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Mathematical genius is fragile

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Re: Mathematical genius is fragile

#21

Post by deepnotderp »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #18
malanj wrote: post #2

The author lost me at "Mathematical genius resides within every one of us — most people just don’t know it yet." The movie Ratatouille captured the sentiment much better, "a great chef can be anyone". Which is not the same as "anyone can be a great chef". It seems the author is mixing up those two. I fully agree that gender, background, schooling, etc is not the key determination of genius. However, saying anyone cou…

Math is a high IQ game. Anyone who tells you otherwise is kidding themselves.

Except iq is a terrible metric....

Re: Mathematical genius is fragile

#22

Post by osti »

imakecomments wrote: post #12

There are other examples of mathematical late bloomers. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Smale He almost got kicked out of graduate school. Later went on to win the Fields Medal.

I read somewhere that hes incredibly smart, but very lazy. Just because he didnt do too well ealier on dosent mean he's not a genius. Most people no matter how much they work, still won't achieve 1/100th of what he did.

Re: Mathematical genius is fragile

#23

Post by jessaustin »

carsongross wrote: post #15

With common core, math is mostly now word problems, which makes them as much reading comprehension as abstract mathematical problems. This is going to be especially brutal for boys, who typically trail girls in reading skills early on. I expect in a decade the current 2-1 female-male ratio in higher education is going to reach such crisis levels that even our media will be unable to ignore it, as they do currently.

It will be shocking if there's a 2:1 female:male ratio at the bleeding edge of math anytime in the next century, even if word problems are required at lower levels. As for the rest of the fields, I suspect the media as currently constituted to celebrate rather than lament, when they can no longer ignore the situation entirely.

[EDIT:] 'HeavenBanned's sibling comment should be restored; it's a good point that is seldom made about math.

Re: Mathematical genius is fragile

#25

Post by vivekd »

His last point about poverty destroying genius was what really struck me. I remember reading that 71% of the world's population lives on less than $10 a day. That doesn't seem to be enough to get a decent education and contribute meaningfully to any field. This means that the world is working at 30% capacity. Our species only gets innovations from the 30% of inventors, entrepreneurs, politicians, scientists who were born in circumstances that allow them to contribute. How many more Srinivasa Ramanujans are there scattered throughout the world who simply didn't run into an obscure textbook or write to all the worlds top mathematicians. What would our species be like if we were working at closer to 100% capacity in terms of scientific innovations and discoveries.

Re: Mathematical genius is fragile

#26

Post by tnzn »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #18
malanj wrote: post #2

The author lost me at "Mathematical genius resides within every one of us — most people just don’t know it yet." The movie Ratatouille captured the sentiment much better, "a great chef can be anyone". Which is not the same as "anyone can be a great chef". It seems the author is mixing up those two. I fully agree that gender, background, schooling, etc is not the key determination of genius. However, saying anyone cou…

Math is a high IQ game. Anyone who tells you otherwise is kidding themselves.

Nope, it's a high logico-mathematics IQ game (no shit ?), Which is only part of IQ.

Re: Mathematical genius is fragile

#28

Post by iklos55 »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #18
malanj wrote: post #2

The author lost me at "Mathematical genius resides within every one of us — most people just don’t know it yet." The movie Ratatouille captured the sentiment much better, "a great chef can be anyone". Which is not the same as "anyone can be a great chef". It seems the author is mixing up those two. I fully agree that gender, background, schooling, etc is not the key determination of genius. However, saying anyone cou…

Math is a high IQ game. Anyone who tells you otherwise is kidding themselves.

How do you define 'high IQ'? +30 from height of bell curve or how much exactly?

Re: Mathematical genius is fragile

#29

Post by Godel_unicode »

psyc wrote: post #17
alimw wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many women are not attracted to work in fields populated 90% by males. I believe this to be a more subtle problem that you suggest; you might eliminate all sexual harassment and it would still be the case. EDIT: not calling anyone a liar.

What I am saying, is that the two biggest complaints that women who have worked in this industry have stated to me, are being hit on, and being harassed. Not as a single incident, but as a pattern. The only argument you could make against this is that I'm lying, and women haven't actually said these things to me.

> The only argument you could make against this is that I'm lying

First, that's lacking in civility, you've been here long enough to know that tone isn't appropriate.

Now then. The fact that your experience is not statistically significant isn't a possible counter argument? In order for you to be right, you would need evidence not only that most female mathematicians were harassed, but that they left the field because of if. If you have exit interview data for a random sample of former mathematicians, there are a lot of people here who would probably love to talk to you.

This is an especially unfortunate stance given that this is an article about math.

Edit: I make no claims one way or the other, I'm only talking about statistical validity.

Re: Mathematical genius is fragile

#30

Post by Godel_unicode »

alimw wrote: post #14
psyc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women report being driven out by men hitting on them and sexually harassing them.

Many women are not attracted to work in fields populated 90% by males. I believe this to be a more subtle problem that you suggest; you might eliminate all sexual harassment and it would still be the case. EDIT: not calling anyone a liar.

Fwiw, I didn't read your post as an attack, you'll need a wider sample to be sure what others thought though :)
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