[the bear]

How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb ?

One... but the bulb must want to change

[thomaskurian89]

(Original post by raheem94)
What harm has maths done to you?

Why are you so much against it?

Read my second post in this thread.

[Hathlan]

(Original post by meow444)
there lots of studies which indicate that people who are outstanding at science or maths tend to find social interaction more difficult than your average joe.

Is the statement "there are lots of studies" a bit like the statement "there exists a well-ordering of "?

[someonesomewherexx]

Socially inept person checking in here and I ain't that good at maths..

[raheem94]

(Original post by thomaskurian89)
Read my second post in this thread.

By your second post in this thread, it seems that you are good at maths.

But when i check out your profile, it says you are 4 year old, so i am wondering how a 4 year old can be so good at maths.

[thomaskurian89]

(Original post by raheem94)
By your second post in this thread, it seems that you are good at maths.

But when i check out your profile, it says you are 4 year old, so i am wondering how a 4 year old can be so good at maths.

Some people lie about their age.

[MagicNMedicine]

This is a student forum so people are probably thinking "bad socially" in terms of school/college/university "socially". From my experience most of the kids at school that were good at maths were introverts, doesn't mean they were on the autism spectrum, they were just quiet and liked solo hobbies, typically these types were interested in computers as well as maths.

In the immature environment of being a student the socially dominant people are the ones that are just into drinking and being stupid, and so introverts don't like this and tend to keep a low profile hence it seems in their student days that they don't have as many friends as the rowdy types, although they will meet similar types on the internet.

However when you get older and into post university life this all changes as often those introverted maths types will get good jobs and meet other similar people, I know a lot of people through work that have done degrees and masters in maths and stats and you can tell they were probably seen as geeks at school as they are fairly quiet and introverted but now they have good jobs with decent money, go on interesting holidays, are married/have partners, drive nice cars, and have interesting social lives. Meanwhile the rowdys that went through school thinking they were cool and didn't do any work end up out of the education system with little in the way of qualifications and are scrapping around for rubbish jobs without much money and their lives revolve around hating their job and then looking forwards to the weekend when they can drink away their frustrations. It's like the pecking order of who is cool and who is a loser reverses.

So all the mathematician kids that grow up thinking they are social nerds, wait till you're in your mid 20s and older and you will find a much better social position.

[mhill]

[Jake22]

(Original post by Simplicity)
Personally, I know a paper that takes about 80 pages to prove something about division algebras and spheres. The author used very advanced techniques to write the proof in four pages about ten years later.

The joke is unless you read a thousand page book you won't understand the four pages proof. Even, then it's probably hard to understand. Yet the 80 page proof is understandable.

It would take less time to understand the long proof then the short elegant proof.

Are you talking about Adam's paper on the non existance of maps of Hopf invariant one?

This is a truly poor example of the principle you are talking about.

The original proof using secondary operations in ordinary cohomology is much harder - both conceptually and computationally.

You could use the same 80 pages to define K theory and the Adams operations and then give the one page proof using that framework.

See May's Introduction to Algebraic Topology

[Brit_Miller]

(Original post by MagicNMedicine)
This is a student forum so people are probably thinking "bad socially" in terms of school/college/university "socially". From my experience most of the kids at school that were good at maths were introverts, doesn't mean they were on the autism spectrum, they were just quiet and liked solo hobbies, typically these types were interested in computers as well as maths.

In the immature environment of being a student the socially dominant people are the ones that are just into drinking and being stupid, and so introverts don't like this and tend to keep a low profile hence it seems in their student days that they don't have as many friends as the rowdy types, although they will meet similar types on the internet.

However when you get older and into post university life this all changes as often those introverted maths types will get good jobs and meet other similar people, I know a lot of people through work that have done degrees and masters in maths and stats and you can tell they were probably seen as geeks at school as they are fairly quiet and introverted but now they have good jobs with decent money, go on interesting holidays, are married/have partners, drive nice cars, and have interesting social lives. Meanwhile the rowdys that went through school thinking they were cool and didn't do any work end up out of the education system with little in the way of qualifications and are scrapping around for rubbish jobs without much money and their lives revolve around hating their job and then looking forwards to the weekend when they can drink away their frustrations. It's like the pecking order of who is cool and who is a loser reverses.

So all the mathematician kids that grow up thinking they are social nerds, wait till you're in your mid 20s and older and you will find a much better social position.

I'm 24, when does this start happening for me?

