Erik Demaine
>son of MIT professor
>child prodigy
>father home schooled him in math, science, and art from a young age.
>bachlors age 14
>phd age 20
>MIT professor age 20
>currently age 35
>43 page CV
why do we even try
He's a good lecturer. I recommend his intro algorithms course that's online. He co-teaches.
The guy who runs Tarsnap (cpercival) has the same CV, started Bachelors at age 13 http://www.sfu.ca/archive-sfunews/sfnews/2001/June14/percival.html
Don Knuth has a similar CV, so does Daniel Bernstein
These people aren't super geniuses they are just motivated. If they were geniuses they'd have solved some of the math millennial problems or found new breakthroughs instead of just being professors (exception to Dan Bernstein, legit genius).
>>8087389
You might as well give up if you are going to continue comparing yourself to others. Very self-destructive behavior.
>>8087401
>>8087394
As >>8087394 pointed out they had a significant advantage in life. When you're born to a family who teaches you advance mathematics and explains all of your silly trivial questions in mathematics you accelerate the learning curve significantly.
Instead of waiting until you're 16-18 to learn calculus and make the dumb mistakes everyone else does with eplison-delta proofs in analysis at 18-19 you are learning calculus in middle school and ironing out your difficulties with analysis in high school (or earlier) so by the time you hit college you are already at the graduate level of mathematics and computer science.
You could literally do the same with anyone that has IQ 125-130+ and they'd advance much more quickly and seem like "super geniuses" because of their head start.
I am not too impressed with people like erik, I'm more impressed with the mathematicians that come from families that aren't academic and still manage to achieve great work.
For all those shitting on Erik. His work is pretty amazing actually. You should watch some videos where talks about origami some time.
>>8087389
>>43 page CV
What the fuck? How much can someone do. Don't tell me he writes down every single piece of work he does instead of general and concize statements that sum up your career.
Maybe I'm just mad that my CV is literally one page long. My excuse is that I'm 17 years younger than him.
>>8087427
It's called autism
Intelligence is relative. The smarter you are in one subject the less intelligence you lack in another.
There are few people who would claim true genius is a gift and not a hindrance.
"A genius is someone who knows a great deal about a very narrow field." - someone and similar
e.g. many savants lack social skills.
Let's pretend we never watched porn and all that time and knowledge was spent elsewhere. That is just one example. We have a certain 'intelligence' or knowledge base when it comes to porn because we watch so much.
i.e. we want to find something (porn) to satisfy a specific need, we know all the details and methods to finding it. Imagine if that were spent elsewhere productively :)
>>8087447
I don't watch pornography. Speak for yourself.
>>8087389
>why do we even try
Because the man can only take up one job, and it's probably in academia.
>>8087447
>2016
>Women are at peak corruption
>10 year olds sucking dick for candy
>He still needs to watch porn.
Whoops.
>>8087427
>My excuse is that I'm 17 years younger than him.
So you're 18? Kid if your CV is longer than 1 page before you have a bachelor's, you're doing it wrong. No one will care enough to read that.
Any 13 yr old can work through Serge Lang's 'Basic Mathematics' in a few weeks if they are motivated, and do it everyday after class instead of playing some console gayme all night or watching TV.
After that they can work through Spivak's calculus or some other rigorous text and by using math exchange to get peer help with answers have an undergraduate level in analysis before they're 14yrs old.
They can then pick up the book Advanced Calculus and do the same thing, finish it in a few months and then have a full undergrad degree in analysis, linear algebra, and classical mechanics before they're even in Grade 10 which at that point they are declared "geniuses" and encouraged to join a university as a "prodigy" when in reality all they did was work hard themselves instead of sitting around console gayming their early teen years away
It helps if they have parents who aren't retards that make them do all kinds of bullshit work after school that isn't academic, support their advanced studies and actually know something about the material to help them with it.
>>8087447
Porn takes up maybe 10 minutes out of my day, max.
>>8087389
>why do we even try
cuz i just want a job doing my scishit that i love
>>8087389
I don't care what he did, he's just so fucking ugly.
>>8087459
>So you're 18? Kid if your CV is longer than 1 page before you have a bachelor's, you're doing it wrong. No one will care enough to read that.
That is why it is exactly one page long.
It was longer before but I shortened it.
>>8087463
This. But now say the parents are math professors and instead of consulting math stack exchange they consult to mommy and daddy. This accelerates the process you just described even more. Now when they are in HS they already know everything a BS in math knows.
