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But what does somebody do with a PhD at age 17? I can’t imagine hiring them as a prof when they’re so young. It’s not a bad idea to just take a couple years to

But what does somebody do with a PhD at age 17? I can’t imagine hiring them as a prof when they’re so young. It’s not a bad idea to just take a couple years to continue your already productive collaboration while getting mentored on the non-math parts of being a mathematician.

ics 1y ago
IIRC Erik Demaine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Demaine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Demaine) started teaching at 20 and had his PhD. I can't remember if I first saw his name because of the MacArthur Grant or one of those science documentaries but one of his pages was on the frontpage here a week or two ago and it seems like he's been thriving.
- daxfohl 1y ago
  Noam Elkies too, the youngest ever tenured prof at Harvard. Another parallel he had a pretty famous contradiction proof, of Euler's conjecture. But he didn't find that until age 22, so seems like this girl has a good head start!
- ekaryotic 1y ago
  theodore kacsynski started teaching at 22. a damn bright spark before he was victimised by the mind control experiment.
  - lupire 1y ago
    Kasynski got his masters degree at 22, which just slightly younger than average.
tehjoker 1y ago
When she graduates she'll probably be between 20 to 23 years old.
j7ake 1y ago
In math or theoretical fields it’s not unheard of to have young professors. Terence Tao was full professor at 24. Wolfram at 21
- parpfish 1y ago
  She could still do a few years of PhD training and still be a super young prof like those two. At 17 she’s so young that a uni hiring her would need to think about child labor laws
beezlebroxxxxxx 1y ago
> I can’t imagine hiring them as a prof when they’re so young Many institutions would actually jump at the chance. That's way better than a 35 or 37 year old burnt out from just finishing their PhD and getting onto the tenure track suffer-fest. Think of how many years of productive research she has in her. It used to be way more common until academia became so professionalized and bureaucratic.
jovial_cavalier 1y ago
What does someone do with a PhD at age 35? Go into industry? Continue as a postdoc? Open a juice bar? It doesn't matter what she's going to "do" with it. It's accreditation of a certain degree of academic achievement, which she has achieved. Arguing that she doesn't deserve it or needs to earn it the "normal" way is stupid.
CurtMonash 1y ago
I was one of several math grad students who started at Harvard at age 16 or 17 aroud the same time. Ofer Gabber and Ran Donagi went on to conventional academic math careers. I took a less straightforward career path. But I was offered an assistant professorship at the Kellogg School of Business at age 21, and have often wondered whether I should perhaps have taken that, or else the research position I was offered at RAND.
- coolguy5642 1y ago
  [dead]
bsoles 1y ago
Norbert Wiener got his PhD from Harvard when he was 19: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener.
ledauphin 1y ago
start on a postdoc :)

ics 1y ago

IIRC Erik Demaine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Demaine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Demaine) started teaching at 20 and had his PhD. I can't remember if I first saw his name because of the MacArthur Grant or one of those science documentaries but one of his pages was on the frontpage here a week or two ago and it seems like he's been thriving.

daxfohl 1y ago
Noam Elkies too, the youngest ever tenured prof at Harvard. Another parallel he had a pretty famous contradiction proof, of Euler's conjecture. But he didn't find that until age 22, so seems like this girl has a good head start!
ekaryotic 1y ago
theodore kacsynski started teaching at 22. a damn bright spark before he was victimised by the mind control experiment.
- lupire 1y ago
  Kasynski got his masters degree at 22, which just slightly younger than average.

tehjoker 1y ago

When she graduates she'll probably be between 20 to 23 years old.

j7ake 1y ago

In math or theoretical fields it’s not unheard of to have young professors. Terence Tao was full professor at 24. Wolfram at 21

parpfish 1y ago
She could still do a few years of PhD training and still be a super young prof like those two. At 17 she’s so young that a uni hiring her would need to think about child labor laws

beezlebroxxxxxx 1y ago

> I can’t imagine hiring them as a prof when they’re so young Many institutions would actually jump at the chance. That's way better than a 35 or 37 year old burnt out from just finishing their PhD and getting onto the tenure track suffer-fest. Think of how many years of productive research she has in her. It used to be way more common until academia became so professionalized and bureaucratic.

jovial_cavalier 1y ago

What does someone do with a PhD at age 35? Go into industry? Continue as a postdoc? Open a juice bar? It doesn't matter what she's going to "do" with it. It's accreditation of a certain degree of academic achievement, which she has achieved. Arguing that she doesn't deserve it or needs to earn it the "normal" way is stupid.

CurtMonash 1y ago

I was one of several math grad students who started at Harvard at age 16 or 17 aroud the same time. Ofer Gabber and Ran Donagi went on to conventional academic math careers. I took a less straightforward career path. But I was offered an assistant professorship at the Kellogg School of Business at age 21, and have often wondered whether I should perhaps have taken that, or else the research position I was offered at RAND.

coolguy5642 1y ago
[dead]

bsoles 1y ago

Norbert Wiener got his PhD from Harvard when he was 19: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener.

ledauphin 1y ago

start on a postdoc :)