10 ms·
June Huh dropped out to become a poet, now he’s won a Fields Medal (2022)
- pinewurst 1y ago(2022)
- dang 1y agoAdded. Thanks!
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- dgfitz 1y ago> he dropped out of high school to become a poet. Not even college, high school. Really misleading/unfortunate title. As an aside, why would anyone need to drop out of anything to become a poet?
- conception 1y agoTo spend more time on it.
- dgfitz 1y agoSpend more time on what, exactly? Writing poetry actively, all day, every day? That’s a lot of writing.
- jjallen 1y agoHow often do people become very good at something without spending the vast majority of their time on it for a long time?
- iterance 1y agoI do not think you are aware that most people's process of writing good poetry is quite involved. It's okay not to understand, but be cautious about implying that another person's artistic work could be done in a spare hour here or there between coursework. It is disrespectful to the hard work of the written word.
- eviks 1y agoIt can also involve a lot of reading and thinking, also stuff you need time for
- conception 1y agoThat’s basically what Paul Erdos did for math. People who dedicate their lives to a skill are the ones that tend to push humanity forward bit by bit.
- senderista 1y agoJoseph Brodsky dropped out of communism to become a poet, which did not amuse the authorities.
- gyomu 1y agoIn case you’re asking the question not rhetorically - this is the kind of thing you can afford to do when you have an extremely strong/privileged support system. It’s myth-making, and shouldn’t be confused with “dropping out to take care of your sick parent” or “dropping out and going to work at McDonald’s”.
- melling 1y agoI’m not familiar with the privileged support system in South Korea. Is it different than in the US or Europe? I believe Einstein dropped out of high school and traveled a bit through Italy. We definitely need a world where more young people can drop out for a few years.
- DetroitThrow 1y agoIt feels disengenuous if you're seriously stating you're not familiar with how people with stable families and familial wealth have a much larger level of freedom in their choices to pursue the arts compared the average person.
- Maxatar 1y agoI am also not familiar with how it works in South Korea, do you have any insight?
- DetroitThrow 1y agoJust curious, do you live in a capitalist country? In your country, how easy is it for someone to professionally work on their _art_ - i.e. have a career not just art-adjacent, like doing creative work as a graphic designer or animator or tattoo artist, but actually their own art, such as original paintings, poetry, or novels - which pays the entirety of their bills (presuming their bills actually include rent, food, transportation)? In your country, is their any pressure on an individual working in the arts to work another job? Can they sustain a family? Do artists typically live with their parents or receive familial support until they hit it big? Do they live out the starving artist stereotype or are they given a less meager existence? Of the people that grew up poor that you know, do you know how many of them wanted to be artists, but had to take care of family or their own survival ahead of pursuing their art? Of people you don't consider wealthy growing up, how many of them could afford a year at a prestigious private school for a year ahead of high school? (Relevant to the author here) If you can answer these, it may give you some insight on SK. I can give you more if that's not enough.
- dhosek 1y agoI was thinking that this was my path, I was a Math major (well actually Math-English double major) and I dropped out to focus on English. Of course I never got a Field Medal (or much success as a poet for that matter).
- mmooss 1y agoSounds great. You don't need a Fields Medal for life to be worthwhile, or it's hopeless for all of humanity.
- jebarker 1y agoAccelerated hero's journey.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 1y ago[flagged]
- zeroonetwothree 1y agoHow did transformers move forward pure math?
- ldjkfkdsjnv 1y agothere is a straight-faced argument that transformers are already a mathematical research tool and even a source of new theorems. and if true, surely more revolutionary than some ultra complicated corner of math
- dullcrisp 1y agoBig if true.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 1y agovery big
- markgall 1y agoDoes there exist a person who would make this argument straight-faced? I am a professional mathematician and have yet to hear of anyone coaxing an even slightly interesting new theorem out of AI. I think the day is clearly coming but it's not here.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 1y agofair enough, i suppose im a believer that the seeds are planted, the day is soon. and i must say, it seems more worhtwhile trying to figure out how to finetune an llm/implement reinforcement learning that could do some form of pure math, than it is to try and do new pure math by hand
- fjfaase 1y agoI wonder if the recurrence equations for the number of spanning trees in the GxP_n graphs also meet the log recuirement.
- fjfaase 1y agoI wonder if somebody already has scanned the OEIS for all recurrent relations that are "log concave". These are mentioned on https://oeis.org/wiki/Index_to_OEIS:_Section_Rec https://oeis.org/wiki/Index_to_OEIS:_Section_Rec . just scanning the page, I guess there are not so many that are unimodal and log concave.
