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It might be interesting to recall that Alan Turing was an Olympics team contender for 1948~1949

by srean 5y ago

IceDane 5y ago
Yes, let's use the opportunity this article about this successful woman has provided us to talk about successful men instead. Great suggestion.
- srean 5y ago
  No offense intended, it seems my comment has upset you or someone else who has been downvoting unrelated comments. Turing is a person of interest here, for obvious reasons, so did not think it would be out of place. Gender identity was the last thing on my mind. There are some similarities, a mathematician, amateur sportsman in an Olympics, don't you think ? Turing's running mates were quite unaware of his technical and academic contributions, partly due to the secrecy of his wartime contributions. If women athletes with academic accomplishments interest you, you may checkout Corinna Cortes. She is VP at Google Research, known for her foundational work in machine learning, support vector machines in particular. She is Danish, if that matters to you.
- mmdoda 5y ago
  The fact that she's a woman doesn't make this interesting. (Woman winning women's cycling wouldn't be much news.) The reason this is interesting is because she's a Mathematician and an amateur.
- hervature 5y ago
  It seems like a pertinent interesting side fact about mathematicians at the Olympics. The list is obviously pretty small.
- xondono 5y ago
  Let’s ignore talking about mathematicians who participate in the olympics and focus on their genitalia, because that’s clearly what’s important here.
- adrian_b 5y ago
  Any 2 humans who are simultaneously good mathematicians and good athletes have much more in common than most pairs of women or most pairs of men have just because they have the same sex.
- C19is20 5y ago
  As an ardent women's cycling fan, i found it a fascinating fact.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  There's room for talking about both. It's not somehow a put down of the woman to kind of compare her to Turing.
_Microft 5y ago
Honest question: why would this be interesting in this context? (Edit: check the follow-up comments to see why I wasn't as surprised as others about Ms. Kiesenhofer being both sportswomen and active academic and therefore did not make the connection with Mr. Turing immediately)
- mmdoda 5y ago
  Because he's also a Mathematician in the Olympics, similar to (but not as successful) as Mrs. Kiesenhofer. We like when nerds are not completely 1 dimensional.
  - _Microft 5y ago
    Hmm, I've got a friend who won the German championship in their sport (watersport, individual) and went on to get a PhD in math, so maybe that's why the idea of both being a successful sportsman and following an academic career was not exactly foreign to me. Thanks for replying!
  - rurban 5y ago
    Why don't you call her Dr. Kiesenhofer then? Esp. Austrians love their titles.
- awb 5y ago
  It’s super rare to be intellectually gifted and a world-class athlete. There was an NFL offensive lineman with a published mathematical paper as well, but I didn’t know about Turing’s physical talents until now. I don’t know of any other instances of brilliant people being paid or awarded medals for their physical abilities, so I personally found it interesting. I guess the parent comment was for those of us that were intrigued by the intersection of top-tier physical and mental abilities.
  - acdha 5y ago
    It’s also a healthy correction for the nerds-versus-jocks dichotomy which was so common for years. There are a non-trivial number of people who actively questioned someone’s technical competency if they were athletic or assumed that the only way to be a successful academic was to grind everything else out of their life.
mjul 5y ago
Harald Bohr won a silver medal at the 1908 Olympics with the Danish football team. He was also a notable mathematician, an editor for Acta Mathematica and he discovered the fascinating Fastperiodische Funktionen. Sports and academics were not unusual in his family: his brother Niels (not an Olympian, but a known physicist) had a son Ernest who was an Olympian in 1948 (hockey). Unlike his father and brother Aage, Ernest did not win a Nobel (he was a lawyer).
- srean 5y ago
  Thanks for adding this anecdote. Is it the same mathematician who worked on almost periodic functions ? I have run into those in my line of work. On second thoughts, I guess that's what Fastperiodische Funktionen means. On a different note this would be the third example where the person concerned is Danish. Was entertained by how you wrote about all those relations and associations it felt like those logic puzzles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_Puzzle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_Puzzle

