Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

keith-mcnulty.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 287 posts

Re: New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

#61

Post by selimthegrim »

silisili wrote: post #41
oceansea wrote: post #3

[flagged]

> This is the Louisiana education system in the USA, a state which is rather notorious for having sub-par education What does this have to do with anything? Exceptional people come from absolutely anywhere, and seek to learn on their own. It's as true in Louisiana as it is in Massachusetts. Ken Thompson was born and (at least partly, afaik) raised in Louisiana, for example. Are we all just dumb people using a dumb pe…

There’s even people from the state that read this forum now and then

Re: New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

#64

Post by threatofrain »

uberman wrote: post #59
HL33tibCe7 wrote: post #9

> By all accounts, these two teenage math students are the exact opposite of the majority of the math establishment. They are female, they are African-American, and they come from an area which is not particularly renowned for producing high academic achievers. This is just an awesome turn of events and one which should inspire anyone — no matter what their ethnic, gender or socio-demographic background — that excell…

How would it be remiss to omit these factors, several of which seen irrelevant. Are you suggesting that their proof be discounted because it might be divinely inspired?

The article is highlighting the inspirational quality of two black women from an underachieving area; it's not just about the proof. The inspirational story is an important element.

Adding that these two youths came from a private school certainly relates to the "underachieving area" part of the story.

Re: New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

#65

Post by Jarmsy »

Y_Y wrote: post #48

I've seen this construction before. It's very cool, but I don't think it's novel. In any case it's a cool article and it must be great for a couple of young students to present to the AMS.

Where is it you think you've seen it before?

Re: New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

#66

Post by [deleted] »

HL33tibCe7 wrote: post #9

> By all accounts, these two teenage math students are the exact opposite of the majority of the math establishment. They are female, they are African-American, and they come from an area which is not particularly renowned for producing high academic achievers. This is just an awesome turn of events and one which should inspire anyone — no matter what their ethnic, gender or socio-demographic background — that excell…

[deleted]

Re: New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

#69

Post by azinman2 »

varenc wrote: post #53
majormajor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get why that's the default behavior but "adds nothing of substance" is a huge generalization that fails in this case. An article with zero details about the proof could easily be titled "New Orleans Teenagers Found a New Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem" but couldn't accurately be titled "Here’s How Two New Orleans Teenagers Found a New Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem." Whereas here it says it'll have more details…

This is getting off topic, but IMHO the HN default behavior here is reasonable. There's certainly situations where removing the leading "Here's How" makes the title worse, but I think those instances are rare and in general this rule leads to better titles much more often than worse titles. Manual human review would of course be better, but dang only runs in O(n) time. Basically, it's not perfect but I think it does…

It also doesn’t tell you “how” either. Almost never does an article tell you “how” or “why” despite it being the first word.

Re: New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

#70

Post by dang »

klyrs wrote: post #47
oceansea wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Speaking as a mathematician with a PhD, you're wrong about proofs. You're wrong about this site, which intends to promote a curious and celebratory attitude towards knowledge. Ironically, it is you who is displaying the hateful attitude that you bemoan. Please adjust your attitude, or see yourself out. And do re-read the article; the author is attempting to reconstruct their proof without seeing it. You're attacking…

Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: just for clarity, your comment would be fine without the 3rd and 4th sentences and the final bit.

Post reply on HN