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For any not in the loop: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman
From the wiki article :
Perelman resigned from his research post in Steklov Institute of Mathematics and in 2006 stated that he had quit professional mathematics, owing to feeling disappointed over the ethical standards in the field. >
Anybody have any idea what the ethical standards might be that he's referring to? Not sure if there's a scandal or something or just an overall sense of displeasure with the field.
I tried to google it and it’s not super clear.
-Perelman gets his phd in russia super young and is hired at NYU/SUNY
-Publishes some groundbreaking stuff on arxiv (a free site to post white papers in math and physics) in 2002/2003
-There is some drama with another scientist who is known for stealing people’s work trying to downplay Perelman’s contribution
-Perelman quits his US jobs and returns to russia to work in math (making wayyyyyyy less money), then quits that job too and becomes a recluse
-Turns down fields medal and millennium prize (1M dollars for solving)
-Says some mathematicians are unethical but the rest of them tolerate it so they’re shit too so the whole thing is shit. Also says he doesn’t want to be put in a zoo or treated like a pet about it.
—
I’m going to go ahead and assume I don’t understand enough about being a math superstar to understand where he’s coming from, but he certainly sounds like a principled guy and now I respect him.
Punk rock as fuck. May this dude find many morsels and enjoy the morning dew for the rest of his days.
Homie really said AMAB.
Says some mathematicians are unethical but the rest of them tolerate it so they’re shit too so the whole thing is shit.
AMAB?
Just a few bad apples.
Problem:
A fruit vendor receives a shipment of 500 apples. It is known that for every bad apple in a bunch, the entire bunch spoils. The apples are packed into bunches of 10. After inspecting the shipment, the vendor finds that 5% of the apples are bad.
How many bunches of apples will spoil due to bad apples?
between 3 and 25, depending from the distribution... And your point is? 🤷
You mathnificent bastard.
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Screw you apples, I'm gonna go hang with the mushrooms.
I mean math is the backbone of science and technology. And technology can lead to fucked up things.
Nuclear bombs wouldn’t be possible without fairly recent math.
Not to mention the unethical hell that is the whole financial sector / trader type where mathematicians often end up working.
And finally these days, by making new discoveries in some fields your directly contributing to the growth of AI and LLMs.
An infamous example of someone who quit math over ethical concerns (ironic given the rest of the story) is Ted Kacyznski (the unabomber), who saw math as leading to more and more advanced technology which oppresses people and destroys nature.
I think his issues more stemmed from academia and the rat race within it, not so much the ethical issues of mathematics and what they can lead to. Just shitty crabs trying to escape the bucket.
When you're just crabs in a bucket, be the sea slug that got dredged up with the rest.
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I too find economists unethical by trade. Statisticians with a gambling problem, the lot of them.
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Goals.
Damn I didn't know mathematicians go this hard.
Most mathematicians I know go REALLY hard. There's something about the field...
This new Yorker article goes into some more detail. Apparently there was an underlying conflict between rival Chinese academics over succession of university admin postings in Beijing.
According to the article it was one Chinese dude trying to hog credit and Perelman basically went "oh i'm not brave enough for politics" and bailed. If he accepted his choice was basically becoming a conformist or getting involved by trying to improve things. He chose not to choose.
Most problems require the insights of several mathematicians in order to be solved, and the profession has evolved a standard for crediting individual contributions that is as stringent as the rules governing math itself. As Perelman put it, “If everyone is honest, it is natural to share ideas.” Many mathematicians view Yau’s conduct over the Poincaré as a violation of this basic ethic, and worry about the damage it has caused the profession. “Politics, power, and control have no legitimate role in our community, and they threaten the integrity of our field,” Phillip Griffiths said.
p.s. Also between some behavioral tics (very picky eater, refusing to trim nails, trouble socializing) and the elevated sense of justice I nominate him as an honorary autist. we stan
I'm totally for how and why he dipped out. I've made a few decisions in life in a similar fashion. But a man as principled as he is, with feelings and ideas that intense, is a hell of a thing to lose in the pursuit of truth. Just imagine, if instead of resigning to almost insurmountable odds where most would be against him, he instead chose to be a stubborn man in the opposite respect and didn't rest until the truth and was common knowledge or had created groups and institutions to further pursue it if not able to do it himself.
