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At 17, Hannah Cairo solved a major math mystery

quantamagazine.org

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Re: At 17, Hannah Cairo solved a major math mystery

#141

Post by Timwi »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #54
anonzzzies wrote: post #5

As a pupil of Dijkstra and seeing at least some rise in formal verification because of the modern tooling and as a follower of Lean (and Agda, Coq, Idris* etc), I hope it will be at least a strive to deliver parts of proofs in code verifiable form. More machine verifiable building blocks will lead to a bettering of everything.

Offtopic, but I am 17 too just like Hannah Cairo but nothing too groundbreaking till now I suppose and it absolutely brings me delight that I can talk to somebody who was a pupil of Dijkstra, I have heard a lot about dijkstra's algorithm's and I had forgotten about it and so I searched it right now, but the only thing I knew is that it is pretty popular algorithm. If I had to ask you kind sir, what would be the bigge…

> what would be the biggest life lesson (in coding, or anything general)

Pursue what interests you and what fires up your passion, not what grown-ups tell you is “lucrative”, “prestigious”, “profitable” or somesuch.

Re: At 17, Hannah Cairo solved a major math mystery

#142

Post by barry-cotter »

rahkiin wrote: post #20
1024core wrote: post #18

> Only the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University were willing to welcome her straight into a doctoral program. She’ll start at Maryland in the fall. When she finishes, it will be her first degree. Jeez... what a damning indictment of today's Universities. She could just use her publication as a dissertation and be done with it!

Normally you have a master of science as well. And for that you require a bachelors. So to do it directly you need to do it all at once?

I have a Master’s and never got a Bachelor’s. Universities can admit people more or less as they please, subject only to the very forgiving scrutiny of accreditation agencies or whatever government department officially supervises them.

Re: At 17, Hannah Cairo solved a major math mystery

#143

Post by dragonwriter »

rahkiin wrote: post #20
1024core wrote: post #18

> Only the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University were willing to welcome her straight into a doctoral program. She’ll start at Maryland in the fall. When she finishes, it will be her first degree. Jeez... what a damning indictment of today's Universities. She could just use her publication as a dissertation and be done with it!

Normally you have a master of science as well. And for that you require a bachelors. So to do it directly you need to do it all at once?

> Normally you have a master of science as well. And for that you require a bachelors.

Many Master’s programs require Bachelor’s as a prerequisite for admission, and some of the others include a Bachelor’s at some point, but not all do. (The same is true of the Ph.D. and the stereotypically preceding degrees, and also of some professional degrees and Bachelor’s degrees.)

Re: At 17, Hannah Cairo solved a major math mystery

#144

Post by ykonstant »

com2kid wrote: post #81
xp84 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking about my GE requirements at undergrad, I think it would be a waste of this girl's time to be forced to learn about and write about random subjects that don't interest her. She has but one lifetime, and can contribute much to her field. The subjects such as English composition, she should be allowed to test out of if she is already a good writer.

> I think it would be a waste of this girl's time to be forced to learn about and write about random subjects that don't interest her. This is a common STEM view, but it is inherently wrong. IMHO it dates back to the unfortunate divide between science and the liberal arts, whereas both were once considered a single field, now days there is disdain and mistrust between the two sides. The point of history classes isn't…

>One of the most valuable classes I ever took at University was the Art Of Listening To Music.

I also benefited tremendously from such a class. I would recommend it to anyone interested in music, or not interested in music and trying to figure out why others are interested in music.

Re: At 17, Hannah Cairo solved a major math mystery

#145

Post by ykonstant »

dekhn wrote: post #115
laurent_du wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kaczynski was really not on the same level. By several orders of magnitude.

It's generally well documented that Kacynski was a highly talented mathematician.

Yes, but like the gp said, not even remotely close in skill.

Re: At 17, Hannah Cairo solved a major math mystery

#146

Post by ronjakoi »

cultofmetatron wrote: post #123
_benj wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe hot take… I can see the point of sameness in homeschooling, but compared to traditional education? I’m not sure how much flexibility one would have to teach oneself calculus by 11 or the equivalent of an undergrad in math by 14! That flexibility must be found in something non-traditional! I’m no prodigy at all whatsoever but school was mostly dull and filled with teenager drama! Nobody knew what Linux was, care…

its so much better nowadays. I"m 40 now and I'm low key jelous of kids today. Today if you want to learn to code, you have freecode camp and chatgpt to ask questions. Math? there's mathacademy and khanacademy. There are so many options now for learning stuff that we didn't have

For those who speak strong English, yes

Re: At 17, Hannah Cairo solved a major math mystery

#147

Post by erazor42 »

ronjakoi wrote: post #146
cultofmetatron wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its so much better nowadays. I"m 40 now and I'm low key jelous of kids today. Today if you want to learn to code, you have freecode camp and chatgpt to ask questions. Math? there's mathacademy and khanacademy. There are so many options now for learning stuff that we didn't have

For those who speak strong English, yes

khan academy is available in many language

Re: At 17, Hannah Cairo solved a major math mystery

#148

Post by diimdeep » 

  – were all homeschooled. Cairo started learning math using Khan Academy’s online lessons, and she quickly advanced through its standard curriculum. By the time she was 11 years old, she’d finished calculus
No normal childhood and certain kinds of parents, disproportionately more math education, there is certain downsides to all this, that articles like this conveniently avoid to mention.

Re: At 17, Hannah Cairo solved a major math mystery

#149

Post by revskill »

impish9208 wrote: post #37

“There was this inescapable sameness, in a way. No matter what I did, I was in the same place doing mostly the same things,” she said. “I was very isolated, and nothing I could do could really change that. I’d wake up on certain days and realize, I’m just older.” I finally have something in common with a math prodigy.

Loneliness is maththematician best friend.

Re: At 17, Hannah Cairo solved a major math mystery

#150

Post by terminalbraid »

yumraj wrote: post #133

Wonder why Berkeley didn’t offer her PhD admission given that she was already working with the Prof there.

I've been at institutions that explicitly discourage that because of that reason. They want you to get breadth of experience rather than work with the same one person for your early career.
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