- monkeyelite 1y ago[flagged]
- cma 1y agoDid you read the article? It doesn't say anything like he just woke up one day and changed majors, but that he made a connection in a class that most people dropped out of with a research professor.
- monkeyelite 1y agoYeah and which class was that? Calc 1?
- cma 1y agoIt wasn't at Princeton, not a class he had to get access to. Says the class had 200 people in it--wow the big exclusive club he used dirty family connections to get into to cheat at winning the Fields Medal: a class with 200 people enrolled.
- monkeyelite 1y agoHis father is a Statistics professor and he was taking a graduate level math course (algebraic geometry) from a Field’s medalist. This is a course nobody but math majors would take: > In that sixth year, he enrolled in a class taught by the famed Japanese mathematician Heisuke Hironaka, who won the Fields Medal in 1970 > Ostensibly, the course was an introduction to algebraic geometry, the study of solutions to algebraic equations and their geometric properties You seem weirdly personally invested in this: > the big exclusive club he used dirty family connections I didn’t say anything like that - I’m just saying the article wants to suggest he just happened into math and that’s clearly not the case.
- Quenby 1y ago[dead]
- CommenterPerson 1y agoI share quite a few of his quirks. I was also rejected by most of the grad schools I applied to. So how come I didn't amount to anything? Seriously, a well written article including the accessible explanations of his work. Plus, LoL funny. Thank you.
- OisinMoran 1y agoIt's not over yet my friend
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- wafflemaker 1y agoI've started my bachelor's at 35y, last year. Still waiting for grade on last exam, but it looks like after 4 tries (since 2008) I finally passed the first semester.
- mmooss 1y agoCongratulations! That takes so much courage - more than most of your classmates have ever had to exercise. The next semester should be easier!
- mlsu 1y agoI did this too, a little before you (started around 27ish) The B.S. changed my life. I graduated, you will too.
- atonse 1y agoCongrats. You’ll get there! Just take it one semester at a time.
- jaredhansen 1y agoThis is the friendliest comment I've seen on the World Wide Web today. Thank you for posting.
- 1y ago
- fromMars 1y agoThis story is a bit of a misnomer when you look deeper. His dad is a statistics professor and he was mentored by well known mathematician in undergraduate so it's not like he didn't have a lot of schooling.
- haiku2077 1y agoI don't think his dad helped him that much? The article says his dad gave up on trying to teach him.
- fromMars 1y agoWe can't really know for sure. We have the anecdote about the workbook but what about earlier and did he absorb any of his dad's teachings or aptitude by osmosis. Even if we accept he didn't he still went to college and had an unusual experience as an undergrad in being mentored by an excellent mathematician. That he took a gap year in h.s. doesn't seem that noteworthy to me.
- welldonehn 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- dang 1y agoRelated: He dropped out to become a poet – now he’s won a Fields Medal (2022) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37010709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37010709 - Aug 2023 (75 comments) 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)
- jll29 1y agoThanks. I wonder if this helpful service of integrating past comments on the same story ould be easily automated by looking for repeat URLs (and perhaps clustering old and new comments to integrate them so they can be presented as topical threads).
- pbhjpbhj 1y agoDang is a mod here, he's commented previously on how these posts are made, saying they're 'semi-automated'. I imagine if you search for "comments" in their comments you'll find threads with more details.
- creakingstairs 1y agoIt wasn’t the case for him but I’d like people to also note that in Korea, one of the strategy for getting into good universities is to actually drop out of high school and grind for the national exam by going to cram schools (hagwon) People do this because there are certain admission categories where the university only looks at the test results. So they go “okay, by not going to school, my child can fully focus on exam instead of wasting time on useless subjects like art and PE. And school math curriculum is too easy anyway” This really saddens me because schools should be more than gateways to universities, but I digress.
- cwmoore 1y agoTake the weekend off :) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4064129 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4064129
- rendall 1y ago> Take the weekend off :) > https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4064129 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4064129 How does this paper relate to GP's comment?
- DrBenCarson 1y agoThat is very sad but understandable, incentivize is hard to overcome Universities should be looking at more and discouraging 1 dimensional applicants
- asdsadasdasd123 1y agothis whole thing is like a crypto currency exercise where you input x compute for an expected value of y prestige points over 3 yrs
- charcircuit 1y agoIf they look at more than it makes sense to spend more time improving all of those aspects instead of wasting time at school.
