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He dropped out to become a poet – now he’s won a Fields Medal (2022)
- messe 3y agoThe title immediately reminded of a David Hilbert quote. Upon hearing that one of his students had dropped out to become a poet, he is said to have remarked: "Good, he did not have enough imagination to become a mathematician."
- AlecSchueler 3y agoQuite sad to hear that remark. I'm a big fan of Hilbert but that kind of pettiness is sad to see from him. I guess we're all just human.
- hmmmcurious1 3y agoHe's just emphasizing the amount of creativity you need in mathematics research.
- haswell 3y agoIt is possible to provide such emphasis without belittling former students in the process. I’m a bit cautious about this because it’s presented as “he is said to have remarked…”, but cutting people down - especially students - to make some other point is unnecessary and not ideal.
- BSEdlMMldESB 3y agolet's just please not forget that they lived in a different time and place... I'm sure in Hilbert's time there was nothing bad about what he said like there's now. not that I particularly like Hilbert, he gives me a bad vibe because: how do I forgive shitty professors who have refused to help me? how do I let go of the fact they are awful people from a different era? How do I refuse to undergo the rituals which teach things I whish to not learn (certain attitudes) while at the same time making it through those same rituals I reject? and it turns out the professor I speak of IS on D. Hilbert's lineage!
- bjornasm 3y agoHow do you know he is belittling a former student?
- hgsgm 3y agoBecause the quote says so
- arturkane7 3y agoYou will then love Paul Erdos sending a colleague an earnest letter saying he was “praying for his soul” for publishing a paper in the Journal of Applied Probability. This kind of militant snobbery for pure math is common with the greats and shouldn’t be taken personally.
- messe 3y ago> shouldn’t be taken personally I think it also shouldn't always be taken so seriously. In my experience, mathematicians (both applied and pure) tend to have a sense of humour about this sort of thing, and I see no reason to doubt that that wouldn't have applied to at least some of the greats as well.
- AlecSchueler 3y agoWhy should shitting on other fields or their passions be taken less seriously just because it's common for mathematicians to do it?
- TheFreim 3y agoIt's common for people to talk about different fields this way, it's a form of lighthearted rivalry. Not worth getting worked up over it, unless you're an unfunny boring person.
- arturkane7 3y agolol these are meant to be ironic comments, seems you are taking them far too seriously. Look up Erdos’s story to understand his irony.
- AlecSchueler 3y agoI just think it's sad because a lot of people are put off by this kind of snobbery in mathematics. Joking or ironic or not it can still be harmful.
- bjornasm 3y agoYou can interpret it as pettiness or just a humorous remark said with a smile.
- gnatman 3y agoIt's absolutely a joke!
- gobdovan 3y agoTo me it sounds like a tongue in cheek remark because creativity is obviously needed in poetry and is strongly associated with poetry. Sounds like the type of thing a teacher says to get a laugh out of the students. You can give Hilbert more leeway without more context.
- bell-cot 3y agoAttn: Departmental Curriculum Committee Prior: URGENT Re: [Article Attached] For those who recall the Regents' recent decision to cut humanities yet again, there will be a special Departmental Curriculum Committee meeting at 4pm on Monday. Meeting Subject - developing and offering new courses for both seniors and graduate students in Mathematics. Starting this Fall term. - Sonata Wordwright, Departmental Assistant Dean of Humanities for Poetry
- arturkane7 3y agoThe title is less surprising if you consider that straight after dropping out to be a poet (in high school) he effectively started getting one to one tutoring from a field medalist for three years in his late teens to early 20s, to practically living with the medalist.
- ramblerman 3y agoIt’s still surprising, but I agree, worth mentioning. Although I don’t think a field medalist would waste his time with an untalented youth. He obviously saw something.
- arturkane7 3y agoI didn’t meant it in a way to diminish how clever he is. Just the bit about dropping out is overstated relative to what came straight after.
- linhvn 3y agoYes, it was lucky that he was tutored my a Fields medalist. But he did the hard work to get himself tutored: sitting in an algebraic geometry class (that saw attendances dropping from 200 to 5 within a few weeks), reaching out to the professor, traveling with him for 2 years, etc. And then he still needed to do all the work himself for his PhD, and so forth.
