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Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

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Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#211

Post by lmm »

RC_ITR wrote: post #202
lmm wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Letting them get ahead is usually the best way to respect an intelligent student. I wouldn't put a lot of stock in one classmate's opinion about someone's emotional state, and a driving license is hardly the be all and end all (I didn't have one when I went to university, and never missed it). "Don't put students of any age through interrogation-style experiments that are designed to stress them" is probably a better…

Sure if you want the student to never be around same aged peers and struggle to develop a social life so they instead focus on their work, I agree.

Students can tell who's smarter and who's not, and someone at the same level of learning will always be far more of a peer than someone who happens to be the same age. All the available evidence is that the best thing for children's social life is to let them interact with people at the same learning level rather than the same age. (To say nothing of the fact that segregating students by age is unnatural in the first place, and traditional cultures where kids grow up around people of a wide range of ages are far better for their social development than the western school model...).

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#212

Post by TrackerFF »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #19

Getting older, sometimes it can be so tough to accept the fact that people a fraction of your age achieve things you never will. Given the extreme connectivity of the present, we are also exposed to brilliant minds with incredible capabilities, making us (me at least) feel even more incapable.. I guess it is a lesson for humility. Good job Daniel, you show us !

I see lots of users here hammering on about IQ - but that's just one factor.

The kid grew up with two mathematicians, so I'm sure they knew how to get him in the right direction. Kids also tend to value whatever their parents are doing.

And not to mention that most kids have all the time in the world to do what they enjoy - and rarely have other concerns.

I'm a musician, and grew up playing my instrument from 4 to 8 hours a day, every day, almost all year round. It was pretty much the only thing I did between age 10 to 18. I had very supportive family and mentors, and got lots of chances others at my age did not.

Naturally, I met a lot of other talented kid. Some child prodigies.

One thing I have noticed afterwards: Being at such a high level as a kid - does not necessarily mean you'll go on to do great things later in life. Some kids just grow out of it, lose interest and motivation, and - well - life often just happens. Even among the most talented, only a small % of them end up doing remarkable stuff later on.

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#213

Post by saberience »

Manu40 wrote: post #188
tambourine_man wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’d still have a problem mixing 7, 12 and 15 year old kids. Perhaps not as much as 15 with 20, but still. This growing up thing is hard.

You are so far from wrong, it hurts me to think about it. Due to having a reading level 10 years ahead of my peers, and already having learned math concepts at least 4 years ahead of them... at age 8... I was put 3 years ahead of my peers in school until the teachers realized the other kids were having none of it. They put me back in the 'proper' grade, because 'I' somehow wasn't going to develop social skills well e…

I was horribly bullied for being more advanced than my same-age classmates AND older children at high-school, placing me with even older kids (with whom presumably I would have even less in common) doesn't seem like it would have helped my situation.

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#214

Post by ctchocula »

jablongo wrote: post #94
ok_dad wrote: post #43

I knew a guy in high school that carried around a sub-compact notebook and one day in science class we were learning about how to factor quadratic equations (a review of old math we should know) and this guy was not paying attention at all, just typing away. The teacher asked him what he was doing that was so important that he couldn't listen, and to please come up and solve the problem. This kid walked straight up t…

> A computer program to factor any polynomial equation string input to it: Do you mean a program to solve for f(x) = 0 using numerical approximation? Factorization has a specific meaning and is not necessarily possible for quintic and higher-degree polynomials / there is no closed form solution like the quadratic formula for n>=5.

To clarify, there do exist closed form solutions for quintic functions; they just cannot be expressed using rationals and a limited set of operations of additions, subtractions, multiplications, divisions, and root extractions. However, if you do not limit yourself to those operations, there do exist closed form solutions to quintics. See [1] for a few examples.

[1] https://mathworld.wolfram.com/QuinticEquation.html

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#215

Post by selimthegrim »

MikePlacid wrote: post #110
selimthegrim wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come to New Orleans and after I am done giving you tour of some neighborhoods let's see what you say.

As one Indian professor I don’t know said to a Russian-Mexican professor I do know while the latter was giving the former a tour on some unhappy parts of Mexico City: “You want to surprise me with poverty? Look, everyone here has shoes”. Our company moved to San Francisco in late 90s to save money before IPO. The location was right near Tenderloin, the murder capital of the US. I walked through it from time to time.…

Quite frankly after what Brodsky said about Ukrainians I’m not feeling much sympathy for him - even if it was in response to historical anti-Semitism

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#216

Post by Huh1337 »

RC_ITR wrote: post #202
lmm wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Letting them get ahead is usually the best way to respect an intelligent student. I wouldn't put a lot of stock in one classmate's opinion about someone's emotional state, and a driving license is hardly the be all and end all (I didn't have one when I went to university, and never missed it). "Don't put students of any age through interrogation-style experiments that are designed to stress them" is probably a better…

Sure if you want the student to never be around same aged peers and struggle to develop a social life so they instead focus on their work, I agree.

