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The way you talk about the 'easiness' of high school math makes me think you've received education in the US, where the exams, and even some part of the curricu

The way you talk about the 'easiness' of high school math makes me think you've received education in the US, where the exams, and even some part of the curriculum, are laughably easier compared to what students from EU countries have experienced. That is not to say that some people didn't have to put as much effort as others - learned faster. But when I come across people, mostly online, brushing off math at or above high school level as easy have either received subpar/simplified math education (happens almost exclusively in the US and some shitty EU countries), or have too much confidence from their positive experience with low-difficulty exams. > I had to conclude that I can't make others understand things the way I do. If you've had this happen too often you're probably just bad at explaining things, or even worse you haven't fully understood them.

username90 6y ago
I took the most rigorous college degree in Sweden and did pure maths up to masters level. High school maths included calculus, although not as rigorous as you learn at college. > If you've had this happen too often you're probably just bad at explaining things, or even worse you haven't fully understood them. I understood the subjects well enough too solve problems on exams I hadn't seen before. That was the main way I managed to get good grades without doing practice problems or studying. I didn't manage to get others to understand things that well. I don't think that failing to get people to that level means I am bad at explaining as there is nobody in the entire world who can get average college students to that level. For my masters thesis I solved a problem that had stumped one of the more renowned mathematicians in Sweden for decades. I'm not sure if that was hard or not, but to me it didn't seem hard. I didn't continue doing maths as I didn't really have enough passion for the subject to continue doing research, it is pretty boring. After that I realized I needed to earn money, so I learned programming, started getting top 100 spots and sometimes top 10 spots in world wide programming competitions and joined Google. That didn't seem particularly hard to me either, as it took about half a year just doing things on my own. Why aren't I famous etc? Because I just don't care that much about things. I get bored and stop doing them long before I have worked enough hours on things to get any notable results. I aren't bragging here, I know my value to society thus isn't that high, I am just giving my perspective on things. There are tons of people online arguing that I can't exist, I don't like that.
- antegamisou 6y ago
  > I aren't bragging No offense but that's exactly what I felt you were doing on your first comment when you were talking about people having trouble understanding math as easily as you can. We are on the Internet so it doesn't sound as condescending as it would IRL, but it still makes you come off as trying to convince us that you're superior. I'm certain you're not doing it intentionally, I'm just trying to explain why as you said, are there tons of people online arguing that you can't exist. People with academic achievements akin to yours tend to remain humble when similar topics about intelligence and genius are brought up. I don't think they act this way because they legitimately do not consider themselves smart, they just know it's quite socially inappropriate to boast about it. On the contrary, again on a systematic basis, those with negligible life achievements almost always try to inform everyone in the room that they feel superior in terms of mental capability. Based on your academic biography above you seem to be an exception to what I just described and have observed both online and IRL. > For my masters thesis I solved a problem that had stumped one of the more renowned mathematicians in Sweden for decades. Sounds impressive but at the same time many would be quite skeptical about a really challenging problem being solved in the short, in terms of time, course of a Masters degree. Again, not attempting to undermine your achievement, but you usually hear about hard unsolved problems being a topic of a PhD thesis which almost always includes a number of publications being done during its course as part of it. I'd appreciate a few more details here but I understand you may hesitate stating more because of potential privacy concerns.
  - red75prime 6y ago
    > as trying to convince us that you're superior It could be, but it doesn't really matter. There are people who can think circles around me (and probably you). And I don't think that they ought to have some flaws just to not be totally superior out of some universal law of fairness. Obsessing about it is obviously not healthy.

username90 6y ago

I took the most rigorous college degree in Sweden and did pure maths up to masters level. High school maths included calculus, although not as rigorous as you learn at college. > If you've had this happen too often you're probably just bad at explaining things, or even worse you haven't fully understood them. I understood the subjects well enough too solve problems on exams I hadn't seen before. That was the main way I managed to get good grades without doing practice problems or studying. I didn't manage to get others to understand things that well. I don't think that failing to get people to that level means I am bad at explaining as there is nobody in the entire world who can get average college students to that level. For my masters thesis I solved a problem that had stumped one of the more renowned mathematicians in Sweden for decades. I'm not sure if that was hard or not, but to me it didn't seem hard. I didn't continue doing maths as I didn't really have enough passion for the subject to continue doing research, it is pretty boring. After that I realized I needed to earn money, so I learned programming, started getting top 100 spots and sometimes top 10 spots in world wide programming competitions and joined Google. That didn't seem particularly hard to me either, as it took about half a year just doing things on my own. Why aren't I famous etc? Because I just don't care that much about things. I get bored and stop doing them long before I have worked enough hours on things to get any notable results. I aren't bragging here, I know my value to society thus isn't that high, I am just giving my perspective on things. There are tons of people online arguing that I can't exist, I don't like that.

antegamisou 6y ago
> I aren't bragging No offense but that's exactly what I felt you were doing on your first comment when you were talking about people having trouble understanding math as easily as you can. We are on the Internet so it doesn't sound as condescending as it would IRL, but it still makes you come off as trying to convince us that you're superior. I'm certain you're not doing it intentionally, I'm just trying to explain why as you said, are there tons of people online arguing that you can't exist. People with academic achievements akin to yours tend to remain humble when similar topics about intelligence and genius are brought up. I don't think they act this way because they legitimately do not consider themselves smart, they just know it's quite socially inappropriate to boast about it. On the contrary, again on a systematic basis, those with negligible life achievements almost always try to inform everyone in the room that they feel superior in terms of mental capability. Based on your academic biography above you seem to be an exception to what I just described and have observed both online and IRL. > For my masters thesis I solved a problem that had stumped one of the more renowned mathematicians in Sweden for decades. Sounds impressive but at the same time many would be quite skeptical about a really challenging problem being solved in the short, in terms of time, course of a Masters degree. Again, not attempting to undermine your achievement, but you usually hear about hard unsolved problems being a topic of a PhD thesis which almost always includes a number of publications being done during its course as part of it. I'd appreciate a few more details here but I understand you may hesitate stating more because of potential privacy concerns.
- red75prime 6y ago
  > as trying to convince us that you're superior It could be, but it doesn't really matter. There are people who can think circles around me (and probably you). And I don't think that they ought to have some flaws just to not be totally superior out of some universal law of fairness. Obsessing about it is obviously not healthy.