Given mommy and daddy are professors they have enough income to send their kid to a "prestigious" math & science school to continue their education and everyone now considers their kid a """"genius""" when they aren't.
>>8087468
this
he will never know the feel of not caring about anything in life and just fucking bitches without working or studying because youre hot af
>Sexual partners: 0
>>8087427
That's how academic CVs work. You list papers published, talks given, awards received, blahblah.
The story between Erik and his father is the real interest here. His father basically cloned himself so that he could have a research partner.
>>8087475
There's a book out called Anti Education which is a series of lectures given by Friedrich Nietzsche when he was a 24yr old professor on the state of education and how it's set up to serve conformity, turn a profit, and suppress criticism, thus preventing 'genius' from ever cultivating. 144 years later and nothing has changed.
>>8087498
Interesting, thanks.
>>8087420
>muh privilege
typical brainlet, off your'self please
>>8087505
found the high-school dropout
>>8087468
He isn't though, this hair style is fucking ugly.
>>8087463
And what does this mean for the child's mental health? I love math, but some of my best childhood memories were warm summer nights spent playing Halo at my friends' houses all night. smoking weed in the park with my teenage friends, etc. What memories will Erik have to look back on? I don't regret sacrificing some success by taking the normie path.
>>8087389
>most people
>can barely graduate high school
>dont even learn anything
you cant skip school years to go to uni even if you wanted to in europe
>>8087405
This. There will ALWAYS be someone better than you, and even if you beat everyone else alive von Neumann will still be better than you.
Focus on your own talents and self-improvement. There's plenty of room in the sun for us plebs too.
>>8087556
>I don't regret sacrificing some success by taking the normie path.
this tbqh. I don't give a shit about not being able to contribute in a scientific field if it means sacrificing everything I find fun. Chances are, we were born too early for immortality anyway, so might as well enjoy the time you have here while indulging both your ego and curiosity by contributing as much as you can in whatever STEM field you're interested in.
>>8087427
It's convention to put all your publications on your CV, even if it's some shitty journal letter etc. People rarely actually read it it's more like an appendix to your main CV.
>>8087389
>43 page CV
This isn't a good thing. If anything that's an incredibly retarded thing to have.
>>8087598
It is a good thing, stop pretending you know anything about academia. (PROTIP: Academics have two different versions of their CV)
>>8087603
>stop pretending you know anything about academia
Like you know any more.
>>8087556
>>8087574
This is some truly dunning kruger tier reasoning. He's succesful at one thing so you must assume he's lacking in something else that you have.
How the fuck do you know he didn't spend his summers smoking weed and fucking hot hipster girls? Maybe he just cherishes his memories of solving problems than you do smoking weed/playing vidya.
>>8087604
What's your background fag? (If you can tell us without deanonymizing yourself)
>>8087459
you need to pad it to get part time work, or else they think you're lazy
>>8087627
Yes well the NEETs and the 25 year olds working full time sevice jobs look on you with envy too. You sound a bit depressed, you should be more sociable and confident, a lot of things can make you competative which aren't just tied to grades. There are plenty of people who take a while to finish a bachelors.
The job market is utter shit for everyone right now though so it doesn't matter anyway.
>>8087610
He's right though, and you're talking out of your ass. I can sum up /sci/ with
>hurr thing I don't understand is retarded
>>8087692
>I'm right because I say I'm right
Fucking lol.
>>8087389
They say oh, Demaine that loud mouth - and they say that a lot. I say oh, no you just don't know Demaine.
>>8087611
It's dunning kruger to not realize that his accomplishments require an extreme time investment. He clearly didn't just spent 2 hours doing homework after coming from school like the rest of us.
>>8087627 deleted his post most likely because he's a little bitch, here's what he said:
I am 25 and still struggle through my STEM bachelor degree. I just have a very hard time studying and my brain is slow. Others my age have a masters by now and a good job. Most students in my class are several years younger than me while also doing better. I look around and see those driven, intelligent but also sociable people and too wonder: why bother? These are also the average students and not just some geniuses like that guy in the OP. But then again. What else should I do?
I think you should just focus on learning instead of achievements. Of course this is not easy when you get directly compared in the work world.
hey I love this guy. Currently watching his lectures on folding algorithms. Origami is probably the main reason I study math and science these days desu
>>8087542
found the brainlet
your brain is probably smaller than both ur dick and testacles combined
>>8087739
That sounds interesting.
