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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

#301

Post by ben_w »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #173
seiferteric wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exposure is good, but success in school requires you to be successful in these subjects as well. I have had similar thoughts recently as OP thinking about what I want for my young kids and what my experiences in school were. Being _really_ good in one thing should allow you to make up for being subpar in other areas, but it doesn't. You can only get an A (or A+) in math for example, even if your a genius. But maybe y…

Something about this sniffs as elitist to me. A person who’s intelligent is curious and a person who’s curious should be curious about all things, not just some limited set. Now, that’s not to say the only issue is someone’s curiosity. Traditional teaching methods make it very hard to be interested in some topics (history and language comes to mind), but barring that, I’m not sure I accept “it’s not interesting” as a…

The only intelligence on earth capable of being equally curious about all things, of not needing to discriminate and focus only on preferred subjects, is the artificial kind of intelligence.

The rest of us don't live long enough compared to our reading speed.

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

#302

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

maeil wrote: post #177
kumarm wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to understand how human potential was wasted in old world, Ramanujan belongs to a caste in India that is only caste that is supposed to be educated (Representing probably Ramanujan short life itself is a loss to the world, Imagine how many Ramanujan's were ignored where there is no G.H. Hardy and what about Ramanujans in the other 95%?

In the New World, the Ramanujans' lives are spent optimizing high-frequency trading, ads or video recommendation algorithms. This is arguably even worse for society than them not being discovered altogethrt.

People like Ramanujan are on a different planet compared to your everyday PhD working stiffs. There's smart (PhD), there's genius (Einstein, Feynman, von Neumann), and then there are freaks of nature like Ramanujan.

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

#303

Post by gaoshan »

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…

"...they weren't interesting to him". That’s how I felt about mathematics. History, literature and language were the areas I was interested in, for example. It seems to me that an individual’s strengths aren’t necessarily indicative of an all-encompassing genius. Rather, they are often more focused, tied to specific subjects or fields in which that person naturally excels. That's not to say an individual can't have a wide range of strengths.

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

#304

Post by elijaht »

WgaqPdNr7PGLGVW wrote: post #54
elijaht wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's the point - "pretty good" isn't good enough for a top school to want to admit you. Second year college/CS is pretty good but I went to a great high school where there were 50+ kids at that level. That's not enough to stand out in a meaningful way. Whereas if someone was Ramanujan-level, their raw talent would be so apparent they wouldn't have this issue and would clearly stand out.

> Second year college/CS is pretty good but I went to a great high school where there were 50+ kids at that level. That's not enough to stand out in a meaningful way. It is not enough to stand out in the current system . The parent was saying selecting the 50 kids who can handle it is a much better approach than just taking the highest overall grades. The average A's across the board high school student can't handle…

> It is not enough to stand out in the current system.

What I'm saying is in some hypothetical system which places a great emphasis on specialization, people who are a few years ahead of curriculum are a dime a dozen and will not stand out. There were 50 kids in my high school, so how many is that nationwide?

Particularly in math, it is straightforward for an exceptional talent to stand out. Competitive math is a clear pathway/credential. If someone is not able to achieve meaningful results then it's probably just the case that they aren't as talented as they believe

> Imagine if jobs worked like this - "Yes, we know you are a great developer but you don't really understand economics. Sorry".

There are plenty of software devs who are not getting hired to the potential of their raw development skills because they cannot communicate or collaborate productively. There are also plenty of software devs who are not getting hired to the potential of their raw development skills because they don't have as much domain knowledge as other devs.

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

#305

Post by jjmarr »

jyunwai wrote: post #56
seiferteric wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exposure is good, but success in school requires you to be successful in these subjects as well. I have had similar thoughts recently as OP thinking about what I want for my young kids and what my experiences in school were. Being _really_ good in one thing should allow you to make up for being subpar in other areas, but it doesn't. You can only get an A (or A+) in math for example, even if your a genius. But maybe y…

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…

In 2024 you are not getting into Waterloo CS with anything less than a 99% in your top6. And that's the entry level. If you really want to get in, you have to grind math competitions, clubs, etc.