- Alex_001 1y ago[flagged]
- jll29 1y agoImagine every kid had had a maths professor that demonstrated live research in the classroom, like the Japanese teacher that June Huh benefitted from - who knows, the world may be full of similar talent, we will never know. We should remember not to just present results, but to teach, demonstrate and live how to get there more. It's not even abour rich vs. poor education - almost all go through the whole system never seeing this, and for June Huh, sleeper maths genius, meeting that one person changed everything!
- pm215 1y agoThere's definitely scope for doing more of that. But notice also that of the 200 students who also got that opportunity alongside him, 195 stopped attending those lectures after just a few weeks; we don't know about the other 4 but I'm guessing they didn't all change their life trajectories as a result. So you're looking for needles in haystacks, and if you do too much of it you're providing an experience that 95% of your audience concludes is a waste of their time.
- smackay 1y agoThe path of progress is strewn with needles.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- wvh 1y agoI'm a trail runner. When I look at the ultra runner community, there definitely is a sense that some people have gamified their ancient brains and mastered the skill of short-term inconvenience to obtain long-term success, and it translates to many areas of life. I don't think it's unlikely that somebody is successful in multiple areas; surely you need some natural ability to reach the top in any specific discipline, but if you learn to apply yourself and persist, clearly that can help you in many areas, regardless of innate talent. My point being that maybe it's not unique sleeper inborn talent, but just learning grit, persistence and well, not being stupid, that will lead to success in life. If one thing doesn't hit, try another. So maybe you don't become a poet, but a math genius, or a soccer player, or a dancer; something else than a TV consumer.
- noelwelsh 1y agoClearly a very neurodivergent person. Glad he found a place in society where he could contribute within the quirks of his personality.
- brador 1y agoI would be interested to know if any of the latest AI models can 1. Verify the solution (should be easy). 2. Produce the solution.
- tim333 1y agoTrouble with 2 is they've probably already read the article and similar.
- _rpxpx 1y agoContains a couple of pop narrative cliches that always turn out to be gaudy exaggerations for journalistic effect: "he came from art, he is driven by beauty! he stunned the mathematical world!", it's bollocks really, and he's no doubt quite embarrassed by this article. He once thought about being a poet, but actually didn't like the work. His parents had a mathematical academic background and he picked that up as an undergraduate. He exhibits fairly typical neurodivergent behaviour of people with ADHD and/or autism. I would like to see journalists start writing about actual poets, or sculptors etc, in this absurdly valourizing, mythologizing way.
- jjallen 1y agoVery cool that at least in S. Korea one can "mess up" by dropping out of high school and eventually go on to study under, work with, and finally win one of the most prestigious medals in the world. I think this _may_ be possible in the US, but would be much harder. This is isad because the US has a more anyone can do anything culture, which is normally great. But maybe it doesn't exist in some fields/schools/industries.
- vonneumannstan 1y agoBut he did it in the US? Got his PhD at a US University. Works at a US University, did his award winning work in the US. Not sure how this is anything but a US success story?
- Suppafly 1y ago>Very cool that at least in S. Korea one can "mess up" by dropping out of high school It's not even messing up there, it's a strategic move made by a lot of people. It's important to remember that not every system works the same as in the US.
- vogon_laureate 1y agoFine, but can he solve the Riemann Hypothesis in iambic pentameter?
- dhruv3006 1y agoModern education system is broken.
- 6stringmerc 1y agoSo he belongs to a wealthy family then, correct? Poetry is typically the pursuit of the bourgeoisie. It does not pay very well, especially to afford a family and only work three hours per day, as per the article. It’s great that he gets to live this lifestyle, for him, but there are some of us who pursue poetry at a net loss to quality of life. I’d possibly even contend that most people who actively engage in creative writing do so to their own detriment in a consumerist society with little to no safety net such as the US. Perhaps South Korea has a generous public endowment for poetry, and I would love to hear about it if so. Otherwise, I’m not particularly moved by another chronicle of superior outcomes in creative pursuits due to hereditary wealth articles.
- alimw 1y agoCalling yourself a poet does not excuse this meandering illogic
- yubblegum 1y ago"The work showed that “you don’t need space to do geometry,” Huh said. “That made me really fundamentally rethink what geometry is.”" That is one of the most thought provoking things I have ever read.