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Weird that neither his name (Michel Talagrand) nor his nationality (French) are mentioned in the title. His nationality is not even mentioned in the article. I'd be pissed if I were him, doing something that important, and not even getting your name in the title.
Discussion two weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39764954
Michel Talagrand wins Abel Prize for work wrangling randomness - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39764954 - March 2024 (48 comments)
This is such a great quote for everyone! No matter the age. No matter what one wants to do. > “I’m not able to learn mathematics easily,” Talagrand tells ... “I have to work. It takes a very long time and I have a terrible memory. I forget things. So I try to work, despite handicaps, and the way I worked was trying to understand really well the simple things. Really, really well, in complete detail. And that turned o…
One of his Hall of Fame players said that he woukd begin with "Gentlemen, this is a football"
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Yeah, Jeffrey Eppstein was also one that funded a lot of science and science journalism. Fuck effective altruism.
I don't associate myself with that particular group of people, nor did I in any way condone such behaviour, nor do I support long-termists and so on. My comment was mostly calling out the hypocrisy of some EAs, Long-termists, and the likes. It points out the myopic, self-centered, irrational, and too self-important view, the often exhibited messiah complex, and of course the absence of humility.
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I always wonder if people like him are able to learn faster if the courses are structured differently.
I'm like this, and yes, very much so. The (US) academic system is not set up to accommodate anyone, really. It's designed to get someone just below average through their standardized testing and not much more. If you don't fit that mold you're shit outta luck. You either suffer through it like "normal" people, or you find it utterly intolerable and fail or drop out. Personally, I learn best backwards from everyone el…
And I understand that there are great teachers out there and an LLM cannot replace that, but at the same time there are a lot of bad teachers wasting everybody's time.
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I had a college friend that's super slow to learn. He would always get behind on classes and would not even get passing grades most of the time. But! When he finally learned something new, he would never forget it. He would remember it in details, both the whys and the hows. I've always admired his skill.
I’m like this. I barely graduated school and failed out of college in the first year with a GPA whose square root was higher than the actual GPA. I had always been placed in accelerated classes only to be kicked out once I fell behind. I needed time to understand things, but in all modesty once I understand something I seem to understand it better than everyone around me. Until then though my mind is blank and I lite…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always wonder if people like him are able to learn faster if the courses are structured differently.
I'm like this, and yes, very much so. The (US) academic system is not set up to accommodate anyone, really. It's designed to get someone just below average through their standardized testing and not much more. If you don't fit that mold you're shit outta luck. You either suffer through it like "normal" people, or you find it utterly intolerable and fail or drop out. Personally, I learn best backwards from everyone el…
Same, and at work too. I think it's because we think big picture and conceptually. Tell me the outline, and I'll seek out missing information and fill in puzzle pieces, until I can grok it. It's a slow process but learning from first principles I find absolutely boring and unengaging.
I found math in high school utterly meaningless, a set of drills and exercises to do again and again without explanation.
If you go to the gym and you want to do some exercises, you'll generally get a list and try to learn them correctly.
If math teachers taught sports, no one would ever do anything because they would never understand what the goal was. What's the end result? The complex end result should be made known so that we know why we're doing something.
With math it's, shut up and do your drills and if you don't you'll be punished with bad grades. See that guy in the corner with his head down and protractor? He loves it, be like him.
This is such a great quote for everyone! No matter the age. No matter what one wants to do. > “I’m not able to learn mathematics easily,” Talagrand tells ... “I have to work. It takes a very long time and I have a terrible memory. I forget things. So I try to work, despite handicaps, and the way I worked was trying to understand really well the simple things. Really, really well, in complete detail. And that turned o…
There's a story that an American football coach, after gathering the best players he could, would start each season just working on the fundamentals, saying you cannot do the simple easy you can't do complex. One of his Hall of Fame players said that he woukd begin with "Gentlemen, this is a football"
With math it's what exactly?
If someone worked backwards from code on DAY 1 of high school math, I'd have been engaged... Instead it was mindless repetitive drills. Later as an advanced thing they'd ask you a real-world question: "Let's say you wanted to circumnavigate the Earth and you started here and had to blah blah". I think they should start and not end with that type of thing.