I go to a mid-tier university (Toronto Metropolitan University) and the admissions average for CS was 97% last year.

The admissions process for universities in Ontario is a joke at this point. Imagine if students going to Harvard instead of SUNY Plattsburgh differed by 2 percentage points in their high school averages.

This means you must be absolutely perfect to have a shot of getting into a good school. In reality, teachers overlook mistakes and just give you the marks needed to get into top school if they think you deserve it. But because everyone does that, you also need to farm extracurriculars.

Maybe I'll write a blog post about this since it sounds like people are interested.

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

#306

Post by sourcepluck »

This thread is a good example of one of the perhaps overlooked reasons it can be hard to discuss education in our societies - any attempt at making a general point, or a meta-observation of some kind, quickly gets swallowed in a massive influx of personal anecdotes about things that happened to people during their education.

Maybe there are other topics where the same phemonen exists. I'm not sure if off the top of my head I can think of one where it gets so intense so quickly - long, detailed, emotionally charged anecdotes immediately when school comes up! [I love a good yarn, and am not judging or belittling people for expressing themselves here, I must stress].

I have speculated in my comfy armchair as to why our education structures seem to make venting such a need for people. Anecdotally, there does seem to be a suggestion of some sort of lingering and powerful malaise around the whole thing, in any case.

I wonder if it's like an abusive relationship - the emotional work required to move on and have better relationships (i.e., different educational structures) gets so large at some stage that all you can focus on is "coping". And you're sort of stuck, and the cycle more or less continues.

EDIT: may I just add - I read that whole article, and am very fond of Ramanujan. He made university much harder for me when I learned about his existence, as my maths classes seemed so far removed from whatever it was he was doing.

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

#307

Post by coliveira »

kiba wrote: post #100
coliveira wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and do so with relative competency I dispute this on the grounds that students are going through American schools and many of them don't even know how to read.

92% of adults know how to read to varying level.[1] The number, while high, is not satisfactory. Clearly, we also want adults to be functionally and not pass a super low bar of being able to read a sentence which 92% does not care to distinguish, but it is not fact true that "many of them don't even know how to read". 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States

Right there you have 8%. But it is worse because it says they're able to "read to varying level", which includes 2nd grade level, or barely at all.

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

#308

Post by TimTheTinker »

esafak wrote: post #40
Arainach wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College is not trade school. College exists not to generate people who are masters of Framework v3.0, but to generate people who can quickly learn to use whatever tool they're given and who can connect the dots to solve generic problems. Part of that is exposure to a broad range of ideas. Part of that is showing that you can learn about and deliver results on things you're not necessarily excited about.

Isn't that what high school is for? What's the difference then?

That is what high school is, for families where parents want their kids to learn to learn and are well-resourced enough to teach the kids themselves or pay someone to teach.

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

#309

Post by Der_Einzige »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #302
maeil wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the New World, the Ramanujans' lives are spent optimizing high-frequency trading, ads or video recommendation algorithms. This is arguably even worse for society than them not being discovered altogethrt.

People like Ramanujan are on a different planet compared to your everyday PhD working stiffs. There's smart (PhD), there's genius (Einstein, Feynman, von Neumann), and then there are freaks of nature like Ramanujan.

I'm an atheist, but why not take Ramanujan at his word when he says that god(s) gives him his equations?

I for one would ask him what we could do to make it easier for him to listen to the voice of god(s) rather than say "well akshually..."

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

#310

Post by spollo »

boringg wrote: post #288
computerdl wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I agree with the sentiment, the Ontario university system doesn't actually work that way. For example for Software Engineering at Waterloo, the admission average is calculated using the five required courses plus whatever your highest course is excluding the former[0]. In practice, I believe every single Ontario university program lists English one of the required courses so it will always be included in you…

And it should always be included as one of the important courses in Canada. If you can't communicate your thoughts clearly then your thoughts never really translate into the real world.

From what I remember, the later years of English class (in Ontario) are more focused on literary criticism than effective communication. This was a frustration for me personally, and my lowest mark in High School. The high 80 dragged my average down enough that I didn't make the cut for Waterloo.
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