![]() But I’m betting that you know of a number of colleagues in academia who have children with some degree of this condition. Rest assured, I am not trying to be disrespectful. Hence, you would probably be hesitant to say anything that might be perceived as disrespectful. Tao, and you might even consider him a friend. And if I told you that Terence’s brother had that condition, would you entertain the idea that small doses of this cognitive style may be intellectually advantageous as long as was not “too much”? Ironically, though, the parents of children with this condition are more likely to excel in the hard sciences, including mathematics. Individuals with this condition completely fail on the task of generalization and abstraction, and in general, do not excel at mathematical skills. *improved visualization (the formation and manipulation of mental images in solving visualspatial tasks.) *sticky attention (prolonged attention to a stimulus) Using the list of traits that you provided, I will suggest that a particular neurological condition incorporates such traits like: Instead of personality disorder, it might be more accurate to look for a particular type of cognitive processing style as helpful in mathematical thinking. However, I will suggest a phrase that might be more relevant. You had brought up the concept of personality disorders in your original commentary. I looked over your list, and I wouldn’t have a problem with anything that you listed. I prefer symmetry breaking type conceptual models to explain why things are not normal-eg the old famous one on racial segregation by thomas shelling of U Md. Prison populations are not random samples of populations skin color likely isnt, and animals are different though perhaps connected by ‘phase transitions’. ![]() as does IQ (which is closer to a bell curve apparently). If one looks at income distribution (some say normal, lognormal, exponential, etc…) it is somewaht ‘normaly distributed’ but that is not the case geographically –bny neighborghood or country, etc. the maxwell-boltzmann is distribution is normal (gaussian) but the boltzmann is exponential-and in a sense one is just dealing with different coordinates or representations (and i think the same could be said of spin glasses / ising models/ fitness landscapes.) The surface of the earth may be normally distributed in elevation looked at one way, but the sierra nevada is not the same as the geat plains. (now we live in the age of the ‘new normal i hear). I also am not a big fan of the concept of normal or normality. ) done by people who may do valid work in other fields-usually more applied and seem to have academic jobs. Some also may be normal in one area and ‘cranks’ in another -i seem to come across many papers viewed as ‘cranky’ (eg hidden variable variable theories, anti-big bang, disproofs of Cantor and einstein, etc. ![]() But, people can be eccentric or somewhat un-normal in many ways–b russel, poincare, godel, turing, feynman, nash, w pitts, jensen, various ones with political views seen as unnacetable now etc. also it may exist becauase some of the most eccentric types also got some of the greatest or well known results. however, it may also be one reason the myth exists is that its somewhat true in the sense that stereotypes often have a germ of truth. ![]() Your last comment i think would be a reasonable ‘null hypothesis’-the ‘mad scientist’ (or mathematician) is a myth based on sampling error. Thus, if the rate of historically great eccentric mathematicians is high compared to other fields, it is because the sample is biased. One could probably not be a great lawyer, physician or statesman if they were socially abnormal. I think the myth persists because of a few very prominent examples but also that mathematics is a pursuit where having a personality disorder is not a major handicap. It is perhaps true that mathematicians are more introverted and absent minded than average but rarely to a pathological degree. My guess is that the rate of personality disorder among mathematicians is no higher than the general populace. However, in my experience, most mathematicians, even the very best, are reasonably normal and sociable. The article plays up his “normality” in contrast to the stereotype of the eccentric asocial mathematician like Gauss, John Nash or Grigory Perelman, who proved the Poincare Conjecture. He could probably master any subject in any field if he just put his mind to it. Tao is astonishing in his breadth and depth. There is a nice profile of mathematician Terence Tao in the New York Times magazine this week.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |