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Comment by chrisaycock | Hacker News Reader

Colin Percival wrote one of my favorite response to a question about mathematicians here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=228233

  You have to be smart to do make a significant contribution to 
  mathematics, and I don't believe that people can "become 
  smart" past a very early age. However, it's possible for 
  someone to be smart despite not having been recognized as 
  such, depending on which fields his intellect is applied 
  against. Finally, it's definitely possible for someone who is 
  smart but has never done well in mathematics to make a 
  contribution to mathematics -- if he can develop the interest 
  which is necessary for him to apply his intellect 
  appropriately.

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It rings true to me. I have a math PhD, and taught at various levels. Something I can say is that while I'm not sure that everyone is capable of groking advanced math, a person who can do that could actually come from anywhere, at least. And our system isn't really all that great at seeking that capability out. Unless you are in a fairly privileged group.

There's kind of "converse" problems too, that I think is the focus of the linked article, in that there's an epidemic of hype in academics, math, and the sciences. So it's not just that people of high ability are being missed, but some individuals of high ability are being over-hyped to an extreme. The signal to noise ratio is very poor due to multiple types of errors.

People have been writing about this for a long time; it's nothing new but little seems to change (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/12/our-gen...).

This is a supremely accurate quote - mathematicians often encounter this when teaching undergrads in lower level courses. I remember encountering some very smart people while teaching in grad school, but the people themselves did not recognize themselves as smart or gifted in the discipline due to their upbringing. It was a sad thing to see, and I would encourage them that they could be successful in mathematics if they wanted to & that they possessed the gift of intelligence to succeed.

I hope I left a mark on their lives, although I am not able to see how they turned out (after all, I was just a TA for their one semester with me).

Colin's response nails it on the head (but also, some of the people Cathy is talking about are really, really scary smart).

For what it's worth, around 15 years ago, I personally had a "traumatic" and relevant experience involving the author (Cathy O'Neil) of the article we're discussing here, which I've never told anybody about. We are both number theorists, with a similar educational track (Berkeley, Harvard, etc., at similar times). She and I were hanging out in a pub in Cambridge, MA, and I was showing her a list of research projects I was very excited about and working on.

First, some background about me. In grad school at Berkeley, I had changed from worrying about "being a genius", to just being completely obsessed with doing mathematics research all the time, and actively simply not thinking about myself or social things. I had many clear experiences when working on research problems in which if I thought at all about myself and whether or not I was "smart" (or anything social), my progress would completely stop; however, if I could clear my mind of such worries -- about myself or others, then I could prove theorems and do good mathematics. So at the time I really embraced mathematics research itself over social concerns.

Anyway, Cathy and I were in a bar, and I was showing her (on my laptop), my list of projects. I really hoped she would find some of them interesting, and we might coauthor a paper together, since her thesis research was closely related to mine, but approached things from a completely different (more geometric) direction, which I personally found extremely difficult (at least, I didn't have the "interest" to master that approach, in the sense of Colin's comment). Well this is not at all what happened! Instead, of getting excited by any of the projects I proposed, Cathy got really, really angry at me for (I guess) intimidating her (?). I was never sure. I genuinely meant no harm.

For me personally at least, somehow worrying about the social aspects of research mathematics too much would make it impossible for me to actually do mathematics. I wonder if some of the other people Cathy alludes to in the article are similar, and if this has consequences. Anyway, it was a lesson to me at the time of the extent to which having a sense of "being in the zone" and not thinking about oneself (or social and emotional issues at all), can simultaneously be very conducive to research mathematics and also really piss off certain people.

I make no claims to be a genius or "emotionally mature" at the time, and I'm a different person today than I was then. However, there is (at least for me) a real psychological conflict between the social aspects of thinking about research and actually doing research; it is a very difficult challenge to balance the two.

Oh wow. I've had this exact thing happen a few times. I'm way in the zone, making thrilling progress on something and perceiving my own state of mind as rather egoless. I see that if I could collaborate with certain people, the result would be incredible. But instead of catching my excitement they get angry, tell me my work is garbage, and say don't speak to them again. It seems obvious that it must be an ego thing, because if the problem was simply that my work was bad, they could tell me nicely. Such people seem very territorial. It doesn't always happen this way. I've also approached people and had them respond enthusiastically. But when you're in that state of pure excitement about the objective, it doesn't occur to you that a colleague could feel threatened, and it can be quite crushing to get slapped back into that social plane.

I've published in mathematical/statistical areas as well as applied ones, and my sense is that interpersonal difficulties are more acute, but also more transparent, in math and statistics, for lack of a better way of putting it. My sense is that people tend to hold views more absolutely, because they see their positions as more logic-based, and so have a more difficult time recognizing unrealistic assumptions they're making, or outright errors in their derivations or thinking. An applied researcher can shrug and dismiss something as sampling error, or ambiguity in a study design, but in math, it's harder to invoke such excuses or pressure relief valves. A threat, of whatever real or misperceived magnitude, seems to take on greater significance in math and statistics.

