What is it like to be a mathematician? • Hacker News Board

Re: What is it like to be a mathematician?

#51

Post by benpbenp » Mon, Oct 14, 2013, 8:50 AM UTC

ivansavz wrote: post #45

> When, later on in life, the subject of mathematics comes up, most people wave their hands and say, "Oh no, I don't want to hear about this, I was so bad at math." I've noticed this happening a lot. It is interesting that nobody says that about the other two Rs: reading and writing. Have you ever heard anyone say "I don't like books and reading in general"? As far as I can tell this is the reasoning used by most "ma…

> Have you ever heard anyone say "I don't like books and reading in general"?

Well, I have heard engineery types saying they don't see the point of reading fiction ("it's just made up stories"), and more frequently have heard them disparaging subjects like philosophy and history. Maybe that's the equivalent response?

Re: What is it like to be a mathematician?

#52

Post by broken_symlink » Mon, Oct 14, 2013, 9:30 AM UTC

DoublePlusWill wrote: post #35

Strilanc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is definitely good and in-depth. (I had to use the web dev inspector to remove the overlay trying to force me to enable scripts and sign in, but it was worth it.)

There's a link on that overlay to "close and continue reading" if you get out your microscope. ;)

For me that only shows the top answer.

Re: What is it like to be a mathematician?

#53

Post by mathattack » Mon, Oct 14, 2013, 11:45 AM UTC

Great article. I think we lose the forrest and trees in math. Similar in computer science. Many times we get hung up on language syntax to miss the beauty underneath. (For example: Godel's incompleteness theorum or the implications of Turing machines)

On one tangents....

I think we mathematicians are a little bit behind the curve. We are not fully aware of the Frankenstein that we may have already created or could create. I think that's another aspect of this responsibility of mathematicians to take a more public role—to educate the public by giving them access to the beauty and power of mathematics.

Interesting tie in to the importance of ethics for mathematics. It's not just a bunch of folks writing proofs about numbers in journals.