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Bullet point #6 is worth emphasizing. >biggest misconception that non-mathematicians have about how mathematicians work is that there is some mysterious mental

by unabst 10y ago

Bullet point #6 is worth emphasizing. >biggest misconception that non-mathematicians have about how mathematicians work is that there is some mysterious mental faculty Popular perception would have you believe that advanced math is like weight lifting, where you need the brain muscle to process it. This weight is measured in IQ, and above a certain measure you are a genius. Einstein is the champion, and so if "you're no Einstein" then you have a perfect excuse to be ignorant and incapable of any advanced topics in math. Of course, the reality as it should be perceived is that any advanced scientific topic is more like a journey, and that it never truly gets more difficult. It just becomes more specific and hence technical. We just go deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of our choosing. Unfortunately, with this view, there are no excuses in being bad at anything. It's more dedication and obsession. And Einstein himself has rejected any notion of genius being quoted often as saying, "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." Except, didn't work, because the former group has written the quote off the words of a genius.

cdevs 10y ago
I like your answer because there is something strange about generalizing a group of people who have dug deep enough down that rabbit hole. Are there signs of a newbie "person A" to a field that they would have more potential to always take on a problem in a better way than "person b". What if einsteins work never involved mathematics and he wrote mysteries about a detective and from his books we could tell this person understands taking on problems and how to learn from failing etc,etc..
- unabst 10y ago
  There are more ways of looking at what appears to be obscene amounts of talent... some suggest the media also has a hand, since they create the celebrities (monsters). Einstein was definitely celebrated. But it's odd how popular perception can end up so far fetched. There still exists this notion that knowing everything and memorizing everything and being able to compute like a computer are all super powers. If only. Except, we've been able to write things down forever, the internet is in our pockets now, and we have supercomputers crunching obscene amounts of data. As it turns out, none of these are "super" powers. Their capacity is easily enhanced with simple tools, which we don't even bother to take out most of the time. You'd get definitely get better grades if your biological capacity were higher, since using tools during exams is cheating. But we're starting to think it's silly basing tests on these things.

by unabst 10y ago

cdevs 10y ago

I like your answer because there is something strange about generalizing a group of people who have dug deep enough down that rabbit hole. Are there signs of a newbie "person A" to a field that they would have more potential to always take on a problem in a better way than "person b". What if einsteins work never involved mathematics and he wrote mysteries about a detective and from his books we could tell this person understands taking on problems and how to learn from failing etc,etc..

unabst 10y ago
There are more ways of looking at what appears to be obscene amounts of talent... some suggest the media also has a hand, since they create the celebrities (monsters). Einstein was definitely celebrated. But it's odd how popular perception can end up so far fetched. There still exists this notion that knowing everything and memorizing everything and being able to compute like a computer are all super powers. If only. Except, we've been able to write things down forever, the internet is in our pockets now, and we have supercomputers crunching obscene amounts of data. As it turns out, none of these are "super" powers. Their capacity is easily enhanced with simple tools, which we don't even bother to take out most of the time. You'd get definitely get better grades if your biological capacity were higher, since using tools during exams is cheating. But we're starting to think it's silly basing tests on these things.