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At 17, Hannah Cairo solved a major math mystery

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

#181

Post by shivasaxena »

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

I'm 36, but to be fair even in late 90s when we were kids we had

1) Forums like askanexper(can't remember the exact name) 2) great books like sams teach yourself in 24 hours and a habit to spend time in library 3) most importantly not as much competition as we have today. There were like a 2-3 kids in my schools of 2k who were into programming. Today that would be approaching half.

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

#182

Post by throwaway81523 »

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!

There is a story about when Stephen Wolfram applied for a job at AT&T. The HR person asked him where had gone to college. Wolfram confessed that he had never gone to college. Well ok, did you graduate high school? Um no, I'm afraid not. GED? Nope. What about primary school? Wolfram looks more and more more embarrassed, and admits that he didn't even finish primary school. HR person by now is quite uncomfortable when Wolfram manages to think of something. He says "I do happen to have a Ph.D. Does that help?"

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

#183

Post by dekhn »

garbthetill wrote: post #179
ykonstant wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am familiar with both of their work and can judge the relative quality.

just to clarify, do you mean Kaczynski is not on the level of Grothendieck? In which I can agree

no, he's saying Kacyznski is not on the level of Hannah Cairo. If he meant Grothendieck, that's another conversation. Reading the context of this subthread, it should be clear we're discussing Kacyznski vs. Cairo.

I don't have the knowledge to evaluate this, but I still think Cairo has not esta blished enough work to say she's far ahead of Kacyznski.

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

#184

Post by garbthetill »

dekhn wrote: post #183
garbthetill wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just to clarify, do you mean Kaczynski is not on the level of Grothendieck? In which I can agree

no, he's saying Kacyznski is not on the level of Hannah Cairo. If he meant Grothendieck, that's another conversation. Reading the context of this subthread, it should be clear we're discussing Kacyznski vs. Cairo. I don't have the knowledge to evaluate this, but I still think Cairo has not esta blished enough work to say she's far ahead of Kacyznski.

thanks for the clarification, I also dont have the ability to evaluate who is better kacyznski v cairo. hence why i assumed the original commenter meant kaczynski vs grothendieck because for one kacyznski has a phd in maths, cairo does not have that metal yet

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

#185

Post by sperginator »

kelp_herder wrote: post #122
xandrius wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if that was the reason. Also, I've seen a great deal of adult babies in academia, so let's not be ageist here.

I suspect the reason is not about babying her as much as it is a concern for her development, about whether she would be "missing out" on the opportunities for social and intellectual growth in college. This kind of thing is usually why well intentioned higher ed people put roadblocks in front of precocious young people.

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