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The background story of Évariste Galois is phenomenal. He was expelled from school twice, fought in a revolutionary unit, was imprisoned for threatening the lif

by nagrom 15y ago

The background story of Évariste Galois is phenomenal. He was expelled from school twice, fought in a revolutionary unit, was imprisoned for threatening the life of the king and revolutionised mathematics forever. He died in a duel over a woman at the age of 20! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Évariste_Galois http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Évariste_Galois Imagine what he would have done if he had lived to 40? There were some really fascinating characters in the mathematics in the 19th century. A very far stretch from the world's stereotypes of a repressed, bespectacled geek or the boring image of mathematics given by high school classes.

InclinedPlane 15y ago
Imagine how many geniuses of Galois' caliber have come and gone in the last 2 centuries but never had a chance to make a significant contribution to the world due to being discouraged or oppressed by a suffocating school system or a dysfunctional family life that drove them onto a different track.
huhtenberg 15y ago
> Imagine what he would have done if he had lived to 40? Sorry, can't. Marriage alone is a major productivity killer, then there are also kids and general life problems. There was a study that basically built a histogram of mathematicians' (?) productivity vs age. The peak was around 25 years old, followed by a very steep decline.
- tokenadult 15y ago
  Marriage alone is a major productivity killer, then there are also kids and general life problems. Leonhard Euler managed to be a productive mathematician for decades. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler He had children and grandchildren, and that didn't stop him from working on mathematics even in their presence. Blindness didn't stop him either.
  - huhtenberg 15y ago
    Sure, but that's a sample of one.
    - mahmud 15y ago
      The "rock stars" of mathematics are all mostly romanticized youth, but its bedrock is mostly gray-matter tucked under grayer hair.
    - ColinWright 15y ago
      Bela Bollobas, Tim Gowers, Ron Graham, John H Conway, Elwyn Berlekamp, Richard Guy, Reinhard Diestel, Alan Baker. The problem is that you only hear about the truly eccentric. Ordinary people who are also extraordinary mathematicians never get romanticised, so you won't have heard of them. I've just picked a few there from my own personal acquaintance.
- showerst 15y ago
  There's been a little interesting work that suggests that there are different archetypes among the extremely creative that roughly correspond to 'early peakers' and 'late peakers'. I just skimmed this wired article but it seems like a good summary (note the '06 date though) http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/genius.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/genius.html
  - kghose 15y ago
    Perhaps 'early' and 'late' are not as important as the fact that there is a peak - people don't seem to be famous/productive in a sustained way. The 'early' and 'late' is probably continuous, you can peak anytime, but you tend not to hold it.
    - eric-hu 15y ago
      Leonhard Euler: Born: 1707 completes masters in philosophy: 1723 lost vision in right eye: 1735 Solved 7 bridges problem: 1736 publish Introductio in analysin infinitorum, volume 1: 1748 [2] Euler-Bernoulli Beam Theory: 1750 Euler's Formula (geometry): 1750 [1] publish Institutiones calculi differentialis: 1755 [2] near total blindness: 1766 publish Theoria motuum lunae: 1768 [1] http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/junkyard/euler/ http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/junkyard/euler/ [2] http://eulerarchive.maa.org/historica/euler-timeline.html http://eulerarchive.maa.org/historica/euler-timeline.html There's plenty more that's left out. After his near-total blindness, he averaged publishing one mathematical paper per week in 1775. To assume you or I are like Euler is hubris. To assume otherwise is doing a disservice to humanity.
- Turing_Machine 15y ago
  That was formerly true in other sciences as well, but things have been changing: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/News_Articles/2011/scientific_productivity_increases.aspx http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/News_Articles/2011/scien... I don't know if mathematics has been following the same trend.
JoeCamel 15y ago
Genius and Biographers: The Fictionalization of Evariste Galois by Tony Rothman http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~trothman/galois.html http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~trothman/galois.html "This article is an attempt to sift some of the facts of Galois's life from the embroidery. It will not be an entirely complete account and will assume the reader is familiar with the story, presumably through Bell's version. Because these authors have emphasized the end of Galois's life, I will do so here. As will become apparent, many of the statements just cited are at at worst nonsensical, or at best have no basis in the known facts."