It is possible that she went to bar with completely different expectations - drinking beer and having fun. She probably did not expected to be pushed into passive role of "listen about cool things I have done". I don't mean to say that you have done sonething wrong, you did not. But if I can choose who I would cooperate with, I would choose someone I can have more two way conversation with. If the discussion between you and me is about your projects only, I would assume that our cooperation would be primary about your ideas and plans (since I have hard time make myself being listened to now).

You seem to be attempting to validate and excuse behavior that is, frankly, extremely inappropriate and arguably cruel. When I was in my early 20s, something like this would make me very wary of approaching other people in the future, because I would have felt like I did something wrong. It would be legitimately traumatizing, and I am not using that word lightly. You agree that the person you are replying to did nothing wrong, but you are still blaming them.

Reverse the genders in the scenario, and think about it again. Would you still be defending a man who got angry at a female academic peer with no reasonable explanation? Do you still see the dynamics in the same light? Do you still make the same assumptions in regards to the intentions of both parties, and their subsequent reactions?

He talked with her once in pub, she got angry so it did not worked out and that is cruel? Seriously? Reverse gender, a girl got long monologue to dude not allowing him to speak who failing to get his turn got angry and left (or whatever). Normal encounter between two people, nothing to sugest it had anything to do with gender.

For that matter, I don't see dudes being blamed for being angry. It is normal emotion. At worst, it is assumed that they are either alpha or on the spectrum. But you brought up gender which has nothing to do with anything here, not me. She was not friendly to girls who would act the same.

Academic peer has nothing to do with anything. And I did not blamed him. I provided interpretation that does not rely on her being "intimidated".

williamstein never told anyone about this event, despite the fact that it bothered him enough to be a clear and distinct memory 15 years later. I am presuming that he did not tell anyone because he did not have any sort of dependable support group to turn to. I want you to think hard about why that may have been the case.

>For that matter, I don't see dudes being blamed for being angry. It is normal emotion.

Do you live in the United States? It is completely unacceptable for anyone to display anger in a public, academic, or professional setting unless they are in a position of power and/or authority. And just because it's acceptable for someone with status to do it doesn't make it okay either. In the case we are discussing, getting angry at someone else is EXTREMELY inappropriate.

You are adding own fiction to the story. His own interpretation was thay there is for him conflict between focusing at math and social. That makes people come across sdifferently then they intended - because they don't think about others at the moment. Duh.

As anger goes, u have seen angry American managers and academics and journalists and random friends whether in position of authority or not.

And I dont know why you imply she did not had social status to display anger (as only higher status can do that according to you). His story implies opposite - except again you are adding that aspect. OP did not cared about status not anything else social. He was overly excited about his research.

Nevertheless, if you think anger it self is bad thing, then it is very unhealthy way of living. Such people tend to end up passive aggressive. Anger does not excuse unethical acts nor rude acts, but none such act is mentioned here. Just her being angry.

>Instead, of getting excited by any of the projects I proposed, Cathy got really, really angry at me for (I guess) intimidating her (?).

I've had similar experiences to this, across work, academia, friends, and online gaming. My thought is that you made her question her personal identity as a mathematician, and this doubt created a state of cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance gets dealt with in many ways. Some people simply shut down and try to purge the event from memory, and pretend as if it never happened.

Others will deflect and do everything to convince themselves and those around them that their perception of reality is the truth. It seems like few people are actually capable of re-evaluating their current position and coming to some sort of internal compromise.

In the case of dealing with harsh truths about oneself, this can be coupled with some sort of plan or goal to improve and get to the point that they initially believed themselves to be at, and/or that they believe that they deserve to be at.

I think what you experienced is a variant of the former, where her inner turmoil was channeled as anger and projected onto you, because you (inadvertently) made her question her identity, and I've learned that this can cause certain people to experience a complete collapse of how they view themselves.

You can see this happen all the time with people who tie their perception of being "good" at something to their identity, and who have completely exaggerated and inappropriate reactions when something that contradicts that perception happens.

A short-term example of this is the way that people who dedicate lots of time to online team-based videogames and consider themselves "good" players blame their teammates for losses in order to absolve themselves and maintain their identity.

A long-term example is how people react to unwillingly losing their career, due to factors like injury, legal issues, money (when self-employed), or the job simply ceasing to exist due to economic collapse or technology. Something like this is completely devastating for most, and they irrecoverably fall into depression.

Just a shot in the dark, but from your setup you and another person were meeting up at a bar, and then they got mad when you were only interested in talking about work... Maybe she was interested in you and kept dropping hints and you were impossible to derail from your number theory laptop notes?

As a side note a girl once asked me to help fix her computer in college (both of us majoring in math), and she was slightly annoyed when I came over and couldn't find anything wrong with her computer. It was a laptop, but she said it only caused problems in her dorm room.... I later felt extremely stupid!

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