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Comment by arturkane7 | Hacker News Reader

You will then love Paul Erdos sending a colleague an earnest letter saying he was “praying for his soul” for publishing a paper in the Journal of Applied Probability.

This kind of militant snobbery for pure math is common with the greats and shouldn’t be taken personally.

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> shouldn’t be taken personally

I think it also shouldn't always be taken so seriously. In my experience, mathematicians (both applied and pure) tend to have a sense of humour about this sort of thing, and I see no reason to doubt that that wouldn't have applied to at least some of the greats as well.

Why should shitting on other fields or their passions be taken less seriously just because it's common for mathematicians to do it?

lol these are meant to be ironic comments, seems you are taking them far too seriously. Look up Erdos’s story to understand his irony.

I just think it's sad because a lot of people are put off by this kind of snobbery in mathematics.

Joking or ironic or not it can still be harmful.

I find it harmful that you think that this is snobbery.

Yeah agree. The world becomes a bleak place if people are not allowed to joke around a bit, especially harmless jokes as those.

If it was said about e.g. accounting it could come off as snobbery. Everyone knows that being a poet requires imagination, so no one is going to see it as anything other than a light-hearted joke.

On the other side, if it was said about lawyers nobody would ever complain :)

The point of the quote is that mathematics requires more imagination.

It's common for people to talk about different fields this way, it's a form of lighthearted rivalry. Not worth getting worked up over it, unless you're an unfunny boring person.

The physicists where I work like to joke about how engineers can't do basic physics stuff and the engineers like to joke about how physicists struggle to convert design into reality.

Neither of them genuinely dislikes the other's field/passion, they're actually very appreciative of each other's skills. It's just a very common kind of humor.

And I bet both fields are wondering how to be more appealing to women right?

Engineering, physics, mathematics, astronomy and STEM in general are already appealing to women - it's the bro-centric institutions that are off putting.

Women like R.O have contributed to all those fields since the 1980s .. but then they've been surrounded by others like C.P to take the edge off the boof heads.

https://www.science.org.au/profile/robyn-owens

https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/persons/cheryl-pra...

My workplace doesn't appear to be having any trouble with that. Jokes like that aren't exactly gender specific.

millitant snobbery reminds me of a student colleague who had been studying math. she had small bells tied into her hair, and she told us that the bells were to remind her that there are other things in life besides math.

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/435/ It isn't limited to greats either.

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