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Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

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Re: Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

#161

Post by drilbo »

astrange wrote: post #65
wyre wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely the most used because of its affordablity and easy access. Coffee, energy drinks, tea, caffiene pills, etc. I wonder what academia would look like if adderall, vyvanse, modafinil were just as accessible, or even less controlled substances that are considered to enhance mental performance like L-tyrosine, alpha-GPC, Lion's Mane mushroom, Bacopa, or Ginko.

Alpha-GPC is just choline, so you can get it by eating eggs. Amino acids and mushrooms are also quite accessible. Modafinil is straight up better than caffeine though, which is a crappy and addictive stimulant.

"just" choline is a little reductionist, it's much more bioavailable.

I'm not sure where the distinction actually lies, but it is also considered a (generally recognized as safe) drug.

Re: Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

#162

Post by Supermancho »

ecshafer wrote: post #113
jyunwai wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The admissions process to universities in the province of Ontario in Canada has a direct solution for this, which applies to well-known universities in the global technology industry, such as the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo. Most of these universities look at an applicant's grades for just six courses. After looking at the courses required for certain programs (such as calculus and physics fo…

6 courses in your senior year doesn't seem like a great solution. If you figure you take Math, Science, History, English in your senior year, Then take 2 electives, that is basically a full schedule already. Short of replacing one of the poor grades with a freebie like Gym, I am not seeing where that solves the issue. This might be a difference in US and Canadian education, so maybe 6 courses means something differen…

You can get tested into qualification, by most colleges. Colleges (which includes Universities, State schools, etc) aren't robotic. This is part of the responsibility of the administration. You may get delayed a semester or a year, with a little community college gatekeeping. Dedicated students can always get into a University.

Re: Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

#163

Post by fuzzythinker »

rramadass wrote: post #112

For people interested in learning more about Ramanujan and his Works; 1) Mathematics Wizard Srinivasa Ramanujan : Some glimpses into his Life and Work by two Indian Mathematicians Narendra Kumar Govil and Bhu Dev Sharma is a good biography with an introduction to his Mathematics and links to further resources. Good complement to Robert Kanigel's book The Man Who Knew Infinity . 2) In order to understand the fascinati…

I enjoyed the movie on The Man Who Knew Infinity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Knew_Infinity

Re: Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

#164

Post by bonzini »

trgn wrote: post #81
nordsieck wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, you're thinking about this backwards. It's good that public school exposes children to many subjects - hopefully most of them. So that they can discover if they click with one of them. The real danger is that someone never gets exposed to a subject at all. College is the place to specialize in a subject.

> College is the place to specialize in a subject. In Europe maybe, but in America a lot of students receive their general purpose liberal arts education in College, and will then specialize later with a post graduate degree.

So what is high school for?

Also does the above apply also to the most selective and renowned institutions, or only to community colleges?

Re: Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

#165

Post by willy_k »

drilbo wrote: post #160
willy_k wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC nicotine itself isn’t super addictive when used solely in a less addictive form, as in gum or patch.

Have you ever tried taking a vape away from a teenager? ...or me?

A vape is definitely not a less addictive form, I can attest to that. But especially with the patch, and to a lesser extend with gum, it’s not that addictive to (most) people who that never had a cigarette/vaping/dipping/pouching addiction. Gum is probably still more addictive than coffee but I would guess it’s at least closer to that of coffee than inhaling it.

Re: Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

#167

Post by philwelch »

babyent wrote: post #5

That was a fun read. What really stuck out to me was how R failed in a bunch of other subjects except math because he wasn’t interested in them. I know society and norms expect students to learn all these other subjects. But what if those just aren’t interesting to someone? I wonder how many geniuses we skip on because doing the chores of homework and getting through boring classes is busywork and memorization for th…

Ramanujan was, what, a 1 in 100,000,000 level genius? The gap between Ramanujan and the average class valedictorian is much wider than the gap between the class valedictorian and the average student. I think if we optimize schooling for people like him, we are probably not going to do as well for the other 99,999,999 students.

We probably aren’t going to get it quite right for that 1, either. Extreme outlier geniuses are extreme outliers and there’s no easily generalizable pattern around them. The ideal education for a young Ramanujan is probably different from the ideal education for a young Von Neumann. Of course in an ideal world we would give an extremely individualized education to every child, but that’s much easier said than done. Failing that maybe we could identify and then invest in the extreme geniuses, but that’s what we already try to do.

Re: Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

#168

Post by rramadass »

fuzzythinker wrote: post #163
rramadass wrote: post #112

For people interested in learning more about Ramanujan and his Works; 1) Mathematics Wizard Srinivasa Ramanujan : Some glimpses into his Life and Work by two Indian Mathematicians Narendra Kumar Govil and Bhu Dev Sharma is a good biography with an introduction to his Mathematics and links to further resources. Good complement to Robert Kanigel's book The Man Who Knew Infinity . 2) In order to understand the fascinati…

I enjoyed the movie on The Man Who Knew Infinity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Knew_Infinity

Also see some of Ramanujan biographic documentaries on Youtube, specifically;

The Man Who Loved Numbers - Srinivasa Ramanujan documentary (1988) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqP2c5xNaTU

Srinivasa Ramanujan: The Mathematician and His Legacy (2016) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5jsgBvJMUc

Re: Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

#169

Post by flockonus »

nordsieck wrote: post #12
babyent wrote: post #5

That was a fun read. What really stuck out to me was how R failed in a bunch of other subjects except math because he wasn’t interested in them. I know society and norms expect students to learn all these other subjects. But what if those just aren’t interesting to someone? I wonder how many geniuses we skip on because doing the chores of homework and getting through boring classes is busywork and memorization for th…

IMO, you're thinking about this backwards. It's good that public school exposes children to many subjects - hopefully most of them. So that they can discover if they click with one of them. The real danger is that someone never gets exposed to a subject at all. College is the place to specialize in a subject.

To overemphasize in a complex topic as good | bad is overly simplistic and doesn't help at all. Hardly anything is complete good or completely bad, it's meaningless to make a black or white point.
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