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I suspect that this is true for any field. Not just mathematics. Think computer science. Think physics. The reality is that only a tiny percentage of people mov

I suspect that this is true for any field. Not just mathematics. Think computer science. Think physics. The reality is that only a tiny percentage of people move a field/humankind forward. For every Einstein there are millions of people with zero long term impact.

Ar-Curunir 4y ago
I don’t think that’s true at all. Sure, some folks have outsized impact, but that doesn’t mean that,e.g., only Turing Award winners are have contributed to computer science. In fact, an outsized percentage of work put into projects led by these research “celebrities” is done by oft-forgotten grad students. Also, the article literally shows the opposite: these lineages contain many illustrious mathematicians, and it does them a disservice to classify them all as, e.g., “gauss’s line”
throw0101a 4y ago
> The reality is that only a tiny percentage of people move a field/humankind forward. We just happen to remember the ones that got more press, or perhaps published first. As one example, multiple folks came up with calculus at just about the same time: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multiple_discoveries#17th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multiple_discoveries#1... Everyone knows Newton, some folks know about Leibniz, but how many now about de Fermat, etc? Bell is know for the telephone, but what about Elisha Gray? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Gray_and_Alexander_Bell_telephone_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Gray_and_Alexander_Bell... Also Edison and the light bulb versus Swan (and others): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb
- usrn 4y ago
  A lot of calculus is intuitively obvious IMO. People make way too big a deal over who "invented" it. Half the people here probably figured integrals out on their own writing video games in their teens.

Ar-Curunir 4y ago

I don’t think that’s true at all. Sure, some folks have outsized impact, but that doesn’t mean that,e.g., only Turing Award winners are have contributed to computer science. In fact, an outsized percentage of work put into projects led by these research “celebrities” is done by oft-forgotten grad students. Also, the article literally shows the opposite: these lineages contain many illustrious mathematicians, and it does them a disservice to classify them all as, e.g., “gauss’s line”

throw0101a 4y ago

> The reality is that only a tiny percentage of people move a field/humankind forward. We just happen to remember the ones that got more press, or perhaps published first. As one example, multiple folks came up with calculus at just about the same time: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multiple_discoveries#17th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multiple_discoveries#1... Everyone knows Newton, some folks know about Leibniz, but how many now about de Fermat, etc? Bell is know for the telephone, but what about Elisha Gray? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Gray_and_Alexander_Bell_telephone_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Gray_and_Alexander_Bell... Also Edison and the light bulb versus Swan (and others): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb

usrn 4y ago
A lot of calculus is intuitively obvious IMO. People make way too big a deal over who "invented" it. Half the people here probably figured integrals out on their own writing video games in their teens.