7 ms·

There is a 2014 Quanta Magazine article on Martin Hairer which I found interesting. https://www.quantamagazine.org/hearing-music-in-noise-martin-hairer-wins-th

There is a 2014 Quanta Magazine article on Martin Hairer which I found interesting. https://www.quantamagazine.org/hearing-music-in-noise-martin-hairer-wins-the-fields-medal-20140812/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/hearing-music-in-noise-martin...

dash2 6y ago
One thing I learned: he did his work while at Warwick. Warwick is kind of under-estimated among UK universities. It's reasonably well-run (which makes it almost unique), regularly hires smart people, and doesn't have the Brideshead Revisited hangover of Oxbridge.
- conjectures 6y ago
  Can confirm the stats department at Warwick is good & pretty active.
- chewbaxxa 6y ago
  Warwick is particularly well regarded for its mathematics department.
  - ChrisKnott 6y ago
    I thought it was well known it was ahead of Oxford for Maths, second only to Cambridge and Imperial
    - alimw 6y ago
      It's my impression that rankings for mathematics generally put Oxford ahead of both Imperial and Warwick and sometimes even ahead of Cambridge. https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2019/mathematics https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/universi... https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2020/subject-ranking/physical-sciences#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin... https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings/mathematics https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/r...
    - maukg 6y ago
      It's well known to be ahead of Oxford and Imperial for Maths, second only to Cambridge.
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  Basically since Warwick was founded, it had a reputation for being the place people went to when they were rejected from oxbridge. This sounds bad but one subtlety with the U.K. system is that almost all students may apply to at most one of Oxford and Cambridge in any given year and those universities tend to get more sufficiently good applicants than they take in. If one of Oxford or Cambridge is commonly considered better than the other by applicants then Warwick the distribution of the abilities of the rejects is higher than if they had all applied to a single top university equal in size to the sum of Oxford and Cambridge. Therefore Warwick gets to take in lots of very good undergraduates. The university was founded in the 60s out of what used to be a research retreat for mathematicians. At its inception a large portion of its mathematics department (at least the topologies) came directly from Cambridge (I believe the story is that Christopher Zeeman went around his colleagues telling them that all the others were going to Warwick). And in the mathematics department in particular has been strong ever since. I believe the course structure is also different there than from oxbridge (or many other U.K. universities) in that it is meant to be more like an American university with more choice to pursue courses from different subjects or with wide varieties of specialisation.
  - OJFord 6y ago
    Imperial suffers from that too. We'd joke (perhaps in slight pain) about it as freshers - 'so, Oxford or Cambridge?' or 'which college?', etc.
  - arethuza 6y ago
    Don't a number of universities belong to that category? I've certainly heard it about Durham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxbridge_reject https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxbridge_reject
    - IshKebab 6y ago
      Yeah it's definitely Durham. I've never heard it said about Warwick.
  - skei 6y ago