What are the applications of folding algorithms? Anything outside the usual simulation stuff?
>>8087747
might be useful for this shit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYz7g-qLjs
>>8087697
Are you incapable of going to any academic's webpage and taking a peek at their CV?
>>8087744
Keep playing vidya and smoking weed while the big guys do science
>>8087754
>Genius talking about futuristic shit
>POSTDOC
>Median postdoc salary is 44k
>He earns as much as a kindergarten teacher, plumbers, and graphic designers
THIS IS THE SAD STATE OF ACADEMIA. DO NOT FALL FOR THE MEME. SOMEONE AS SMART AS THAT GUY COULD BE EARNING 120K A YEAR IN INDUSTRY BUT FELL FOR THE MEME.
Sources:
http://advice.careerbuilder.com/posts/10-jobs-that-pay-40000
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Postdoctoral_Research_Associate/Salary
>>8087443
lol wat, tell that to john von neumann, and really any legitimately intelligent person (IQ 160+) who does not have a mental disorder or disease (autist/assburger).
intelligence is not relative, and if you say it is, then literally everything else is relative to and we have nothing to base our standards on.
stop perpetuating these retarded ideas that geniuses arent happy or are depressed or wish they were just an average joe like you or me like its some kind of universal trait that always accompanies genius.
you dont have proportionate strengths and weaknesses, we arent in some RPG with a max stat cap. there will always be people who are absolutely better than you in every way and there is nothing you can say or do about it besides performing these kinds of mental gymnastics to save yourself from the truth: you aren't special.
just had to be said
i'm tired of seeing these sad cant-face-reality teens saying everyone is a special snowflake and anyone who is smarter than you must have a terrible life of depression and regret just like how anyone who is stronger than you takes steroids.
life isnt that simple or fair. get used to it now.
>>8087754
SHUT IT DOWN
KILL IT WITH FIRE
>>8087774
>don't study! you can make money! look! money!
you're fucking pathetic
>>8087755
>The academic equivalent of a blog is a CV
I'm going to give you the same advice my supervisor gave me
>"When applying for an academic job, include your 5 most recent and 5 most prestigious publications, no one is going to look at much more than that"
I mean really, do you think anyone is going to read through 43 motherfucking pages?
>>8087389
Because there are people who take the usual path through school and make huge discoveries. We just hear about the prodigies because everyone wants to be one. That's why everyone wants their kid to either be gifted or have a learning disability nowadays: nobody wants their child to just be normal. What people need to understand is that society and science needs people who take the routine path, because they bring the experience of not always being the best or being correct. Self doubt is necessary, in my opinion, for science to succeed. If too many people just give up when they find out they aren't the best, then science loses people who make discoveries. You don't have to be the best in your field to win the Nobel Prize. Nobody under 25 has won a Nobel in Physics, and the 25 year old who did won it with his father. He wasn't top of his class, and he wasn't at the best Ivy league school (it was also the early 1900s). /sci/ needs to understand that normal people can still make huge scientific achievements. For every twenty year old MIT professor, there are ten sixty year old ones who do equally incredible things. You just hear about the young guy because you wish you could be him. The cold, hard truth is, you can't. But you can accomplish more than him, if you actually try. Anyone who says otherwise has already given up.
>>8087792
>>don't study! you can make money! look! money!
What are you talking about?
Study what you want, even pure math if you want, but then go to industry and get as far away from academia as you can.
You can see it in his eyes. He knows he is at the front of a big futuristic endeavor and yet every single time his paycheck arrives he sees 40k, which is the same as his ex-gf, who cucked him with an engineer, earns while only teaching 3 year olds.
Do your masters, do your PhD, I don't care. Just do not cripple yourself by staying in academia.
This is not about education or studying. This is about what you do after you have studied, you cuck.
>>8087804
I agree with this advice.
I currently work in industry but feel like my brain cells are dying everyday. I plan to collect a paycheck a few more years then re-enter academia, do research, get a PhD and then go back to industry.
>>8087625
No you don't.
>>8087498
Nietzsche is a fucking quack. He has a few good ideas and his reasoning was decent but he makes a lot of superfluous and excessive connections.
He's like Freud but less disgusting.
ITT: underachievers getting jealous of someone who was smart by calling him "overly motivated"
>>8087611
I'd consider it very, very unlikely.
