that’s all.

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

#255

Post by absolutelynobo »

Manu40 wrote: post #241
saberience wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was horribly bullied for being more advanced than my same-age classmates AND older children at high-school, placing me with even older kids (with whom presumably I would have even less in common) doesn't seem like it would have helped my situation.

Yeah, no... it probably wouldn't have helped; very much so for the reasons I have stated in reply to Tambourine. That said, I should add that 2 of those students ended up running into me again years later. They apologized, which was nice; but then offered me the chance to go do lines of coke with them... I declined, and went on with my life knowing doubly that my instinct about them was correct the whole time. Wastes…

> Wastes of skin.

I would flag your comment if I had the authority. This is not acceptable language for this forum.

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

#256

Post by Huh1337 »

RC_ITR wrote: post #246
Huh1337 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite causes the teacher as well as the peers to resent the more intelligent child, so which is better? I could read since I was 4. When others at school were reading one word per minute spelling letter by letter, I finished the whole article and then continued to another and another. Result? I got a teacher's note (a big deal where I live) almost every lesson, and bad grades. And the children hated me, probab…

I'm sure it was very hard for you to be a genius surrounded by dunces and I'm sorry those dunces didn't like you for no reason.

Kek

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

#257

Post by skinnymuch »

teachersaredumb wrote: post #186
noir_lord wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a maths teacher who accused me of cheating because we had coursework to solve a particular problem, I solved the problem for that case and then the general case using math she hadn’t taught me even had a pascal program that you could enter parameters and it’d give you the answer. She literally couldn’t get her head around a student going to the library, taking out a book on maths and teaching themselves because…

Among college-educated professionals, primary and secondary school teachers are near the bottom for intelligence, as measured by SAT scores. https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-average-sat-score-... The pay is shit, so intelligent people decide to pursue other passions instead of teaching. Also, the profession seems to attract the kind of people who like to exercise arbitrary authority over other people. Not a…

Isn’t the biggest or one of the biggest indicator of SAT scores is how wealthy/well off the test taker is?

Similarly, the IQ test is flawed too. Neither are representative of intelligence or what is required to be a good teacher

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

#258

Post by schwartzworld »

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 don't think that's entirely Fair. Anything you learned at a young age you're going to have more potential in. If you were introduced to X as a kid, you have years of doing or practicing X that someone else will never have, and those years come when your brain is still developing.

In my area the schools are providing computers at a young age and spending time teaching STEAM topics, for example. It's not going to make everybody into Nikola Tesla, but the effort to do something about it does exist.

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

#259

Post by gnubison »

renewiltord wrote: post #243
gnubison wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the stronger version?

Bertrand's postulate is that there is at least one prime between x and 2x for x>=1 Daniel Larsen's result here is that there are e^((log x)/((log log x)^(2+d))) Carmichael numbers between x and (x + x/((log x)^(1/(2+d)))) for x>=X (depends on d) e^((log x)/((log log x)^(2+d))) is >= 1 for all x >= 1. (x + x/((log x)^(1/(2+d)))) Stronger by being tighter than the (x,2x) bound and being more specific about the >= 1 num…

Thank you!

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

#260

Post by nuclearnice1 »

khazhoux wrote: post #245
vcxy wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely does stand on its own, haha. I appreciated it anyway

Thanks. Glad at least one person got it :-) I took a risk with the subtlety!

Haha now at last I love it
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