The opposite causes the teacher as well as the peers to resent the more intelligent child, so which is better?

I could read since I was 4. When others at school were reading one word per minute spelling letter by letter, I finished the whole article and then continued to another and another. Result? I got a teacher's note (a big deal where I live) almost every lesson, and bad grades. And the children hated me, probably mostly because of the teacher mocking me for not paying attention. I would give anything to be boosted to similarly skilled children. I was friends with them anyways, never really liked the kids from my grade (but that could've been avoided if I wasn't forced to "learn" with them).

I've never seen a boosted child say it wasn't worth it or that they had much problems being a year/two younger than their classmates. Actually, smaller schools here usually combine 2-3 grades into one anyways and the children are friends alright, so boosting the taught curriculum is really not a big deal (unfortunately the system didn't allow it when I went to school).

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#217

Post by noir_lord »

Semaphor wrote: post #210
noir_lord wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a maths teacher who accused me of cheating because we had coursework to solve a particular problem, I solved the problem for that case and then the general case using math she hadn’t taught me even had a pascal program that you could enter parameters and it’d give you the answer. She literally couldn’t get her head around a student going to the library, taking out a book on maths and teaching themselves because…

> The UK has a very strange educational system, curiosity isn’t encouraged, you learn like a good little peg in a round hole. That was the feeling I had after one week in a UK school through an exchange program. Because my original exchange partner quit on me after seeing my picture, I got assigned a different one who was 2 grades higher. I was pretty average in math back in Germany, but in that class, 2 years above…

25ish for me.

I have a step-son who is (nearly) 13 and about to start seriously in on his GCSE's - the situation hasn't improved, the non-higher tier papers are just embarrassing, the foundational tier he could have done well by the time he was 10 - he likes maths and I always wished I'd pushed it harder when I was young but a spectacularly shitty home-life ensured while I did decent in my GCSE's I didn't do what I could have done - I make sure he doesn't have the same problem.

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#218

Post by jvvw »

JadeNB wrote: post #74
ok_dad wrote: post #43

I knew a guy in high school that carried around a sub-compact notebook and one day in science class we were learning about how to factor quadratic equations (a review of old math we should know) and this guy was not paying attention at all, just typing away. The teacher asked him what he was doing that was so important that he couldn't listen, and to please come up and solve the problem. This kid walked straight up t…

> Since then, I don't feel bad if someone achieves more than me, because clearly there are some people out there that are born to solve certain classes of problems (maybe their brain structure is better for those, or something, who knows). As a math teacher, I very much like every part of your comment except for this. There are way too many people who decide never to try mathematics because they weren't born to it. I…

Maryam Mirzakhani is a lovely 3xamoke of somebody who didn't find mathematics effortlessly easy as a child.

On the other hand, there definitely are people for whom mathematics is much easier than others. I found mathematics effortless at school and even to an extent at university in a way that other people clearly didn't. I did work at the Olympiad type stuff at school I guess but that felt like fun.

I didn't become a Fields Medallist though :-)

Most of the international-calibre mathematicians I have crossed paths with did find a certain level of maths effortless in the same way I did I think, but they also worked hard, although not necessarily relentlessly. Most certainly had other interests outside mathematics. They all really really loved mathematics.

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#219

Post by pfdietz »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #196
pfdietz wrote: post #165

This guy has Sitzfleisch, a very useful thing for a mathematician to have.

Do Germans really say that people with grit have a lot of "butt" because that's what its looking like here!

Yes, that's the other meaning of the word. :)

Here, it means the mental stamina to sit down and focus on a single problem for a long time.

Disclaimer: I'm not German (although some ancestors in the 1800s were.)

Re: Teenager solves stubborn riddle about prime number look-alikes

#220

Post by tambourine_man »

Manu40 wrote: post #188
tambourine_man wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’d still have a problem mixing 7, 12 and 15 year old kids. Perhaps not as much as 15 with 20, but still. This growing up thing is hard.

You are so far from wrong, it hurts me to think about it. Due to having a reading level 10 years ahead of my peers, and already having learned math concepts at least 4 years ahead of them... at age 8... I was put 3 years ahead of my peers in school until the teachers realized the other kids were having none of it. They put me back in the 'proper' grade, because 'I' somehow wasn't going to develop social skills well e…

Sorry Manu40, I’m just saying this whole growing up thing isn’t easy and with few correct answers.

Most are still struggling to get over it decades later, myself included.

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