    I did my undergrad, Masters, and PhD at Warwick. I was originally aiming for a Cambridge, for a conditional offer, and failed to make the grades in the exams. No regrets. Warwick is a fantastic university. I actually met Martin Hairer a few times, as my doctorate was between maths, physics, and computer science departments. We didn't overlap much in interests ( or ability... ) but he seemed nice.
- leoc 6y ago
  Britain has a whole clutch of universities which are global research powerhouses but are scorned as boring redbricks (or whatever) by most of the locals and unheard of to most people internationally.
  - yaseer 6y ago
    '...unheard of to most people internationally.' Taking this point further, I note there's a huge Anglo-Saxon bias in the prestige of Universities. I don't know why this is. I say this having studied at Oxford and Cambridge and noticed how 'unfair' it was that many French and German universities had undergraduate bodies with even higher selection standards, yet few people internationally would have heard of them. It seems odd to me that Harvard and Oxbridge are well known, but an elite German university like TUM is not.
    - signal11 6y ago
      Harvard and Oxbridge are world-class research universities, not just good undergraduate universities. For selective undergraduate universities, there’s a whole bunch of “elite” universities in Asia — eg the IITs in India, or Tsinghua & Peking in China, or NUS in Singapore. If someone asked me about Germany, Heidelberg probably comes to mind.
      - C1sc0cat 6y ago
        Does Heidelberg have the same cachet as Oxbridge in the UK
    - JackFr 6y ago
      > I don't know why this is. > I say this having studied at Oxford and Cambridge Hah! So not so smart after all then...
      - yaseer 6y ago
        As I said, Anglo-Saxon University prestige is overrated. Maybe someone from a Grandes Ecoles would know ;)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jkaptur 6y ago
  I don't quite follow what you mean by "Brideshead Revisited hangover" - from Wikipedia, it seems like it roughly means "nostalgia for the age of English aristocracy"?
  - codebeaker 6y ago
    I think that's an accurate portrayal of the "ivy league" type unis in the UK. They may not be what they once were, but they have a particular romanticism about them that people aspire to attend them.
  - dash2 6y ago
    That's about right. Think candlelit dinners with lots of claret, terribly clever undergraduates writing terribly clever 1500-word essays on their PPE course, the gentleman amateur.... Things that were great in the 19th century and have now become parodies of themselves.
- wenc 6y ago
  > doesn't have the Brideshead Revisited hangover of Oxbridge I've watched and read Bridehead Revisited. Just curious what aspect of it you mean here: the aristocracy?
melling 6y ago
here’s his paper that won him the prize. It’s long at 180 pages. https://arxiv.org/abs/1303.5113 https://arxiv.org/abs/1303.5113 Wish there was something between a Quanta article and the paper that described his thinking.
- kkylin 6y ago
  A quick search shows this: https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.3014 https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.3014 which still requires a substantial mathematical background, but seems rather less technical (I've not read it). There's also a textbook on rough paths by Friz and Hairer with an introduction to regularity structures; if you're at an academic institution with access to SpringerLink, you may be able to get it easily. Finally, Martin gives lots of talks, and he's an exceptionally clear speaker. I wouldn't be surprised if there's something on YouTube that's reasonably accessible to someone with a solid math / physics background.
mikorym 6y ago
Wait, does he drink Rooibos at 2:32?