>>8087781
>intelligence is not relative, and if you say it is, then literally everything else is relative to and we have nothing to base our standards on.
This is correct.
>>8087804
Do you think you're smarter than him for this highly insightful view?
Maybe he decided that keeping an active mind is better than being a braindead engineer with a bigger car.
>>8087804
>This is not about education or studying. This is about what you do after you have studied, you cuck.
Suggesting that all studying should stop after grad school in favor of money makes this absolutely about education or studying.
>>8087849
>Implying there is no research in industry
There is, even for pure mathematics.
He obviously knows about AI, material science, physics and electronics to a PhD level, that is literally 300k starting, any job you want.
>>8087890
You know that teaching is still a normal job? You could get a good job as a PhD and then if you want to be involved you can still publish.
Einstein published all of his famous meme papers about curved space time and e=mc2 while also working as patent clerk. But obviously, being a full time scientist paid much more back in the day so he took his chance and ran with it once he became notable.
40 fucking k. That is bullshit when you are at the PhD level of any STEM field, and even more if you are multidisciplinary. I cannot understand how people can live with so much pain.
>>8087935
there's very few research in industry...and often you don't get to publish your results
>>8087936
>there's very few research in industry...and often you don't get to publish your results
Who cares.
And as I said, if you care about publishing it under your name then do as Einstein did and do solo research completely separate from the institution you work at.
More excuses to get majorly cucked
>>8087944
>And as I said, if you care about publishing it under your name then do as Einstein did and do solo research completely separate from the institution you work at.
And how are independent physics researchers doing nowdays?
>>8087944
>Who cares.
People who want to do research. You can't work 40+ hour weeks and expect to contribute meaningfully to some field of science.
Also, $40k is a perfectly liveable salary. What are you doing with your $100k salary? Not to mention that after a postdoc or two (less than five years of time) nobody makes that little money.
If we didn't have academia to push the boundaries of knowledge, industry wouldn't do shit. There isn't much short term incentive for business to do that, and the business guys don't think long term. Or much at all.
>>8087944
>if you care about publishing it under your name then do as Einstein did and do solo research completely separate from the institution you work at.
But that's not even true. He worked at a patent office while he was a grad student and then worked at schools and research institutes.
>>8087796
thank you anon
>>8087463
Yes. There are examples of kids who do advanced work early and are therefore ahead of their peers, and then there are examples of kids whose brains work better than others'. This is an example of the latter.
you could have raised john von neumann in a gutter for the first 20 years of his life, and he still would have rekt the entire math and scientific community with raw potential.
he is literally a super saiyan walking amongst men, he is goku
there's nothing you can do to change the fact that people like neumann have infinitely higher latent ability than even classic examples of genius (einstein etc)
JvN is a good example because he drifted around a lot between fields, but then quickly dominated them and effortlessly supplanted every "giant" in his way, regardless of who they were or how smart they seemed
>>8088098
i swear this JIDF troll comes up in every thread
>>8088098
Why do these drones come up in every thread?
>“I have known a great many intelligent people in my life. I knew Max Planck (Nobel Prize 1918), von Laue (Nobel Prize 1914) and Heisenberg (Nobel Prize 1932). Paul Dirac (Nobel Prize 1933) was my brother in law; Leo Szilard and Edward Teller have been among my closest friends; and Albert Einstein was a good friend, too. But none of them had a mind as quick and acute as John von Neumann. I have often remarked this in the presence of those men and no one ever disputed me.
… But Einstein’s understanding was deeper even than von Neumann’s. His mind was both more penetrating and more original than von Neumann’s. And that is a very remarkable statement. Einstein took an extraordinary pleasure in invention. Two of his greatest inventions are the Special and General Theories of Relativity; and for all of von Neumann’s brilliance, he never produced anything as original. –Eugene Wigner
>>8087830
>Nietzsche is a fucking quack. He has a few good ideas and his reasoning was decent but he makes a lot of superfluous and excessive connections.
You should read more before coming to shit opinions on the first philosopher you read. Don't bother giving a list of what you've read in response, just read more before you cast your opinions about
>>8088138
This is great, thanks for posting it.
>>8088138
I'm much more well read in literature than science despite studying mathematics but this also applies to literature. A good few critics I have followed through the years have repeatedly said that their memory is not a representation of any sort of cognitive power, citing someone like Montaigne (who repeatedly mentions his memory as a great fault) .
>>8088138
>retards quoting idiots talking about smart people
gee
>>8087420
wow.
