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Quick question. “Every mathematician believes that he is ahead of the others. The reason none state this belief in public is because they are intelligent peopl
by igravious 9y ago
Quick question.
“Every mathematician believes that he is ahead of the others. The reason none state this belief in public is because they are intelligent people.”
The others here, does it refer to other mathematicians, or other people in general?
- idlewords 9y agoOther mathematicians.
- loup-vaillant 9y agoI wouldn't be surprised if a sizeable fraction, perhaps even the majority, of mathematicians are in fact ahead of all the others. They just have to be best at their own chosen specialization. (Also, one may need a little hubris to actually do something. I would never have written my crypto library if I didn't started with the overconfidence required to brave mainstream advice.)
- igravious 9y agoYou fool! Don't you know by now that you're not meant to roll your own crypto :-/ (I jest, of course)
- loup-vaillant 9y agoDon't worry, I survived the non-jest version as well. :-) I reckon opposition was not as unanimous as one might expect, though. If this thread¹ is to be believed, there's a rather wide range of opinions. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14917378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14917378
- igravious 9y agoI should very much hope so! :)