dash2 6y ago

One thing I learned: he did his work while at Warwick. Warwick is kind of under-estimated among UK universities. It's reasonably well-run (which makes it almost unique), regularly hires smart people, and doesn't have the Brideshead Revisited hangover of Oxbridge.

conjectures 6y ago
Can confirm the stats department at Warwick is good & pretty active.
chewbaxxa 6y ago
Warwick is particularly well regarded for its mathematics department.
- ChrisKnott 6y ago
  I thought it was well known it was ahead of Oxford for Maths, second only to Cambridge and Imperial
  - alimw 6y ago
    It's my impression that rankings for mathematics generally put Oxford ahead of both Imperial and Warwick and sometimes even ahead of Cambridge. https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2019/mathematics https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/universi... https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2020/subject-ranking/physical-sciences#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin... https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings/mathematics https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/r...
  - maukg 6y ago
    It's well known to be ahead of Oxford and Imperial for Maths, second only to Cambridge.
dan-robertson 6y ago
Basically since Warwick was founded, it had a reputation for being the place people went to when they were rejected from oxbridge. This sounds bad but one subtlety with the U.K. system is that almost all students may apply to at most one of Oxford and Cambridge in any given year and those universities tend to get more sufficiently good applicants than they take in. If one of Oxford or Cambridge is commonly considered better than the other by applicants then Warwick the distribution of the abilities of the rejects is higher than if they had all applied to a single top university equal in size to the sum of Oxford and Cambridge. Therefore Warwick gets to take in lots of very good undergraduates. The university was founded in the 60s out of what used to be a research retreat for mathematicians. At its inception a large portion of its mathematics department (at least the topologies) came directly from Cambridge (I believe the story is that Christopher Zeeman went around his colleagues telling them that all the others were going to Warwick). And in the mathematics department in particular has been strong ever since. I believe the course structure is also different there than from oxbridge (or many other U.K. universities) in that it is meant to be more like an American university with more choice to pursue courses from different subjects or with wide varieties of specialisation.
- OJFord 6y ago
  Imperial suffers from that too. We'd joke (perhaps in slight pain) about it as freshers - 'so, Oxford or Cambridge?' or 'which college?', etc.
- arethuza 6y ago
  Don't a number of universities belong to that category? I've certainly heard it about Durham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxbridge_reject https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxbridge_reject
  - IshKebab 6y ago
    Yeah it's definitely Durham. I've never heard it said about Warwick.
- skei 6y ago
  I did my undergrad, Masters, and PhD at Warwick. I was originally aiming for a Cambridge, for a conditional offer, and failed to make the grades in the exams. No regrets. Warwick is a fantastic university. I actually met Martin Hairer a few times, as my doctorate was between maths, physics, and computer science departments. We didn't overlap much in interests ( or ability... ) but he seemed nice.
leoc 6y ago
Britain has a whole clutch of universities which are global research powerhouses but are scorned as boring redbricks (or whatever) by most of the locals and unheard of to most people internationally.
- yaseer 6y ago
  '...unheard of to most people internationally.' Taking this point further, I note there's a huge Anglo-Saxon bias in the prestige of Universities. I don't know why this is. I say this having studied at Oxford and Cambridge and noticed how 'unfair' it was that many French and German universities had undergraduate bodies with even higher selection standards, yet few people internationally would have heard of them. It seems odd to me that Harvard and Oxbridge are well known, but an elite German university like TUM is not.
  - signal11 6y ago
    Harvard and Oxbridge are world-class research universities, not just good undergraduate universities. For selective undergraduate universities, there’s a whole bunch of “elite” universities in Asia — eg the IITs in India, or Tsinghua & Peking in China, or NUS in Singapore. If someone asked me about Germany, Heidelberg probably comes to mind.
    - C1sc0cat 6y ago
      Does Heidelberg have the same cachet as Oxbridge in the UK
  - JackFr 6y ago
    > I don't know why this is. > I say this having studied at Oxford and Cambridge Hah! So not so smart after all then...
    - yaseer 6y ago
      As I said, Anglo-Saxon University prestige is overrated. Maybe someone from a Grandes Ecoles would know ;)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jkaptur 6y ago
I don't quite follow what you mean by "Brideshead Revisited hangover" - from Wikipedia, it seems like it roughly means "nostalgia for the age of English aristocracy"?
- codebeaker 6y ago
  I think that's an accurate portrayal of the "ivy league" type unis in the UK. They may not be what they once were, but they have a particular romanticism about them that people aspire to attend them.
- dash2 6y ago
  That's about right. Think candlelit dinners with lots of claret, terribly clever undergraduates writing terribly clever 1500-word essays on their PPE course, the gentleman amateur.... Things that were great in the 19th century and have now become parodies of themselves.
wenc 6y ago
> doesn't have the Brideshead Revisited hangover of Oxbridge I've watched and read Bridehead Revisited. Just curious what aspect of it you mean here: the aristocracy?

melling 6y ago

here’s his paper that won him the prize. It’s long at 180 pages. https://arxiv.org/abs/1303.5113 https://arxiv.org/abs/1303.5113 Wish there was something between a Quanta article and the paper that described his thinking.

kkylin 6y ago
A quick search shows this: https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.3014 https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.3014 which still requires a substantial mathematical background, but seems rather less technical (I've not read it). There's also a textbook on rough paths by Friz and Hairer with an introduction to regularity structures; if you're at an academic institution with access to SpringerLink, you may be able to get it easily. Finally, Martin gives lots of talks, and he's an exceptionally clear speaker. I wouldn't be surprised if there's something on YouTube that's reasonably accessible to someone with a solid math / physics background.

mikorym 6y ago

Wait, does he drink Rooibos at 2:32?