[Dmon1Unlimited]

(Original post by thomaskurian89)
But if you keep the step-size constant, 5 steps is better than 10.

thats not even a reply to that guy... you just rehashed your old statement...

its ideal to make your work as clear as possible...an easy way to do this is by increasing step size... i dont know what guy told you this, but ive been taught ideally to write things down step by step making sure theyre as clear as possible....

in exams you dont gain marks for getting the answer in the least amount of steps... in fact you may even lose marks...

[MartinKellyisagod]

[SubAtomic]

(Original post by thomaskurian89)
In mathematics, less is more. Doing a proof in 5 steps is considered better than doing it in 10 steps.

What do you think?

Tell whoever marks my assignments that

They want rigorous proof not short.

[member910132]

Even though the OP hasn't put it in a very good way, he has a valid point to some degree.
If you look at the history of the great mathematicians they weren't very sociable people, ofc there are exception. IMHO because serious mathematicians have to dedicate so much time, effort and though into their work they almost live in a different planet to the Joe six pack and Sally soccer mum, they don't really have time, these are the serious ones, to waste on movies, tv and entertainment because they are so immersed in their world of maths.
Of course not to the same degree but because I am self teaching FP2/3 in 4 weeks I can kind of see what the OP is saying, I must sit for at least 5-6 hours a day doing maths and during that time I fell like I am out of this world.

No doubt, maths is great!!

[Octohedral]

(Original post by thomaskurian89)
In mathematics, less is more. Doing a proof in 5 steps is considered better than doing it in 10 steps.

Most mathematicians carry forward this minimalistic approach in real-life. Unfortunately, this approach doesn't help in day-to-day conversations. That is why their attempts to communicate in as few words/sentences as possible backfire.

What do you think?

I'm a maths student too, and I think it's much more simply anthropological than that.

Maths students tended to be clever as children, meaning they tended to shun other children (well documented), and over-analyse situations, meaning they never had that vital social experience growing up, meaning they are often nervous adults. Coupled with the fact that only a tiny percentage of the population shared their interest, and that even within that percentage there are numerous sub-disciplines and not a lot of subjectivity, there is very little to promote a social mathematician. Finally, because they grew up in their own worlds that is where they feel comfortable, and hence they rarely leave.

That's my experience, anyway.


Edit: Yay, 1000 posts! I think my point is made

[Marsha2112]

(Original post by meow444)
Autistic tendencies/extreme male brain I reckon. Mathematicians are usually type S according to the empathising-systemizing theory.

I don't think all mathematicians are like this at all, but the OP has a point about the fact that mathematicians tend to be less socially intelligent.

Edit: if you are interested in reading about ideas on the extreme male brain read this article http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...ighereducation
It also explains why science/engineering/maths based subjects are dominated by the male sex.

This isn't even a generalisation, it's just crap. Have you been to a maths class? In our lectures, sure we have a few aspergers people/nerds who sit at the front and do nothing but homework all day. But the vast majority of people are either pretty normal or party animals. I wouldn't even say we had a larger-than-normal percentage of introverts. Out of all the socially awkward people I've met (and it's not many) they weren't all from maths! (It tends to be more computer science, because their subject is very technical whereas maths does involve some creativity and has a beauty to it, sounds cliche but you know what I mean). I did the empathising-systemizing thing and came out as average for empathising and really low on systemizing. While yes the people vary in general weirdness, and there's many "eccentric" people of sorts, they're all pretty sociable! Just like ANY other subject. I've met stranger/quiter people on Politics and Pharmacology. I think OP needs to stop hating on maths and everyone else needs to stop generalising. Go on one of our clubbing trips to Bristol (which 100 of us went on) and then tell me maths students are socially rubbish.

[Ree69]

I do think that the OP has a point to an extent. Apparently, out of all the Cambridge students, it's the Mathematicians who get laid the least.

(Source: here - page 4, slightly outdated though).

EDIT: I just realised the guy who wrote the article is someone called Ed Cumming. I'm so immature.

