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Maybe those people around him just put more time into studying. Maybe we routinely underestimate how much time the good people spend on the things they are good

Maybe those people around him just put more time into studying. Maybe we routinely underestimate how much time the good people spend on the things they are good at. That's not saying everybody could do that. Maybe it takes some special inclination to be able to spend so much time on one thing.

ghshephard 12y ago
Except the my experience in University with the absolute top people in mathematics, (Not the top 10, but the top 1 or 2) is that they did almost no studying, took no notes, and completely mastered the material that took me 15-20 hours a week to get a B grade in. I realized pretty quickly that there were people who were wired very, very differently than myself. I think Mathematics is different from other fields, in that the top performers can reach "Expert" levels with much less effort than the experts in other fields. Might be the case in physics as well.
- watwut 12y ago
  It is the same with foreign languages, some learn it easier then others. I had plenty of schoolmates that learned them much faster then me. We all started with no previous foreign language skills. We did the same set of exercises in school and they ended up knowing most of the material while I had to study a lot just to keep up.
- jabelk 12y ago
  I don't know the answer here, but it's something I've considered often, so: Is it possible that those top 1-2 people just knew so much more than you, going into the class, and had such a strong foundation in closely related material, that they picked it up more quickly? I mean, if the scenario was "my twin brother and I went into a math class with the same level of math knowledge, and he didn't study and got an A, while I studied 15-20 hr/wk and got a B" then I would find that much stronger evidence to conclude that these differences may be innate. But to me it seems likely that the 1-2 people who vastly outperformed everyone else may have just been setting themselves up to do that for the previous 10 years. By which I mean, they were intensively studying math throughout high school (and likely before), so that although they may not have known the course material going in, after seeing it once they think, "oh, yes, that's an obvious result based on x, y, z things that I already know. And it's a very nice way of thinking about w." Whereas you, not knowing x, y, z, or w, don't have any of that intuition. So they can make connections and learn by analogy "effortlessly" while you have to study much more to understand these concepts. Thoughts?
  - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
    Nope. Ed Witten (of M-Theory fame) famously did the entire undergrad physics syllabus in his own time one summer after completing a different degree. Then he applied as a postgrad, aced his interviews, and got in. The tragic thing about the 10k myth is that it makes people who aren't the best of the best underestimate just how good the really talented people are. Most people simply cannot do what Witten did. No amount of personal tutoring or practice time is going to give them that kind of cognitive ability. The reality is that you can take them a random selection of kids, hothouse them in any subject, and most of them will turn out to be good at best. Not brilliant, not geniuses - just good. There's certainly an argument to be made that a lot of talent is wasted, and education is much better at destroying ability than nurturing it. But that's a different point. The bottom line is some people just get it - whatever it is - and they're outstanding. I'd guess most people here get technology like that to an extent that most of the population can't imagine. I'm certainly not brilliant, but I'm much better at getting technology to work than my friends and neighbors. Take an aptitude like that, level up ten times or so, apply it to math or physics or music, and you get some idea what 'brilliant' might mean.
- facepalm 12y ago
  Not my experience at university (maths degree). The people who were very good also put in a lot of time. But not in a forced way, they simply enjoyed the subject so much. It's possible the people you saw had already mastered the subject even before you took the lecture. Or it had so much similarity to something else they had already mastered that it became easy for them.

ghshephard 12y ago

Except the my experience in University with the absolute top people in mathematics, (Not the top 10, but the top 1 or 2) is that they did almost no studying, took no notes, and completely mastered the material that took me 15-20 hours a week to get a B grade in. I realized pretty quickly that there were people who were wired very, very differently than myself. I think Mathematics is different from other fields, in that the top performers can reach "Expert" levels with much less effort than the experts in other fields. Might be the case in physics as well.

watwut 12y ago
It is the same with foreign languages, some learn it easier then others. I had plenty of schoolmates that learned them much faster then me. We all started with no previous foreign language skills. We did the same set of exercises in school and they ended up knowing most of the material while I had to study a lot just to keep up.
jabelk 12y ago
I don't know the answer here, but it's something I've considered often, so: Is it possible that those top 1-2 people just knew so much more than you, going into the class, and had such a strong foundation in closely related material, that they picked it up more quickly? I mean, if the scenario was "my twin brother and I went into a math class with the same level of math knowledge, and he didn't study and got an A, while I studied 15-20 hr/wk and got a B" then I would find that much stronger evidence to conclude that these differences may be innate. But to me it seems likely that the 1-2 people who vastly outperformed everyone else may have just been setting themselves up to do that for the previous 10 years. By which I mean, they were intensively studying math throughout high school (and likely before), so that although they may not have known the course material going in, after seeing it once they think, "oh, yes, that's an obvious result based on x, y, z things that I already know. And it's a very nice way of thinking about w." Whereas you, not knowing x, y, z, or w, don't have any of that intuition. So they can make connections and learn by analogy "effortlessly" while you have to study much more to understand these concepts. Thoughts?
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  Nope. Ed Witten (of M-Theory fame) famously did the entire undergrad physics syllabus in his own time one summer after completing a different degree. Then he applied as a postgrad, aced his interviews, and got in. The tragic thing about the 10k myth is that it makes people who aren't the best of the best underestimate just how good the really talented people are. Most people simply cannot do what Witten did. No amount of personal tutoring or practice time is going to give them that kind of cognitive ability. The reality is that you can take them a random selection of kids, hothouse them in any subject, and most of them will turn out to be good at best. Not brilliant, not geniuses - just good. There's certainly an argument to be made that a lot of talent is wasted, and education is much better at destroying ability than nurturing it. But that's a different point. The bottom line is some people just get it - whatever it is - and they're outstanding. I'd guess most people here get technology like that to an extent that most of the population can't imagine. I'm certainly not brilliant, but I'm much better at getting technology to work than my friends and neighbors. Take an aptitude like that, level up ten times or so, apply it to math or physics or music, and you get some idea what 'brilliant' might mean.
facepalm 12y ago
Not my experience at university (maths degree). The people who were very good also put in a lot of time. But not in a forced way, they simply enjoyed the subject so much. It's possible the people you saw had already mastered the subject even before you took the lecture. Or it had so much similarity to something else they had already mastered that it became easy for them.