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Mathematician who made sense of the universe's randomness wins Abel Prize
- friend_and_foe 3y agoI've found his work on inequalities, but the article mentions in passing that he did some good work on the teavellimg salesman problem and I can't seem to find anything about it. Does anyone know where I could find it?
- jjtheblunt 3y agohttps://projecteuclid.org/journals/annals-of-probability/volume-17/issue-1/A-Sharp-Deviation-Inequality-for-the-Stochastic-Traveling-Salesman-Problem/10.1214/aop/1176991490.full https://projecteuclid.org/journals/annals-of-probability/vol...
- friend_and_foe 3y agoThank you very much.
- uptownfunk 3y agoThe world needs more recognition of good mathematics and mathematicians. Really love the work quantum magazine does on covering mathematics. So many implications for the rest of the world.
- mr_mitm 3y agoFor those who don't know, Quanta Magazine is financed by Jim Simons (from Chern-Simons theory) who became known as a very successful hedge fund manager. I just love the idea that he's using a portion of his billions to fund a little non-profit math magazine.
- kwant_kiddo 3y agoit is a shame they don't do physical print through
- cout 3y agoI agree. Quanta is the sort of material I like to read during my morning coffee ritual before I start a day of screen time. Are there any quality print magazines like it? I used to get Physics World a long time ago and have been looking for something in print to scratch that same itch.
- ketanmaheshwari 3y agoCommunication of ACM (CACM) still prints magazines. They are reasonably good quality.
- sn9 3y agoThey actually kinda do have print collections of some of their articles, but in the form of books and not well marketed [0]. [0] https://www.quantamagazine.org/gift-store https://www.quantamagazine.org/gift-store
- uptownfunk 3y agoA physical magazine would be nice. I just print papers out on my printer these days and mark em up with my pen of choice :)
- PartiallyTyped 3y agoThe world could always use more people like that. Something something effective altruism. It doesn't even need to be altruistic. One would expect that out of sheer self-interest, one would look into propelling humanity forward by elevating and liberating as many people as possible, enabling the brightest of our species to solve the hardest problems and elevate humanity. Though accepting that one needs others to solve problems one does not understand, that they play a supporting role, takes a great deal of humility.
- lukan 3y agoI suppose for that to happen, the world needs better math lessons in school. Most have allmost traumatic experiences, so they now don't want to know anything about math at all. (I also only started to enjoy math, when I could apply it with programming, before it was not traumatic, but mostly boring, but we also did not cover any fun parts like Mandelbrot etc)
- aaplok 3y agoI'm always very confused by this. Why are maths lessons more traumatic than, say, history or biology or foreign language lessons? I mean learning lists of irregular verbs is not precisely most people's idea of fun. And yet only about maths do people speak with such dramatic language. There must be something beyond what's happening in schools themselves that makes people react this way. I just can't work out what it is.
- lukan 3y agoA language is something where people understand, they can use it in the real world (but french still can also be hated for example). But Math beyond the basics is perceived as unnecessary torture, with no practical use, one has to endure to get a diploma. So yes, my proposal would be to teach it more in a practical, applied way.
- aaplok 3y agoWhat about history? Don't people perceive it as even more unnecessary than maths? Shouldn't we expect to see all sorts of theories on how history should be taught in more practical ways if your explanation is correct? I'm only picking on history or languages as examples. I could have picked literature, or almost anything, really. A lot of what is taught at school isn't necessarily a bunch of super applied skills There are lots of bad teachers in every discipline, and I'm sure that everything could be taught a lot better. I'm still not getting why maths is singled out.
- lukan 3y ago
- billfruit 3y agoThey could have written a better head line and mentioned the name of the mathematician. Leaving the mathematicians name out of the head line is a click bait technique, and tends to devalue the whole article. "Michel Talagrand wins Abel Prize for his work on randomness/stochastic processes" would have been a good headline to have, but they chose theirs deliberately to not reveal the import information at a glance.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jylam 3y agoMaybe credit him in the title would be a good thing to start. In the title, there is neither its name nor the price he won. His nationality is not even mentioned in the article.
- abhinavstarts 3y agoCan someone please share the actual work for which he was awarded, I couldn't find.
- datascienced 3y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talagrand's_concentration_inequality https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talagrand's_concentration_in... ?
- abhinavstarts 3y agoThanks.
