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A Math Genius Blooms Late and Conquers His Field

wired.com

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Re: A Math Genius Blooms Late and Conquers His Field

#11

Post by bradjohnson »

vinhboy wrote: post #9

> his father taught statistics and his mother became one of the first professors of Russian literature in South Korea I notice that really talented people, always have talented parents. Rarely do I read stories about poor blue collar parents producing science wiz. It leads me to believe that genetics play a much bigger role in our intelligence than nurture.

Why does it lead you to believe that? If they have talented parents, wouldn't the parents raise them in a way to encourage their talents to blossom?

Would be interesting to see if the children of talented parents that are put up for adoption and raised by average parents are as successful. Or vice versa, talented parents raising children of average parents.

Re: A Math Genius Blooms Late and Conquers His Field

#12

Post by psyc »

vinhboy wrote: post #9

> his father taught statistics and his mother became one of the first professors of Russian literature in South Korea I notice that really talented people, always have talented parents. Rarely do I read stories about poor blue collar parents producing science wiz. It leads me to believe that genetics play a much bigger role in our intelligence than nurture.

Income, genetics, and upbringing are 3 distinct things, regardless of whether they're correlated.

Re: A Math Genius Blooms Late and Conquers His Field

#14

Post by dlo »

vinhboy wrote: post #9

> his father taught statistics and his mother became one of the first professors of Russian literature in South Korea I notice that really talented people, always have talented parents. Rarely do I read stories about poor blue collar parents producing science wiz. It leads me to believe that genetics play a much bigger role in our intelligence than nurture.

> Rarely do I read stories about poor blue collar parents producing Princeton math wiz.

Rare. But when it happens, it rocks the Earth. [1]

[1] Richard Feynman

Re: A Math Genius Blooms Late and Conquers His Field

#15

Post by deepnotderp »

vinhboy wrote: post #9

> his father taught statistics and his mother became one of the first professors of Russian literature in South Korea I notice that really talented people, always have talented parents. Rarely do I read stories about poor blue collar parents producing science wiz. It leads me to believe that genetics play a much bigger role in our intelligence than nurture.

Ramanujan is one.

Re: A Math Genius Blooms Late and Conquers His Field

#16

Post by vinhboy »

bradjohnson wrote: post #11
vinhboy wrote: post #9

> his father taught statistics and his mother became one of the first professors of Russian literature in South Korea I notice that really talented people, always have talented parents. Rarely do I read stories about poor blue collar parents producing science wiz. It leads me to believe that genetics play a much bigger role in our intelligence than nurture.

Why does it lead you to believe that? If they have talented parents, wouldn't the parents raise them in a way to encourage their talents to blossom? Would be interesting to see if the children of talented parents that are put up for adoption and raised by average parents are as successful. Or vice versa, talented parents raising children of average parents.

I guess you're right. I am obviously not that smart... Haha..

But to your point, Steve Jobs is an example of that. He had blue collar adoptive parents, but his birth parents were PhD level people.

I am not gonna put my foot in my mouth again and say this is proof of anything, but it is interesting to me.

Re: A Math Genius Blooms Late and Conquers His Field

#17

Post by omaranto »

codepie wrote: post #5

As another user pointed out, why should be the chromatic polynomial of rectangle with deleted edge be: q^4 - 3q^3 + 2q^2 and not q * (q - 1)^3. A counter example: when q=2, we have two ways to color the rectangle with a deleted edge. Am I missing something? I think fixating q as the number of possible ways to color the end points of the deleted edge leads to the wrong result.

This article was "reprinted" from the original at Quanta Magazine. The original article has the correct answer of q(q-1)^3. (It was probably corrected after Wired "reprinted" it.)

https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-path-less-taken-to-the-peak...

Re: A Math Genius Blooms Late and Conquers His Field

#19

Post by dfinlay »

vinhboy wrote: post #9

> his father taught statistics and his mother became one of the first professors of Russian literature in South Korea I notice that really talented people, always have talented parents. Rarely do I read stories about poor blue collar parents producing science wiz. It leads me to believe that genetics play a much bigger role in our intelligence than nurture.

Teaching your child statistics is definitively nurture.
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