Things like this are way bigger than one person, and to understand the problem and try to tackle it would consume your whole life. Go on and pick some mushrooms my man. You made your contribution to society and decided the rat race isn't worth it.
Not from that field, and I think it depends a lot of the field, country, etc, but research is not an idilic world at all and deal with huge flaws from the real world, institutions, society and economics, not aside of human being's flaws, so it can be deeply disappointing in some aspects. I believe is a natural in any guild (there is shit everywhere, e.g. police require internal affairs for a good reason, but not only, they suffer from funding restrictions, metrics for promotion, etc, and the same can be said for medicine, politics, etc) so in the end it may be your ability to deal with real world shit... and luck.
Just speculating, maybe it has to do with belonging to Russian academia.
Yeah, there was some background drama with his parent institution, if I remember correctly. He didn't have enough money to fly anywhere, his institution refused to donate and he was too embarrassed to ask elsewhere. Or something like that.
Keep reading. It's in the "Possible withdrawal from mathematics" section.
Also from the article:
The writer Brett Forrest briefly interacted with Perelman in 2012. A reporter who had called him was told: "You are disturbing me. I am picking mushrooms."
I enjoy this man's focus and determination. I feel like the world probably missed out on good things when he left academia, but I can't blame the dude when I saw why he refused a million dollars for solving the Poincaré Conjecture. He seems like a person with very strong principles.
A million dollars buys a lot of food and shelter which gives you more time to do mushroom picking. And the process of accepting the prize probably wouldn't have taken more than a couple of days
The article says that he refused the prize because he felt that he hadn't earned it. He felt that the prize should be awarded to Richard Hamilton who developed the theory Perelman used to fully solve the Poincaré Conjecture. I'm not saying it was the wisest or easiest solution. I was only trying to express my opinion that I find his adherence to his strong principles admirable.
I'm absolutely not advocating for anyone to turn down a million dollars. For anyone in a position where they can just, like, get a million bucks, take that shit and live a happier life!
There is no taking the money and staying true to your principles here. Either you say the whole sphere of academia is corrupt and fucked, or you take a nice big cash prize and play the game. Can't say taking money is bad and then take that money yourself
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Once I got past the first few paragraphs, all I learned from that is that I don't understand the Poincare conjecture or really anything about topology
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Awards
Saint Petersburg Mathematical Society Prize (1991)
EMS Prize (1996), declined
Fields Medal (2006), declined
Millennium Prize (2010), declined
"nah, you're alright"
There’s also that 4chan anon who made significant contribution to a math problem in order to find the best way to watch an anime
I miss when there were genuinely good posts on 4chan
I was very active from around 2003-2009, and I agree. I haven't been there in a loooong time but I imagine it’s absolutely terrible now.
Please link this story
Lower Bound on the Length of the Shortest Superpermutation aka "The Haruhi Problem" by Anonymous
Video explaining the problem and solution
tl;dr if you have the numbers 1 and 2 you can make two permutations with them: 12 and 21. You can also make a "Superpermutation" with something like 1221 which is a sequence that contains all permutations of 1 and 2. A shorter sequence would be 121 or 212. Finding the shortest sequence that contains all permutations of any given set of numbers was an unsolved math problem. Someone posted on 4chan's anime board asking for the most efficient way to watch every permutation of "the endless 8", which are 8 nearly identical epsiodes of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Anime nerds pride themselves on watching these episodes over and over. Someone posted a sequence with a math proof for why it is the shortest. In essence, they posted the shortest superpermutation for a set of 8. The method can be used on any sized set and doesn't just apply to sets of 8.
4chan anon who made significant contribution to a math problem in order to find the best way to watch an anime
Looks like this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpermutation based on the content of the wikipedia article
I’d also love to see this.
More details on this?
Sometimes i wish i was autisitically smart
Will Hunting tried that and he got taken on an emotionally fulfilling journey full of self reflection and life improvement. Just saying.
It was temporary self improvement in his case.
shout out to pumpkin escobar and the local 305
I don't know what the fuck you just said. But you're special, man
You'd need the great Robin Williams for that and he is sadly quite unavailable.
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this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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