>>8087728
No, you are again dunning kruger yourself.
It takes an extreme time investment FOR YOU.
>>8087774
Postdocs at MIT earn way more than the average.
>>8087781
QFT
>>8087443
>The smarter you are in one subject the less intelligence you lack in another.
>the less intelligence you lack in another.
Can't tell if bait....
>>8087389
outside of his own life, none of those things are accomplishments
frankly i think 1/5 people could do what he did if they had mathematician parents and were motivated; good for him but none of this stuff is really meaningful
>>8087389
yet, at the age of just 25 I fucked more than 300 girls :^)
>>8089047
>Studying physics for 12 years also qualifies me to be a surgeon, artist, and grandmaster chess player because genius is transitive.
>>8087389
Is one supposed to be impressed? These are just some of the things an MIT professor can get for his kid without latter moving his finger to scratch his own ass. He'd be much, much more if he wasn't just a placeholder for a position of the Academic Son to Be Proud of.
>>8087401
Thanks man, I'd never seen it that way
>>8088098
>you could have raised john von neumann in a gutter for the first 20 years of his life
I really disagree. von Neumann was raised as to be a child prodigy from a very young age. His parents were extremely wealthy and gave him tutors all his life.
von Neumann was very much a product of his upbringing. although certainly his mental ability was astonishing, it would have meant nothing without the special treatment he received as a child.
>>8089839
This.
Also,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r
>>8089839
>perfec eiditic memory
>immeasurable genius with an IQ of 220+
>considered to be one of, if not the smartest to ever live, past and present.
>capable of profoundly complex mental computation rivaling and even surpassing the computers of the day
i very much doubt his upbringing would have a large impact on someone with that kind of potential.
i mean if he couldnt, who could? i really dont think such a universal genius would be limited much by their upbringing. he was likely smarter than ramanujan, who seemed to do just fine.
ofc this doesnt account for the fact that the wartime period consumed a great chunk of his life and academic focus, or that he died pretty early from cancer.
>>8089858
Godel, Turing were on his level.
>>8089858
just a little hint
people don't acquire skills without freedom from the poverty life, just because some 'squander' their freedom on chilllin with their buds doesn't mean any poor kid can be a genius without 12 hours of time to themselves a day.
>>8087389
Because in his graciousness he has deemed us worthy enough not to extinct us using his godlike /sci/ magic?
;-;
>>8089870
Godel foresaw the P vs NP question and wrote to von Neumann about it on his death bed. von Neumann was one of the first to understand Godel's work and he understood the implications of Turing's work and actually recongized Turing for his work not in math logic (which everyone associates him to) but his outstanding work in other pure areas of mathematics Turing worked in that has been overshadowed by his other work in logic. Turing was an all around mathematician and that's what von Neumann saw in Turing.
Also, while Turing created a more efficient computer with storage von Neumann sort of took the work of others (if I remember correctly) used his fame and got his stuff pushed out over Turing's even though Turing's computer was better.
All of this is hazy but you could look it up and see more accurate info.
>>8087505
Please leave /sci
>>8089871
i'm not sure what you're replying to.
i'm saying it was neumann's own raw ability that is attributed to his genius, and not his upbringing.
he's not some 140 IQ tryhard babby who is "good" at stuff beyond his years. he is considered the pinnacle of human intelligence.
sure there may be people who were very smart and very good at specific things, but neumann was very smart and very good at virtually everything he applied himself to.
turing and godel were obviously smart, but godel would frequently go to neumann for help whenever he got stuck (and neumann would solve the problems), and arguably neumann's designs were superior or at the very least equal to turings.
so you have these renowned people who are considered the "top" or giants of their field, being surpassed by neumann, who only spent a relatively brief time in each field.
he is the definition of a universal genius, and i doubt very much that upbringing has anything to do with his special ability to be the best at everything.
there's a reason why all those high geniuses and nobel laureates consider him to be a true genius, and why they say he was smarter than everyone.
obviously his upbrining helped, but to deny his own ability and say its only because his parents were rich and tutored him is just absurd.
trying to deny that neumann had an inherent talent that made him intellectually superior to probably 99.9% of all human beings who ever lived and say that it was his nurturing environment just seems like the people saying this are in denial and dont want to accept that some people are just better than others.
>>8087774
what should I go into then
>>8089858
>i very much doubt his upbringing would have a large impact on someone with that kind of potential.
