Timeline for The "derived drift" is pretty unsatisfying and dangerous to category theory (or at least, to me)
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
24 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 29, 2018 at 23:32 | comment | added | Harry Gindi | "Be talented and put in the work" is not just sound Mathematical advice but sound life advice generally. | |
| Jan 2, 2018 at 7:12 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | @AndyPutman : the curse of "interesting life" is akin to a well-known curse of "living in interesting times". | |
| Dec 28, 2017 at 3:06 | comment | added | David Roberts♦ | ...if you are looking for a career as a research mathematician at a university. | |
| Dec 28, 2017 at 2:58 | comment | added | David Roberts♦ | @Disappointed I'm not sure I can give any decent input. I became enamoured, so to speak, with category theory as an undergrad, but my motivation for most of my work is in various other areas (foundations or geometry, for instance). My career trajectory is also not one to emulate or hold up as an example... | |
| Dec 27, 2017 at 17:54 | comment | added | Andy Putman | @DimaPasechnik: You've led a far more interesting life than me... | |
| Dec 27, 2017 at 17:06 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | @AndyPutman I have no 1st hand idea how things work in Russia. I left Russia 25+ years ago, I have an Australian PhD, a Dutch passport, and I am based in UK in the last 4 years. Yes, my (Estonian) partner tolerates this strange career path, for we moved to UK so that she could become a full Prof. in CS :-) | |
| Dec 27, 2017 at 16:12 | comment | added | Andy Putman | several years and then typically transition into an interesting, well-paying job. While it might not be what they dreamed of when they started grad school, most of the ones I keep up with are happy with their careers. This is, of course, a US perspective. I do not know how things work in Russia. | |
| Dec 27, 2017 at 16:10 | comment | added | Andy Putman | @DimaPasechnik: I chose my words very carefully. I did not claim that every talented person would be able to get a permanent job, which is clearly not true. But at least in the US, what generally happens is that people who are unable to get such jobs leave academia after 1-2 postdocs. There are unusual cases like yours, but they are vanishingly rare (eg most people have spouses or partners whose tolerance for academic vagrancy is limited). While I wish there were more academic jobs available, I do not regard people who leave academia as having wasted their lives. They got to do math for | |
| Dec 27, 2017 at 7:49 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | @AndyPutman : I think you don't really know. I don't think that talent/training suffices to obtain a permanent position at a research university (assuming you are not a native English speaker, you don't stutter, and do not have a degree from a sexy university and a pushy supervisor). I had temporary appointments for 11 years, before getting a tenure-track in Singapore, where its length gradually was increasing (it was 9 years at the time I left :-)). And so 23 years after PhD I have a 20% teaching appointment, and a 3-year grant that is not about proving theorems, but about writing software. | |
| Dec 27, 2017 at 7:09 | comment | added | user40276 | The soviet way of thinking always impress me. Fortunately, nowadays in the good capitalism such inhumane excellence and struggle is not required to survive, allowing average people to do mathematics. | |
| Dec 26, 2017 at 23:42 | comment | added | Andy Putman | (and as far as mental illness goes, I am extremely skeptical that anyone is "driven insane" by trying to prove theorems. There is certainly mental illness in the mathematical community, but blaming it on math itself strikes me as a gross oversimplification. I think that some people who are prone to mental illness for whatever reason find academia attractive. Other professions (e.g. artists or the clergy) have similar problems. Mental illness exists all over the place, and someone who has that tendency and does not obtain appropriate help will suffer from it whatever career they choose.) | |
| Dec 26, 2017 at 23:38 | comment | added | Andy Putman | @DimaPasechnik: Unless someone is quite foolish, they won't just dwell on one or two big problems for their entire life (and if they are that foolish, the circumstances of having to financially support themselves will likely save them from their stupidity). Proving ordinary theorems is not a dramatic thing -- if someone has the talent/training that allows them to obtain a permanent position at a research university and they continue to work, then results will follow. Maybe you view it as a waste if someone only does normal good work, but I don't. The craft of mathematics is its own reward. | |
| Dec 26, 2017 at 22:22 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | @AndyPutman : regarding the "bullshit layers", don't you think you understand that one has only one life? And that it's easy to waste it by trying and failing to prove theorems (as well as the danger to go insane along the way is not very small for many people). Thus the comparison with going to war isn't without a merit. | |
| Dec 26, 2017 at 21:52 | comment | added | Disappointed Categoricien | @DavidRoberts I am interested in your opinion on the general topic here. | |
| Dec 26, 2017 at 21:19 | comment | added | Hailong Dao | @DavidRoberts: well, the US model has shown signs that it can not sustain itself in the long run. But the odds are still quite a better than in many countries. Most of my high school friends still think I am a little crazy/romantic to pursuit math. | |
| Dec 26, 2017 at 21:10 | comment | added | David Roberts♦ | @Hailong if only becoming a mathematician was as rote as you seem to be describing it... | |
| Dec 26, 2017 at 21:00 | comment | added | Hailong Dao | There might be some cultural differences here. In the US, mathematics and other sciences are widely viewed as professions, and practiced as such. It is a not very risky career for smart children of the middle class. Once you attend the right schools, produce the right amount of papers, connect with the right group, you will likely have a reasonable career. In some other cultures, a mathematician is still viewed as a sort of priest/Jedi of knowledge, and the pursuit of math is still expected to require some sacrifice. The case of Perelman and Yitang Zhang are recent examples of that mindset. | |
| Dec 26, 2017 at 17:08 | comment | added | Andy Putman | @DisappointedCategoricien: If you want to practice mathematics, I think you'll have to disabuse yourself of that romantic ideal. It is asking too much of mathematics (or any other intellectual pursuit, for that matter). | |
| Dec 26, 2017 at 17:06 | comment | added | Andy Putman | @LeonidPositselski: You're really laying the bullshit on thick here. Proving a theorem is nothing at all like going to war. The cost of failure is simply that you have to try something else. There are no serious personal risks at all. Your account of the nature of mathematics has no relationship to how mathematics is actually practiced by myself or anyone else I know. | |
| Dec 26, 2017 at 16:14 | comment | added | Leonid Positselski | Also, some of them wouldn't be doing it if they understood the situation better. Similarly, the fact that some people can do what others can't is only a part of human nature, and has always been. Once again, it may be just out of fashion to say so. But when people avoid saying those kinds of things, it only contributes to the general loss of the grip on reality that we are observing. | |
| Dec 26, 2017 at 16:05 | comment | added | Leonid Positselski | Just for the record, I see nothing superhuman about taking the risks which I was purporting to describe and explain above. Taking risks and endangering oneself is a part of human nature. People go to fight in wars, after all, and quite often not on an involuntary basis, too. It just seems that the notion of taking high personal risks in a pursuit of what are thought of as worthy or lofty goals went out of fashion in the developed world nowadays. The result is that people are still doing it, but without realizing what they are doing. [con'd] | |
| Dec 26, 2017 at 11:05 | comment | added | Disappointed Categoricien | "I see a lot of romantic descriptions of the practice of mathematics that bear little relationship to how it is actually practiced." This, VS " You take some route which everybody believes is leading nowhere, but you know better than everybody else. You tackle a problem that everybody considers to be meaningless or unsolvable, or you approach a problem in a way which everybody thinks is clearly doomed to fail, but you see things deeper than they do." I'd like this process of relentless engagement into turning mathematics into something nearer to the romantic ideal to bring me somewhere. | |
| S Dec 26, 2017 at 5:21 | history | answered | Andy Putman | CC BY-SA 3.0 | |
| S Dec 26, 2017 at 5:21 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Andy Putman |