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Comment by wenc | Hacker News Reader

I remember this article from 2019. I remember the writing style struck me then as being a little strange.

My first thought was "who's the mathematician"? But the article doesn't actually mention the author's name until a few paragraphs down, electing instead to put the spotlight on Scott Aaronson and other commentators. I felt then as I do now that it was a little lacking in respect.

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I agree, it's extremely distasteful. I feel the author has cut their teeth writing clickbait headlines to make information extraction harder, the way a supermarket puts the milk at the far corner of the store. I want a link/cite to the original paper in the first para.

It reminds me of that interview a few years back 'Ms Bacall, what was it like working with a screen legend like Nicole Kidman?'

For those like me who didn’t get the reference:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3640454.stm

> I want a link/cite to the original paper in the first para.

I'm guessing this might have changed since you wrote your comment, but the very first sentence does contain a link to the paper.

The paper itself is longer than 2 pages (but not by a lot!) but the "Proof of the main theorem" section is only 2 pages long.

> the way a supermarket puts the milk at the far corner of the store

I never noticed, but I can only recall a single instance from a set of 10 or so where that isn't the case.

Any links on related content to the topic?

There's a econtalk or maybe a planet money that goes into detail on this: the cold chain is super important in food safety, especially for stuff like milk. You want to be able to move from refrigerated milk truck to grocery store food fridge rapidly, so you put the milk near the loading dock. And of course, you keep the loading dock as far away from customers as possible so they're not inconvenienced.

Moving the cold chain closer to checkout involves additional expenses, so it works more for higher margin products, and ones a bit more forgiving if there's a thaw, like Coke, Monster energy drinks, and canned coffee from Starbucks.

So the question becomes: would you pay 50 cents more for milk from a fridge at checkout, when you can get the same thing at the back?

EDIT: it was the host of econtalk, appearing on NPR Planet money:https://www.npr.org/2014/08/01/337034378/everyone-goes-to-th...

But in the spirit of the question, search for "dark patterns" and "consumer nudging". Also, there were some Chicago economists writing on the topic. I don't have the book to tell you title/authors, but it was again something on nudging and exploiting the fast thinking for long term goals.

Had a similar experience with another (also Quanta?) article last year about some optical physics breakthrough made at my not-very-well-known alma mater, but the article was written as if the work was all done at MIT, which one of the collaborators was affiliated with. You had to scroll to the second page to see the name of the institution that the PI was actually at.

The name of the mathematician is Hao Huang

Huang Hao. Chinese family name姓 first

It is notable that in English, Chinese names are generally written given-family, but in French the original family-given order is preserved. I'm curious how other languages handle this -- any takers?

Japan has started writing Japanese names as “FAMILY Given” in English, e.g. ABE Shinzo, MIYAZAKI Hayao, OSAKA Naomi, MIYAMOTO Shigeru, IWATA Satoru.

> in English, Chinese names are generally written given-family

Is that right? All the famous Chinese people I can think of are known in english by the family name first. Names of Chinese players of chess are always family-given in english.

I read after a moment's google that "Chinese people working in western countries usually adopt western order", maybe that's it.

Indian names I believe are similar, family or parent's name comes first[0], e.g. the ex-chess world champion Vishy Anand's name is Viswanathan Anand – Anand was/is actually his given name, but it's treated by english speakers as his surname. I read an interview where he said even he doesn't know any more which is his surname and which his first name hehe.

[0] Same in Hungarian, but always converted to given-family in english.

Possibly this depends on the subculture. One example picked at random, the (fabulous) film Black coal, thin ice is reported in Cahiers du Cinema as directed by Diao Yinan [1], but in IMDb as by Yi'nan Diao [2]

[1] https://www.cahiersducinema.com/produit/juin-2014-n-701/

[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3469910/

To be fair, it does link to the paper in literally the first words, which is in some sense the most important thing. But let's go ahead and record the name here since the article takes its time: the solver is Hao Huang.

I read it as more of an attempt to frame Hao Huang’s accomplishment in a way that a lay audience could better appreciate it. I didn’t get any sense that it was disrespectful.

Yes! How hard is it to have a headline that says "Mathematician Hao Huang solves Sensititvity Conjecture"? It's nearly impossible to distinguish news stories from the force-fed advertorials as it is. Now journalists are electing to imitate them?! "Texas Teacher Discovers Mortgage Loophole" indeed....

Perhaps it's just that the article isn't written in inverted pyramid style? In non-newspaper writing (e.g. a novella) having the main character be introduced in the 8th paragraph wouldn't be that odd.

Ironically your comment is guilty as well.

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