Hey Veeky Forums, undergrad baby here. I'm currently in my sophomore year doing a double major in math and cs. I was reading Hardy's "A Mathematician's Apology" yesterday, and I was wondering what you guys think of it.
Personally I think there's some truth to freshness, spontaneity, and power of youth, but like most things in life, the lack thereof doesn't wholly determine what you can and cannot do. That could just be my naivety and wishful thinking, though.
>That could just be my naivety and wishful thinking, though.
If you're not wired for higher math by your early 20s, it's really hard to overcome. There are some cognitive skills that don't peak until later in life, but sheer mathematical aptitude peaks for most people in their late teens.
>Is mathematics a game for young men?
No. Also for young women.
Hardy's quote is pretty stupid. It's mostly not true and as far as it is true it applies to literally everything, not just mathematics.
Look at any field of society at all. How often do the paradigm-shifting ideas come from some old codger? It's not as though a switch flips and all your mathematical talent disappears past 60, it's that generally speaking old people like things as they were and don't want to flip the world on it's head.
The (dubiously true in the first place) idea of peaking in late teens/early twenties is virtually irrelevant anymore anyway. In most fields there's so much prior knowledge required of you to do relevant work that turbo-prodigies in very fortunate circumstances are the only ones even close to ready by 20 years old.
Ugh I know rite
Yeah, It doesn't hurt to phrase things in a non exclusive manner.
Is mathematics a game for young people?
SEE? How hard was that. Asshole OP.
I feel like Hardy's quote is more the lamentation of slowly not being the superstar he was and having exhausted his ideas in his area or expertise.
Then again, I won't know until I get there, right? I suppose the answer is to keep on studying for its own sake and keep on working for its own merit.
OP here. That wasn't me
Also the "young men" thing is in Hardy's words, not mine.
>Look at any field of society at all. How often do the paradigm-shifting ideas come from some old codger?
Pretty damned often. In the applied fields at least, real breakthroughs are usually the product of years of continual learning and experimentation.
Math is different. Aptitude peaks at about 20, and it's a race against biology from there out. The likelihood that you'll accomplish anything significant in math after 35 is pretty small.
I'm sure many people from the past would have called blacks niggers and yet today when talking about those racists we transform the sentiment to modern speech.
Just say people man. There's a reason Hardy is dead, because he is a fucking sexist.
So aspiring mathematicians only have a 15 year window to do anything, and then their intuition and fluid reasoning disappears?
Are you saying that anyone not branded a prodigy has next to no chance?
I mean, I have no qualms saying people.
The title of the thread is phrased in the way it is just out of how it was originally phrased. Trust me, I'd love to see more qt's in math.
>Aptitude peaks at about 20
[citation needed]
>The likelihood that you'll accomplish anything significant in math after 35 is pretty small.
Name some mathematicians who did groundbreaking work in their youth and then just magically stopped in their thirties. Even Hardy doesn't count for this strict of a boundary, his collaboration with Littlewood ran for many years and didn't even _start_ until he was about 35.
The only ones I'm aware of are the ones that died before they got that far.
People like you are why sexism exists
Just saying it's more like being an elite-level sprinter. Once the fast-twitch muscle response starts to decline, they're done. Short-term memory is a huge part of doing mathematics, and that starts declining at 25.
Intuition and fluid reasoning are fine a bit later into life. People in some applied fields don't peak until late 40s or early 50s. Not the case with math.
>Just saying it's more like being an elite-level sprinter. Once the fast-twitch muscle response starts to decline, they're done. Short-term memory is a huge part of doing mathematics, and that starts declining at 25.
>Intuition and fluid reasoning are fine a bit later into life. People in some applied fields don't peak until late 40s or early 50s. Not the case with math.
Wewew, any citation here please?
the poincare conjecture and fermat's last theorem where proved by mathematicians in their 30's
if that's not a significant contribution i don't know what is
>in their 40's
ftfy
Perelman was 40
Andrew Wiles was 41
>Name some mathematicians who did groundbreaking work in their youth and then just magically stopped in their thirties
Ramanjuman :^)
died aged 32
I said the chance was small, not nonexistant.
You seem to not know mathematicians' biographies if you say that.
>thats_the_joke.png
Post tits
Titposting
Sounds more like talking out of your ass
Fuck off you dumb cunt