- datascienced 3y agoUnderstanding it is another matter! Feel like I need to do a masters/phd first.
- fsmv 3y agoHere's a post about it on Terry Tao's blog https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/talagrands-concentration-inequality/ https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/talagrands-concent...
- hyperliner 3y ago[dead]
- fmajid 3y agoYes, it’s the equivalent to the Nobel in that it’s yearly with a big monetary prize, but the most prestigious award in the field remains the Fields medal, which is only awarded every four years.
- karmakurtisaani 3y agoThe age limit of 40 kind of ruins the Fields medal as the top prize tho. Sure, getting it is absolutely huge, but what about the people whose work's value is apparent only after decades?
- Thomashuet 3y agoThe Nobel prize is usually awarded to old (around 60) researchers at the end of their career whereas the Fields medal is only awarded to researchers under 40 (and since it's only awarded every 4 years, the cutoff age can even be 36 if you're not lucky). In that sense the Abel prize is more of a Nobel equivalent than the Fields medal.
- macintux 3y agoDiscussion two weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39764954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39764954
- dang 3y agoThanks! Macroexpanded: Michel Talagrand wins Abel Prize for work wrangling randomness - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39764954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39764954 - March 2024 (48 comments)
- webwanderings 3y agoThis is such a great quote for everyone! No matter the age. No matter what one wants to do. > “I’m not able to learn mathematics easily,” Talagrand tells ... “I have to work. It takes a very long time and I have a terrible memory. I forget things. So I try to work, despite handicaps, and the way I worked was trying to understand really well the simple things. Really, really well, in complete detail. And that turned out to be a successful approach.” Just imagine. You may be super smart who gets things easily and right away. Or, you may be average. Using this philosophy in life, one can excel further.
- haolez 3y agoI had a college friend that's super slow to learn. He would always get behind on classes and would not even get passing grades most of the time. But! When he finally learned something new, he would never forget it. He would remember it in details, both the whys and the hows. I've always admired his skill.
- spiderfarmer 3y agoI always wonder if people like him are able to learn faster if the courses are structured differently.
- neon5077 3y agoI'm like this, and yes, very much so. The (US) academic system is not set up to accommodate anyone, really. It's designed to get someone just below average through their standardized testing and not much more. If you don't fit that mold you're shit outta luck. You either suffer through it like "normal" people, or you find it utterly intolerable and fail or drop out. Personally, I learn best backwards from everyone else. Building up very slowly from fundamentals and basically starting over with basic algebra every semester is actual hell. I need to see the goal concept fully formed and functional, and then work backwards to derive the fundamentals I'm missing. Generally speaking, once I understand a concept I have it forever. I usually only need the briefest of refresher on mechanics and formulae as I use them. Spending the first month of calculus class going over 9th grade algebra is an unbelievable waste of my time. My final attempt at college was a CS degree. I made it through one semester and did not even get to a single CS concept. It was at least a year and a half of bullshit prerequisites that I had to pay for. I dropped out when I had to write a presentation to the board of my hypothetical company on the benefits of upgrading their printers. I'm not kidding. I paid real money for this. I've totally given up on the educational system. I don't fit into the cookie cutter ideal of the average idiot grinding out a degree. I just can't do it. I think probably the ideal way for me to learn is to spend a lot of time one on one with a domain expert that can show me the final concept and work backwards with me to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. I don't want or need, nor can I tolerate spending time going over things I already know for the 30th time. I need to learn the things I don't know. School just doesn't work that way.
- owlbite 3y agoAnd here I was thinking the Fields Medal was Math's Top Prize.
- jylam 3y agoWeird that neither his name (Michel Talagrand) nor his nationality (French) are mentioned in the title. His nationality is not even mentioned in the article. I'd be pissed if I were him, doing something that important, and not even getting your name in the title.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- GrumpySloth 3y agoWhy would the nationality be important?
- sn9 3y agoI imagine that people like Talagrand are more concerned with the substance of the article than the title, where all this and more are unambiguously detailed.
- __lbracket__ 3y agoHow many women were nominated and denied?
- baobabKoodaa 3y agoDon't be like this.
- uptownfunk 3y agoMy problem was always I took on too much so I had surprising breadth. I could find connections between many areas. I wish I had just focused on one or two things and gone very very deep. I would probably be a more fulfilled academic today if I was able to do that instead of an engineering manager.