[meow444]

(Original post by Marsha2112)
This isn't even a generalisation, it's just crap. Have you been to a maths class? In our lectures, sure we have a few aspergers people/nerds who sit at the front and do nothing but homework all day. But the vast majority of people are either pretty normal or party animals. I wouldn't even say we had a larger-than-normal percentage of introverts. Out of all the socially awkward people I've met (and it's not many) they weren't all from maths! (It tends to be more computer science, because their subject is very technical whereas maths does involve some creativity and has a beauty to it, sounds cliche but you know what I mean). I did the empathising-systemizing thing and came out as average for empathising and really low on systemizing. While yes the people vary in general weirdness, and there's many "eccentric" people of sorts, they're all pretty sociable! Just like ANY other subject. I've met stranger/quiter people on Politics and Pharmacology. I think OP needs to stop hating on maths and everyone else needs to stop generalising. Go on one of our clubbing trips to Bristol (which 100 of us went on) and then tell me maths students are socially rubbish.

The point of the thread is to generalise though. Were discussing tendencies. Trends within a group. You must do some of that kind of thing in your degree surely Is that such a terrible thing? Were not saying everyone who does maths is a certain way at all, just that we notice a trend within the group as a whole. And I'm not saying extreme male brain is a bad thing. I just notice it a lot more in my mathsy/sciencey friends and it's interesting to wonder why that is. I enjoy trying to understand the human race and human behaviour.

(Original post by Ree69)
EDIT: I just realised the guy who wrote the article is someone called Ed Cumming. I'm so immature.

me too

[wanderlust.xx]

(Original post by meow444)
The point of the thread is to generalise though. Were discussing tendencies. Trends within a group.

Yes, indeed we are. But the problem is that most people are ingrained with the ideology that people who do any science, not just maths, are nerds who will not get laid or have many friends. I mean come on, Dexter's lab, Ed Edd and Eddy, the Powerpuff Girls are but three cartoons that enforced this stereotype (Dexter/Mandark, Edd, the professor who creates the girls, respectively).

Hell the notion even comes up in film. It's all around us from an early age. Science equals no friends, preferring to be inside equals no friends, going outside and playing football equals friends. It really was that simple, but it isn't any more.

On my maths course, I think I can safely say that over half the people in my year are extroverted. They party like crazy. SU every week. Non stop. Then, they'll come back and do their module and still get a 2:1. That's clever, and that's not being 'bad' socially.

I think for one thing, we need to define what you mean by 'bad, socially'. I could come up with any number of examples that would make you question what 'bad' means. I'm introverted, but I still talk to people and go out to clubs on a rare occasion. However, I've run a workshop, I'm in the student council and I talk to people on my course and hold my end of a conversation, normally. Does this make me, 'bad socially'?

Perhaps. Even if it does, I don't think I particularly care. What I do care is people judging me before they've even met me on the basis of my degree. Yes, I do maths. Yes, I've done quantum mechanics. No, I didn't find it was a simple case of sitting at my desk for 16 hours. Funnily enough, mathematics is about intelligence, and there are plenty of people that are profoundly capable at maths (ie can do a degree and get above a 2:1) but still go out and have a 'life' (there are certainly enough to create a significant trend).

Honestly, I did a maths degree expecting to find far more people that play video games, watch the same movies I do and who were into comic books. What I found was more people willing to party and go through hell to get good money. Physicists and computer scientists are the ones more likely to do their subject because they love it, whereas those who do maths were just naturally gifted and happened to enjoy it at A level.

[meow444]

(Original post by wanderlust.xx)
Yes, indeed we are. But the problem is that most people are ingrained with the ideology that people who do any science, not just maths, are nerds who will not get laid or have many friends.

Good post. This is true and it must be annoying if you are studying maths to be constantly met with this stereotype.

I too get so frikking fed up of people judging me based on my degree. Oh you do English Lit? So you are bad at maths then/too stupid to do a 'hard degree'? (I did a year of Economics at uni before I did English and found it easier than English). So you are going to become a teacher then? So you never do any work then? So you are amazing at spelling then? So you are some kind of airhead then? I honestly get people assuming this kind of stuff.

Still I think there is a difference between stereotyping and looking at trends within groups of people though. I'm interested in this thread because my last ex did engineering and the ex before did chemistry, and I am friends with a lot of maths and chem students. I really notice these people to be different from my other friends in the way they interact and particularly, their ability to empathise with others and make new friends. I think my last boyfriend especially had trouble with social interaction. It isn't immediately obvious at all, he goes out, he has friends, etc. But he would do things like pick up a rubrix cube and play with it for ages while we were together rather than talk to me, or be insensitive when bad things happened to me, and I'm interested in working out why this is. I think it is partially because he has a 'male' logical type brain, and isn't as good at emotional stuff.

/rant about personal life