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Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

quantamagazine.org

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

#81

Post by trgn »

nordsieck wrote: post #12
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…

IMO, you're thinking about this backwards. It's good that public school exposes children to many subjects - hopefully most of them. So that they can discover if they click with one of them. The real danger is that someone never gets exposed to a subject at all. College is the place to specialize in a subject.

> College is the place to specialize in a subject.

In Europe maybe, but in America a lot of students receive their general purpose liberal arts education in College, and will then specialize later with a post graduate degree.

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

#82

Post by yas_hmaheshwari »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #75

The stories of mathematicians like Srinivasa Ramanujan, who claimed to have derived complex partitions and identities in dreams, have always captivated me. It's as if their minds were tapping into some hidden reservoir of knowledge. I'm curious what drives these intuitive leaps. Was Ramanujan's brain quietly processing patterns during sleep, leveraging its default mode network in ways we're still struggling to unders…

I am also intrigued by this question: What was different for guys like Ramanujan, and how were they able to tap in to this hidden reservoir of knowledge. And how can we replicate it

One guy able to tap into this knowledge in dreams is an indication that it is possible. Now, how do we make this the default for everyone is the question I wonder about

The way we found one variant of wheat in Mexico that was resistant to bacteria, and replicate that to the whole world -- can we do something like that for humans ( even I don't like the sound of it, but I hope you get the feeling )

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

#83

Post by llm_trw »

nordsieck wrote: post #12
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…

IMO, you're thinking about this backwards. It's good that public school exposes children to many subjects - hopefully most of them. So that they can discover if they click with one of them. The real danger is that someone never gets exposed to a subject at all. College is the place to specialize in a subject.

To quote an artist friend: exposure is good until you die from it.

Being forced to do subjects that you hate is not exposure, it is being forced to do things which you are completely unsuited for.

I would go so far as saying that being forced to take music until 7th grade put me off any musical pursuits for the next 20 years. The less said about the torture disguised as education that is PE the better.

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

#84

Post by fn-mote »

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…

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

This is exactly the route to exploitation by MBA managers.

Great developer, loyal, doesn't understand the need to change companies to get paid a competitive salary. Perfect hire.

The person who doesn't understand economics pays the price themselves.

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

#85

Post by abound »

astrange wrote: post #66
datavirtue wrote: post #2

Why aren't we working on drugs to make people smart?

IIRC nicotine is the most effective nootropic by far, the problem being that it's super addictive. But none of them work as well as sleep and exercise.

And eating right! Gotta complete that trifecta, each one compliments the others.

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

#86

Post by fn-mote »

brutal_true_101 wrote: post #15
nordsieck wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, you're thinking about this backwards. It's good that public school exposes children to many subjects - hopefully most of them. So that they can discover if they click with one of them. The real danger is that someone never gets exposed to a subject at all. College is the place to specialize in a subject.

Most colleges now inundate students with painful core classes that go on into senior year. It's getting ridiculous.

Specific citation needed.

At Big US Engineering School, many people are done with their prerequisites in a year.

Unless you're talking about painful core classes like "compiler design" and "networking", which I would say is a different conversation.

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

#87

Post by nurettin »

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…

> I wonder how many geniuses we skip on because doing the chores of homework and getting through boring classes is busywork and memorization for the sake of getting an A.

Zero? If you qualify as a prodigy, it is apparent from a young age. Maths prodigies are especially easy to distinguish. Given a little time, they will self-learn, grok and innovate on anything you throw at them and will likely attend higher education early unlike "the brilliant kid"s who will struggle with advanced concepts all their lives.

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

#88

Post by db48x »

nordsieck wrote: post #12
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…

IMO, you're thinking about this backwards. It's good that public school exposes children to many subjects - hopefully most of them. So that they can discover if they click with one of them. The real danger is that someone never gets exposed to a subject at all. College is the place to specialize in a subject.

Specialization does begin earlier than that. Most high schools in the US have advanced classes that students can opt in to, and there is the AP program.

Personally I think that we could do better by tailoring every student’s education to their abilities. Put in simplest possible terms, we could arrange classes by complexity rather than by year. Have one class for addition and subtraction, another for multiplication and division, then geometry, algebra, etc, etc. Then let students graduate from one to the next based on proven ability rather than by age. Do the same for language, history, etc. Let every student proceed through the courses at their own speed.

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

#89

Post by eviks »

nordsieck wrote: post #12
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…

IMO, you're thinking about this backwards. It's good that public school exposes children to many subjects - hopefully most of them. So that they can discover if they click with one of them. The real danger is that someone never gets exposed to a subject at all. College is the place to specialize in a subject.

"Exposure" would be spending much much less time on those subjects, especially the free home time. Then the number of subjects is practically infinite, so expecting "most" is just as unrealistic (and colleges also continue this "exposure")

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

#90

Post by swayvil »

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…

you can't serve two masters.

How would you characterize R's master and the "normie" master?

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