His wealthy upbringing definitely accelerated his intellectual growth and lifted his ceiling, if only because of two reasons:
1. He would have the complete attention of his teachers and they his complete attention. Most people learn from parents who have other shit going on, or from teachers who have more than one student, this creates a learning environment not working efficiently
2. He would have been exposed to more advanced ideas sooner. This is the more important of the two, I believe. An infant who hears a wider vocabulary often ends up being smarter, I'm willing to bet that a young child who is exposed to more complicated concepts becomes much more intelligent much faster
>>8089891
Jack Copeland considers that it is "historically inappropriate, to refer to electronic stored-program digital computers as 'von Neumann machines'".[11] His Los Alamos colleague Stan Frankel said of von Neumann's regard for Turing's ideas:
I know that in or about 1943 or '44 von Neumann was well aware of the fundamental importance of Turing's paper of 1936… Von Neumann introduced me to that paper and at his urging I studied it with care. Many people have acclaimed von Neumann as the "father of the computer" (in a modern sense of the term) but I am sure that he would never have made that mistake himself. He might well be called the midwife, perhaps, but he firmly emphasized to me, and to others I am sure, that the fundamental conception is owing to Turing— in so far as not anticipated by Babbage… Both Turing and von Neumann, of course, also made substantial contributions to the "reduction to practice" of these concepts but I would not regard these as comparable in importance with the introduction and explication of the concept of a computer able to store in its memory its program of activities and of modifying that program in the course of these activities.
[12]
At the time that the "First Draft" report was circulated, Turing was producing a report entitled Proposed Electronic Calculator which described in engineering and programming detail, his idea of a machine that was called the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE).[13] He presented this to the Executive Committee of the British National Physical Laboratory on February 19, 1946. Although Turing knew from his wartime experience at Bletchley Park that what he proposed was feasible, the secrecy surrounding Colossus, that was subsequently maintained for several decades, prevented him from saying so. Various successful implementations of the ACE design were produced.
>>8087420
>When you're born to a family who teaches you advance mathematics and explains all of your silly trivial questions in mathematics you accelerate the learning curve significantly.
Erik was home-schooled by Martin, and although Martin never received any higher degree than his high school diploma, his home-schooling catapulted Erik to a B.S. at age 14 and a Ph.D. and MIT professorship at age 20,
even people who didn't go to college are smart
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Demaine
>>8089901
Both von Neumann's and Turing's papers described stored-program computers, but von Neumann's earlier paper achieved greater circulation and the computer architecture it outlined became known as the "von Neumann architecture".
>>8089891
The better-known EDVAC design presented in the First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC (dated June 30, 1945), by John von Neumann, who knew of Turing's theoretical work, received much publicity, despite its incomplete nature and questionable lack of attribution of the sources of some of the ideas.
Turing's report on the ACE was written in late 1945 and included detailed logical circuit diagrams and a cost estimate of £11,200.[citation needed] He felt that speed and size of memory were crucial and he proposed a high-speed memory of what would today be called 25 KiB, accessed at a speed of 1 MHz[citation needed]. The ACE implemented subroutine calls[citation needed], whereas the EDVAC did not, and what also set the ACE apart from the EDVAC was the use of Abbreviated Computer Instructions,[citation needed] an early form of programming language. Initially, it was planned that Tommy Flowers, the engineer at the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill in north London, who had been responsible for building the Colossus computers should build the ACE, but because of the secrecy around his wartime achievements and the pressure of post-war work, this was not possible.
>>8089903
How does any of what you wrote discredit anything I said? It doesn't.
>>8089920
I guess it doesn't. I assume people were implying that Erik Demaine was only smart because his father was a professor at MIT, and thus could explain advanced mathematical/science concepts to him.
>>8087389
honestly good for him, im not even jealous
>>8089925
>believing in wikipedia lies
You know how many of sons-of-professors who became professors in the same exact field but lied about being taught by their parents when asked i've met IRL ?
>>8089925
Ya if anything his father is the true genius here.
But I certainly agree with the idea that his father is the reason why he was a child prodigy. These kinds of things do not just happen by accident.
>>8089925
Take anyone with IQ 125+.
Teach them Analysis, Topology, Geometry, Logic, Abstract Algebra, Category theory while in middle school and answer all their questions and ensure they understand each proof and theorem before moving to the next. Ensure they finish these studies by high school.
This kid will seem like a "genius" to outsiders but he simply studied the material sooner and has access to resources others with IQ 125+ may not have had.