- user_named 3y agoHe got paid
- moralestapia 3y ago>I don’t think a field medalist would waste his time with an untalented youth. Ugh. Do you think a Fields medalist would "waste" his time cleaning his bedroom? Folding his clothes? 1. The world is much more menial than you think it is. 2. Fields medalists are, unsurprisingly, human beings, and keep doing human stuff like making new friends just for fun. 3. Not everyone is living under the weird delusion/obsession where all outcomes have to be maximally favorable for "life to be worth it". Not all companies have to be billion dollar companies. Not all students have to go and win Fields medals. 4. The "untalented youth" is much more interesting than what you give them credit for.
- shrx 3y agoHe = June Huh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Huh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Huh
- maksimur 3y agoWonder if his experience as a poet opened his mind to the kind of imagination you need in higher mathematics.
- f_gg_tk_ll_r 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- neontomo 3y agoMost interesting about this article for me was the parts about how he conducts his thinking, which is slowly and allowing space for distractions or re-reading books instead of finding new ones. It sounds contradictory to what would be productive in learning, but it seems to help him in processing concepts.
- hgsgm 3y agoWhy would careful study contradict learning?
- neontomo 3y agoIt doesn't. If you read the article, another person first assumed that this guy was wasting time on simple concepts and not learning fast enough. Then the realisation came that he was learning them in a deeper level and doing it slowly helped to do that. It's just interesting.
- tarr11 3y agoI found the writing of this piece to be very clear and accessible. Whenever i read something like this, I marvel at the author who can be both fluent in Mathematics and have an ability to convey very complex ideas to a lay reader.
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoInteresting, his description of not being able to choose what he focuses on and struggling in school is typical of ADHD.
- johnaspden 3y agoPresumably he doesn't care. How's his poetry?
- maliker 3y agoG.H. Hardy was also famous for not working that hard. From https://math.stackexchange.com/a/845622 https://math.stackexchange.com/a/845622 "In fact for most of his life his day, at least during the cricket season, would consist of breakfast during which he read The Times studying the cricket scores with great interest. After breakfast he would work on his own mathematical researches from 9 o'clock till 1 o'clock. Then, after a light lunch, he would walk down to the university cricket ground to watch a game. In the late afternoon he would walk slowly back to his rooms in College. There he took dinner, which he followed with a glass of wine. When cricket was not in season, it was the Australian cricket scores he would read in The Times and he would play real tennis in the afternoons."
- leipert 3y ago4h each day, consistently, every day, seems like it could be considered „hard-working“, especially working on Maths.
- juunpp 3y agoThe handwriting on those notes is legit.
- amelius 3y agoWritten without a single mistake. Kinda suspicious, if you ask me. These are probably not his notes, but more like a publication and he doesn't want to use modern tools.
- peterfirefly 3y agohis blackboards also look like that.
- maksimur 3y agoNot hard to write notes without mistakes if you write regularly. What surprises me is people typing mistakes so often.
- majikaja 3y agoI remember once reading someone on Wall Street Oasis saying that Nobel prizes and Fields medals are nothing special (as a judge of intelligence) as the lure of money found in business is not there to attract the brightest into competing.
- pyduan 3y agoYou are quoting someone from a financial career interview forum who can't imagine why a bright person would want to pursue a lesser paid career in research.
- bjornasm 3y agoAs if you don't easily see the futileness of soending your life chasing money when you are very intelligent.
- hgsgm 3y agoPlease explain why financial modeling is more futile than abstract graph theory. Both are math problems. Guess who paid for the article you just read? James Simons, a "money chaser".
- kyawzazaw 3y agoYet RenTech recruits these people https://www.reuters.com/article/simons-hedge/renaissance-hedge-fund-only-scientists-need-apply-idUSN2135575220070522 https://www.reuters.com/article/simons-hedge/renaissance-hed...
- hgsgm 3y agoThe Wall Street guys work 90 hour weeks and many have to wear awful clothes in awful offices with awful people. The Fields medalists work 20 or less in their pajamas. Are you sure the Wall Street guys are better paid?
- majikaja 3y agoI didn't say I agreed with them, but the smartest probably don't hang around in the places you describe.
- goodbyesf 3y agoHe (June) dropped out to Become a poet. Now he's Won a Fields Medal.
- julianeon 3y agoIt seems like it might be time for Korean science & math to have a higher profile; Huh grew up in South Korea and his father was a statistician there, and of course the really big news this year, LK99.
- dang 3y agoDiscussed at the time: He dropped out to become a poet – now he’s won a Fields Medal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31985400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31985400 - July 2022 (136 comments)