Are all high-level maths students intuitive geniuses, or do you think some of them just studied their asses off?
Asking because, though I'm pretty gifted at maths, I'm still a 135 IQ brainlet nobully (tests used in my country might be different from the burger ones though) and I'm pretty sure that means I can't get into one of the more prestigious schools
Well actually I used to think that, but then recently I met a friend of a friend's who's going to the école polytechnique (french equivalent of MIT), and I don't remember how exactly but we ended up picking up a math puzzles/riddles book that was lying there, we had sort of a contest since none of us has actually had sex ever, and the didn't strike me as particularly gifted or intuitive. Actually he didn't figure out one single puzzle, while most of us did. >in b4 "that doesn't mean anything" let's not get into that, you all know it does
Maybe, that's why applied math exists. Do you happen to be a Pure Math major?
Also if you did some geometry puzzles, not everyone has good spatial intelligence OP, I'm a living proof.
Matthew Rogers
Nah it wasn't geometry puzzles, just logical brain teasers and such. You know the type, the dragonfly, the 100 windows, etc. (none of these obviously, these are well known). Actually I'm not as good at spacial reasoning (and my IQ scores seem to confirm it) I'm a maths student, at the shittiest university there is. (attitude problems got me expelled from everywhere else) Yet this guy who evidently has average intuition somehow got into one of the best school in the world. I'm bitter as fuck m8.
Dylan Sanders
>Yet this guy who evidently has average intuition somehow got into one of the best school in the world. He most likely has acquaintances that helped him to get into that uni or rich dad.
Most prestigious places are actually populated by average richfags, it is rare to see an actual smart guy on a prestigious uni these days, especially in the U.S. where saying #BlackLivesMatter a hundred times gets you to Stanford.
Can't be helped, but >(attitude problems got me expelled from everywhere else) And why didn't you solved this problem? Were you in a good uni before? You know that schools can contact each other about you and never admit you, right?
Anthony Peterson
Nah, it doesn't work that way in France. Schools are free, and you get inside based on your ranking at the entrance exam. So you have to be gr8 at maths. And up until now I thought it meant having crazy intuition, but apparently it doesn't.
As for the attitude problem, I didn't give a fuck back then and I wanted to seem cool so I didn't go to class, I got expelled from my CPGE (a school that gets you ready to take entrance exams) and had to go through another first year of uni.
Asher Taylor
Dammit OP, maybe you didn't got your scores that high too.
But either way, in France everything's different so, maybe do your Master's degree on that school? Since again, many average people somehow got into prestige but end up getting fucked because they don't have good intuition.
Can't be helped. Just do some research if you can transfer or get that MS.
Brandon James
OP, math isn't all about pure intelligence and it isn't all about pure studying. There's intelligence, knowledge and maturity in mathematics that sort of combines into a general skill. No one (except maybe Ramanujan) was born good at math with any knowledge or intuition. Think of math like learning an instrument. Most people won't be able to play as well as Rostropovich, but there are tons of people with the innate potential to play at a professional, or even internationally recognized level, given the work. Read this article by Tao himself so you can see it how he sees it: terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to-be-a-genius-to-do-maths/
As for your contest where you were comparing yourself to a EP student, I think that things like this are kind of concerning and if you put too much weight on comparisons to others you will burn out as a mathematician.
Hudson Carter
Nah I didn't take the exam, uni students can't take them, you have to have completed two years in a CPGE. And those schools are hard as fuck to get in, which is why I don't understand how a guy with so little natural ability got in, even provided he resorted to cramming which he most certainly did (CPGE students usually work 4+ hours a day on their own time, doing standard exercises, training for writing speed etc). And since we have schools AND unis, it creates a system where if you come from uni basically you're shit, or otherwise you'd have gone to a "Grande Ecole". So it all happens right after you graduate, if you don't work your ass of during the first year you're fucked for life, there's no coming back. Even PhDs are considered unemployable which I'm told is a very french thing.
Sebastian Long
By my experience (i haven't done all of this myself, before you fags point out that an experienced mathematician isn't going to post anything in sci) you are fine being very smart (in the normal non e-stating sense, above 125 iq or something, nowhere near remarkable among math doctorates) and very hard-working, you can actually reach any milestone in academia. By this I mean that there is no "standard" test of knowledge and skill (getting a degree, getting a phd, publishing a decent amount of papers...) that you cannot complete. Thus if you actually enjoy it you can live off it and be virtuous, but you won't be at all a relevant mathematician nowadays if you arent extremely talented.
Blake Campbell
Remember than mathematical talent can be very specific, and brain teasers or iq tests to a lesser degree are not always accurate predictors of mathematical ability.