Now this "genius" is already at a BS level freshmen year in college and can accelerate his studies more by taking graduate level courses at the undergraduate level.
Now the kid can work on research level mathematics and finish his PhD sooner.
>>8089973
Most middle schoolers that I know of probably don't have the motivation to study that much Mathematics.
>>8089980
They don't need motivation if they are being indoctrinated. See judit polgar
>>8090021
Meh, depends if the child in question wants to be "indoctrinated".
I'm not going to argue against it though.
It's funny how the /pol/-tier contingent on this site celebrate people like this while simultaneously attempting to discredit anyone who suggests that their success is linked to their privileged upbringing.
You can't have it both ways, folks. Either you admit that this guy is as successful as he is because he was raised a certain way, or you don't. Heredity alone isn't going to explain it.
>>8090030
Children conform to whatever culture they're immersed into. If they are taught that self-worth comes from doing math research, they will do that. If they are taught to play videogames and watch anime all day, they will do that.
>>8089325
>Can't tell the difference between innate knowledge and knowledge.
Give 6 year olds some progressive matrices.
Some will solve them and some will stare like chimps.
>>8092411
>pattern recognition is "innate knowledge"
>>8092415
>6 year old
>recognition
you mean short term memory
>>8092443
no, i mean pattern recognition, definitely not short-term memory when the problem is so small and contained and fully represented.
>>8089903
>MIT professorship at age 20,
you do understand that he is a prof at MIT only because of his father being a prof at MIT. TOday, no phd students jump into a teaching position, even less in famous university, unless he has a direct connection for a pulling strings. being a professor is not about intelligence, but about network.
>>8087781
>intelligence is not relative, and if you say it is, then literally everything else is relative to and we have nothing to base our standards on.
omg people I wave a terror because the little rationalist that I am has no argument
>>8087389
>43 page CV
Embarassing. No one is going to read that shit. This is like when kids think writing a 43 page paper is superior to a 2 page paper on the same topic.
>>8087389
Good for him.
Is he happy?
>>8087495
>His father basically cloned himself so that he could have a research partner.
kek, that's so fucking badass
gonna do this with my kid
>>8089903
>even people who didn't go to college are smart
Of course they are, because of the simple fact that college has nothing to do with being smart. A degree doesn't make you smarter. It gives you knowledge and depending on your abilities you can absorb it and do shit with it.
>>8087427
No, you have one CV which lists all of your shit. Then when you apply for something, you condense it to another version which is 2 - 3 pages listing your most important stuff.
>>8087804
Professors (especially at a university like MIT) make triple digit salaries. It's all those poor post docs fighting it out for those positions that are poverty stricken. I'll get back to you in 6 about what that is like what I'm about ready to shoot myself.
>>8087569
I'm not really sure why people have trouble with this. I was never, ever at the very top of my class. There was always someone around better than me. Now that I'm ready to start applying to grad school, I have no ego problems to hurdle over. I'll just keep working to make myself better. Sure, it would've been really awesome to have been a child prodigy but I've lived a good start to my life.
>>8092634
I don't think it's like that.
Universities probably see their staff the same way sports teams see athletes. When there's someone young, they have basically unlimited potential to publish and bring prestige to the university.
Terrence Tao became a professor at the age of 24. Clearly, giving him that position was a great move by UCLA.
>>8089980
Some of them do.
One of my math profs never went to class as an undergrad since he had already learned everything as an undergrad. He just liked math. I asked him how to get better at math and he told me I need to love math more.
It's just a love-affair, guys. Some people feel the same way about math as you feel about WoW or whatever computer games you like to play.
>>8087804
Some people don't care about salaries. They just like the comfiness assosciated with working as a professor.
It is a very comfy existence, to be completely fair.
>>8093652
yeah but pure research is better, since you do not deal with students.
>>8087389
I'm sick of seeing this faggot's face on the front page. How much longer until this thread dies?
>>8094159
Until people stop replying to it. Let it die.
>>8093635
While what you said may be true, >>8092634
has a valid point. How do you think Obama's daughter got into Harvard? Wealth, an elite education due to her wealth/privileges & more importantly connections. Connections is key.
Yes he is highly intelligent, but he was given resources other highly intelligent kids don't have. It doesn't impress me Erik has accomplished what he has in life. He was given what he has.
>>8087389
Good for him. I wish my father had taken an interest in my education.
