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Monumental (if correct) advance in number theory posted to ArXiv by Yitang Zhang

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Re: Monumental (if correct) advance in number theory posted to ArXiv by Yitang Zhang

#321

Post by matkoniecz »

data_maan wrote: post #287
wheels wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] but it now requires so much knowledge just to get to the frontiers of human knowledge, not to speak of making a dent into uncharted territory, that results are being obtained later and later in life. That's not really the case here. Zhang spent 10 years out of school working in fields in the cultural revolution, and didn't start college until he was 23. After his PhD, he couldn't get an academic job for 8 yea…

> It seems incredibly likely he'd have been able to proove his big proofs faster had his life gone otherwise. Why do you think that? It takes sometimes years (!) until you get used tona certain mathematical theory. And how long it takes isa very personal thing. Remember von Neumann, who that that we don't learn nu mathematics, but only get used to it. I think the only thing one can say was incredibly likeli is that Z…

> Zhang spent 10 years out of school working in fields in the cultural revolution, and didn't start college until he was 23. After his PhD, he couldn't get an academic job for 8 years and ended up delivering food and working as an accountant.

During that time he definitely spend less time on maths than he could or would in a better situation.

Especially cultural revolution oppression was monumental waste of human lives. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Death_toll alone

Re: Monumental (if correct) advance in number theory posted to ArXiv by Yitang Zhang

#322

Post by Cthulhu_ »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #53
kenjackson wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone needs to make a movie about his life, or at least a documentary.

Good luck finding a movie about Isaac Newton or Einstein, or literally anyone whose value to the world is more than pretending to be someone else or lying a lot, let alone a very interesting mathematician no one recognizes. (Ok I know there’s a few movies about folks like Turing and Nash, but it’s pretty slim pickings).

I've seen a few biopics or dramatizations of famous people - notably, The Imitation Game about Alan Turing which was all right, and the Theory of Everything which supposedly was about Stephen Hawking's work but it was more about his relationships - it was based on the memoirs of his ex-wife. But both were dramatizations from secondhand information at best; a biopic of older people like Einstein will be even more picky.

I mean would a biopic about Einstein touch on his many relationships (including his cousin) and the drama around that?

Re: Monumental (if correct) advance in number theory posted to ArXiv by Yitang Zhang

#323

Post by Cthulhu_ »

kenjackson wrote: post #43
gavagai691 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a documentary, but I can't attest to its quality (I haven't watched it yet): http://www.zalafilms.com/films/countingabout.html .

Hmm... thanks, it looks quite good. But why is streaming rental for 24 hours? Why can't we do rentals for two weeks for videos? Is there a good reason to make it so difficult to stream? I don't want to watch it a million times. I just want to make it through once, but it takes me several sittings typically to finish a movie.

> But why is streaming rental for 24 hours?

Money / capitalism.

Re: Monumental (if correct) advance in number theory posted to ArXiv by Yitang Zhang

#324

Post by yifanl »

vecter wrote: post #17

Can someone explain the decimal constants that are used throughout the proof? For example, on page 52. It's rare to see these kinds of numbers used in mathematical proofs, but I'm sure they were chosen for good reasons.

I'm not an analytic number theorist, but my understanding is that the proof requires some values to be 0.5 + some positive epsilon to be correct, and for the sake of clarity, these somewhat arbitrary constants are chosen to get to the result.

Re: Monumental (if correct) advance in number theory posted to ArXiv by Yitang Zhang

#325

Post by Cthulhu_ »

XCSme wrote: post #11

I am pretty confident that I will never in my lifetime fully understand stuff like this (not the symbols themselves, but the overall meaning of each term and why it is like that): https://i.snipboard.io/by4tsH.jpg

I mean I got as far as things like the square root symbol and power-of, I've scanned the comment section and links and there's still little to nothing I understand, lol. Something with prime numbers.

Re: Monumental (if correct) advance in number theory posted to ArXiv by Yitang Zhang

#326

Post by kingkongjaffa »

pa7x1 wrote: post #78

Math used to be a young person game, but it now requires so much knowledge just to get to the frontiers of human knowledge, not to speak of making a dent into uncharted territory, that results are being obtained later and later in life. When mathematicians have had time to accrue sufficient knowledge while still being sharp enough to make the intellectual leap. The sad part is that as the trend continues we may reach…

This doesn’t account for growing literacy and numeracy in the developing world, we might be nearing peak population but we are still ages away from a globally educated population with both the resources and education to start contributing to academia/research.

Re: Monumental (if correct) advance in number theory posted to ArXiv by Yitang Zhang

#327

Post by wikfwikf »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #309
wikfwikf wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is the whole story. Of course, it is a tragedy when people who had undeniable raw talent are neglected or passed over and don't get to achieve as they might. It's also sad and disappointing when we observe structural injustices in our society. However, isn't it possible that giving great teaching resources to people who aren't already at the top level in terms of raw talent, allows them to succeed…

I think the Beatles included three inherently gifted songwriters by sheer coincidence. No doubt the apprenticeship helped, but Harrison was writing songs like Taxman and experimenting with Indian classical music on Love You Too in 1966.

By 1966 George Harrison had been in a group (with various names) with Lennon and McCartney for 8 years, their songwriting partnership had been actively writing songs for 5 or 6 years, they had written almost all the songs for 6 or 7 albums, several of which are regarded as among the best albums of all time.

Re: Monumental (if correct) advance in number theory posted to ArXiv by Yitang Zhang

#328

Post by Qem »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #157
pa7x1 wrote: post #78

Math used to be a young person game, but it now requires so much knowledge just to get to the frontiers of human knowledge, not to speak of making a dent into uncharted territory, that results are being obtained later and later in life. When mathematicians have had time to accrue sufficient knowledge while still being sharp enough to make the intellectual leap. The sad part is that as the trend continues we may reach…

Another approach to the finite-mathematician-lifespan problem might be to develop new foundations that are closer to the edge. I expect there's a logical universe in which sets are bizarre and hard to construct but objects which would take a modern mathematician years to grok are convenient and simple to work with.

This approach reminds what the geometric algebra folks are trying to do.

Re: Monumental (if correct) advance in number theory posted to ArXiv by Yitang Zhang

#329

Post by wikfwikf »

warbler73 wrote: post #152
markus_zhang wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious how many examples that show FIRST major discovery after say 40? I think I spotted a few.

Marjorie Rice. Housewife. https://www.quantamagazine.org/marjorie-rices-secret-pentago... Her discoveries first mentioned in a 1988 magazine when she was 65.

The discovery of these pentomino tilings is an interesting achievement and evidence of an exceptional mind, but it's very far from a major advance in mathematics.

Re: Monumental (if correct) advance in number theory posted to ArXiv by Yitang Zhang

#330

Post by wumms »

sharp11 wrote: post #256
rutgersnj22 wrote: post #211

I just read an article from Yitang Zhang's little sister (in Chinese). It touched my soul. A must-read (translated from Chinese using Google translation): https://zhishifenzi-com.translate.goog/depth/character/480.h... Part of the translation is not so perfect and you have to use your best guess sometimes. The Chinese version is a masterpiece. In addition, here is an article from Yitang Zhang's PhD advisor. Not so ni…

Could you provide a link to original (Chinese) article?

http://zhishifenzi.com/depth/character/480.html
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