It might be interesting to recall that Alan Turing was an Olympics team contender for 1948~1949

by srean 5y ago

It might be interesting to recall that Alan Turing was an Olympics team contender for 1948~1949

Yes, let's use the opportunity this article about this successful woman has provided us to talk about successful men instead. Great suggestion.

srean 5y ago
No offense intended, it seems my comment has upset you or someone else who has been downvoting unrelated comments. Turing is a person of interest here, for obvious reasons, so did not think it would be out of place. Gender identity was the last thing on my mind. There are some similarities, a mathematician, amateur sportsman in an Olympics, don't you think ? Turing's running mates were quite unaware of his technical and academic contributions, partly due to the secrecy of his wartime contributions. If women athletes with academic accomplishments interest you, you may checkout Corinna Cortes. She is VP at Google Research, known for her foundational work in machine learning, support vector machines in particular. She is Danish, if that matters to you.
mmdoda 5y ago
The fact that she's a woman doesn't make this interesting. (Woman winning women's cycling wouldn't be much news.) The reason this is interesting is because she's a Mathematician and an amateur.
hervature 5y ago
It seems like a pertinent interesting side fact about mathematicians at the Olympics. The list is obviously pretty small.
xondono 5y ago
Let’s ignore talking about mathematicians who participate in the olympics and focus on their genitalia, because that’s clearly what’s important here.
adrian_b 5y ago
Any 2 humans who are simultaneously good mathematicians and good athletes have much more in common than most pairs of women or most pairs of men have just because they have the same sex.
C19is20 5y ago
As an ardent women's cycling fan, i found it a fascinating fact.
DoreenMichele 5y ago
There's room for talking about both. It's not somehow a put down of the woman to kind of compare her to Turing.

_Microft 5y ago

Honest question: why would this be interesting in this context? (Edit: check the follow-up comments to see why I wasn't as surprised as others about Ms. Kiesenhofer being both sportswomen and active academic and therefore did not make the connection with Mr. Turing immediately)

mmdoda 5y ago
Because he's also a Mathematician in the Olympics, similar to (but not as successful) as Mrs. Kiesenhofer. We like when nerds are not completely 1 dimensional.
- _Microft 5y ago
  Hmm, I've got a friend who won the German championship in their sport (watersport, individual) and went on to get a PhD in math, so maybe that's why the idea of both being a successful sportsman and following an academic career was not exactly foreign to me. Thanks for replying!
- rurban 5y ago
  Why don't you call her Dr. Kiesenhofer then? Esp. Austrians love their titles.
awb 5y ago
It’s super rare to be intellectually gifted and a world-class athlete. There was an NFL offensive lineman with a published mathematical paper as well, but I didn’t know about Turing’s physical talents until now. I don’t know of any other instances of brilliant people being paid or awarded medals for their physical abilities, so I personally found it interesting. I guess the parent comment was for those of us that were intrigued by the intersection of top-tier physical and mental abilities.
- acdha 5y ago
  It’s also a healthy correction for the nerds-versus-jocks dichotomy which was so common for years. There are a non-trivial number of people who actively questioned someone’s technical competency if they were athletic or assumed that the only way to be a successful academic was to grind everything else out of their life.

mjul 5y ago

Harald Bohr won a silver medal at the 1908 Olympics with the Danish football team. He was also a notable mathematician, an editor for Acta Mathematica and he discovered the fascinating Fastperiodische Funktionen. Sports and academics were not unusual in his family: his brother Niels (not an Olympian, but a known physicist) had a son Ernest who was an Olympian in 1948 (hockey). Unlike his father and brother Aage, Ernest did not win a Nobel (he was a lawyer).

srean 5y ago
Thanks for adding this anecdote. Is it the same mathematician who worked on almost periodic functions ? I have run into those in my line of work. On second thoughts, I guess that's what Fastperiodische Funktionen means. On a different note this would be the third example where the person concerned is Danish. Was entertained by how you wrote about all those relations and associations it felt like those logic puzzles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_Puzzle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_Puzzle