by nagrom 15y ago

InclinedPlane 15y ago

Imagine how many geniuses of Galois' caliber have come and gone in the last 2 centuries but never had a chance to make a significant contribution to the world due to being discouraged or oppressed by a suffocating school system or a dysfunctional family life that drove them onto a different track.

huhtenberg 15y ago

> Imagine what he would have done if he had lived to 40? Sorry, can't. Marriage alone is a major productivity killer, then there are also kids and general life problems. There was a study that basically built a histogram of mathematicians' (?) productivity vs age. The peak was around 25 years old, followed by a very steep decline.

tokenadult 15y ago
Marriage alone is a major productivity killer, then there are also kids and general life problems. Leonhard Euler managed to be a productive mathematician for decades. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler He had children and grandchildren, and that didn't stop him from working on mathematics even in their presence. Blindness didn't stop him either.
- huhtenberg 15y ago
  Sure, but that's a sample of one.
  - mahmud 15y ago
    The "rock stars" of mathematics are all mostly romanticized youth, but its bedrock is mostly gray-matter tucked under grayer hair.
  - ColinWright 15y ago
    Bela Bollobas, Tim Gowers, Ron Graham, John H Conway, Elwyn Berlekamp, Richard Guy, Reinhard Diestel, Alan Baker. The problem is that you only hear about the truly eccentric. Ordinary people who are also extraordinary mathematicians never get romanticised, so you won't have heard of them. I've just picked a few there from my own personal acquaintance.
showerst 15y ago
There's been a little interesting work that suggests that there are different archetypes among the extremely creative that roughly correspond to 'early peakers' and 'late peakers'. I just skimmed this wired article but it seems like a good summary (note the '06 date though) http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/genius.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/genius.html
- kghose 15y ago
  Perhaps 'early' and 'late' are not as important as the fact that there is a peak - people don't seem to be famous/productive in a sustained way. The 'early' and 'late' is probably continuous, you can peak anytime, but you tend not to hold it.
  - eric-hu 15y ago
    Leonhard Euler: Born: 1707 completes masters in philosophy: 1723 lost vision in right eye: 1735 Solved 7 bridges problem: 1736 publish Introductio in analysin infinitorum, volume 1: 1748 [2] Euler-Bernoulli Beam Theory: 1750 Euler's Formula (geometry): 1750 [1] publish Institutiones calculi differentialis: 1755 [2] near total blindness: 1766 publish Theoria motuum lunae: 1768 [1] http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/junkyard/euler/ http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/junkyard/euler/ [2] http://eulerarchive.maa.org/historica/euler-timeline.html http://eulerarchive.maa.org/historica/euler-timeline.html There's plenty more that's left out. After his near-total blindness, he averaged publishing one mathematical paper per week in 1775. To assume you or I are like Euler is hubris. To assume otherwise is doing a disservice to humanity.
Turing_Machine 15y ago
That was formerly true in other sciences as well, but things have been changing: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/News_Articles/2011/scientific_productivity_increases.aspx http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/News_Articles/2011/scien... I don't know if mathematics has been following the same trend.

JoeCamel 15y ago

Genius and Biographers: The Fictionalization of Evariste Galois by Tony Rothman http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~trothman/galois.html http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~trothman/galois.html "This article is an attempt to sift some of the facts of Galois's life from the embroidery. It will not be an entirely complete account and will assume the reader is familiar with the story, presumably through Bell's version. Because these authors have emphasized the end of Galois's life, I will do so here. As will become apparent, many of the statements just cited are at at worst nonsensical, or at best have no basis in the known facts."