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Comment by Pamar | Hacker News Reader

I think that the author is trying too hard to create sensationalism by stressing how the person in the article had decided that "math was not for him", by saying stuff like:

After that bad math test in elementary school, Huh says he adopted a defensive attitude toward the subject: He didn’t think he was good at math, so he decided to regard it as a barren pursuit of one logically necessary statement piled atop another. As a teenager he took to poetry instead, viewing it as a realm of true creative expression.

But then...

By the time he enrolled at Seoul National University in 2002, he had concluded that he couldn’t make a living as a poet, so he decided to become a science journalist instead. He majored in astronomy and physics, in perhaps an unconscious nod to his latent analytic abilities.

Can someone explain how someone who has decided to distance himself from math can major in PHYSICS?!

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Can someone explain how someone who has decided to distance himself from math can major in PHYSICS?!

The pure math world (and certain rarified branches of physics and CS) are quite different from the "measurement-based" sciences. If anything they're almost more similar to endeavors like musical composition (or even poetry) than any "lab-based" science. Particularly when it comes to the fetishization of "genius", "pure talent" and all that -- and especially when it comes to the character model (myth, really) of the lone genius who locks himself in an attic for N years and not only solves some major problem but totally reimagines the field, front to back.

I mean - at least in terms of the culture of pure mathematics, that's the image one can easily fall into the habit of having about one's self, if one attempts to do mathematics. Such that if you were to switch to physics, astronomy, or CS... you actually would feel like you were "leaving math".

This is completely off. At the college level physics is almost completely math. Linear Algebra, Functional Analysis, and Abstract Algebra aren't exactly 'measurement-based' subjects.

As a math student with lots of physics friends. Physics and math are very different.

One way to explain this might be that physics isn't about doing math, but using math to do computations. Meanwhile, math is about abstract ideas and rigorous proofs. Physics doesn't care about wondering if an integral is a well-defined concept, nor does it care about the real numbers being uncountable. Similarly, maths looks at the formulae in physics and thinks those things are way to complicated.

Our lin-alg course is joined physics and maths. The older physicists complain about all the proofs needed there. Mathematicians lament the lack of rigor in the same course.

Physicists definitely do care about those things, they can just put off figuring them out because they are useful in the meantime.

Just like mathematicians can turn the results of 'unsolved problems' into axioms and go on with their lives.

At the college level physics is almost completely math.

It's not the formulas; it's how you look at them. And what they "mean" to you.

Linear Algebra, Functional Analysis, and Abstract Algebra aren't exactly 'measurement-based' subjects.

Right; but those are just the ABCs, is it were.

Physicists and astronomers, by and large, are interested in a broad range of mathematical subjects -- but generally as tools, just enough therein to make sense of what's coming out of their particle detectors and their telescopes.

Pure mathematicians, meanwhile, are into things like the Langlands program, or Inter-universal Teichmüller theory. And they constructions they consider aren't the mere means to some end, grounded in the prospect of obtaining some better understanding of the physical world. They are, rather, the end goal in itself.

Or if you will, the "music".

I suspect the Math test the subject failed during elementary school wasn't on Langlands.

Having majored in mathematics and music, and taken only undergraduate physics courses I would say my personal experience agrees with kafkaesq. I often thought maths was closer to English literature & composition classes or music composition classes than to my physics classes. For me, maths was definition focused like the difference between lightning and lightning bolt, big picture focused like writing a thesis argument or a composition, and detail focused similar to understanding how the structure of a sentence altered the affect of that sentence or detail focused when manipulating melodic lines or harmonies and rhythm within one measure of music (ie get through a harmonic progression to another key while still maintaining the set of rules/laws/constraints I had created for myself for a specific piece).

Physics is about putting mathematical frameworks to use, pure math is about designing (or discovering) new frameworks.

I've read that comment 3 times now. I think his/her point just didn't come across.

Well he says this, "he decided to regard it as a barren pursuit of one logically necessary statement piled atop another"

This indicates that he views a certain type of worthlessness in math. Then he can justify not being good at math, and distance himself from the pursuit of math on its own grounds.

Of course his perception of him not being good at math and actually not being good at math are two different things. Physics uses math, but not for maths sake. And in reality, I'm sure he was more than competent in math, so the level of math required for undergrad physics was not a problem.

It was only, through his journalism, did he let down his guard enough to enjoy math for maths sake -- and realize that a test you took in elementary school needn't define you.

I think there's a bigger problem the article is getting at, that people are kind of missing or downplaying, which is the culture around math skill acquisition and ability.

It's obvious this guy had a love of math and ability in it, from his majors and subsequent events.

But it's also actually not that unreasonable for him to start second-guessing himself when he struggled with math earlier in life.

I do think there's this idea that if you're good at math and have something to offer in it, it will show early on regardless of life circumstances or mentors or role models or whatever, that if it's not immediately obvious that you're a mathematical genius you should forget about it.

"Realizing a test you took in elementary school needn't define you" is actually a nontrivial thing to overcome in today's society, maybe even especially in STEM circles.

Sometimes I wish STEM culture was more focused on sharing the joys of STEM and trying to be as open-minded and inclusive as possible, instead of brandishing it as a competitive tool.

Very much agreed. I've definitely encountered the attitude that my high-school grades or my undergrad GPA define me. And by "define me", I mean that my undergrad GPA of 3.45, higher in just my CS+math courses, is considered a little on the low side to be applying for STEM grad-school. My GPA was sufficient to graduate with Latin honors, but it's low for STEM? Come on.

Yes, we definitely treat STEM as a competition to see who can be the closest to "perfect" at set tasks and classwork, rather than as an exploration (or even exploitation) of structures and spaces through strictly logical reasoning.

Can someone explain how someone who has decided to distance himself from math can major in PHYSICS?!

Exactly that. At my university first-year physics students would effectively take the same courses as mathematics students and Mathematical Methods in Physics on top of that.

There is, in my experience, a difference between the courses required of mathematics majors and the courses that students who might want to be mathematicians are expected to take.

This is true, but becomes a lot less relevant when you're playing in Huh's league. It's not that easy to make a move even from theoretical high-energy physics to pure mathematics. You can read about some interesting success stories in Quanta, but I think most people who try this end up leaving academia. There's a large cultural gap they have to cross, and most will never integrate enough to survive the job market.

Talking daily to a world-class professional mathematician for two years will do a lot to help in this respect.

This just shows how writers like to sensationalize people and real life events. It is obvious that this guy was a math person who didn't know what trajectory to take. He was not good in math for his own standards, which are certainly much higher than for the rest of the population.

> Can someone explain how someone who has decided to distance himself from math can major in PHYSICS?!

And it takes a lot for an undergrad to take algebraic geometry class under a Fields Medal laureate. That gives a sight about his math maturity.

Probably just passing along the farcical story June Huh tells himself.

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