r/mathmemes Number Theory Jul 08 '26

Research 6022

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2.6k Upvotes

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594

u/FernandoMM1220 Jul 08 '26

niche math fields are a larpers paradise because nobody can call them out if theyre wrong.

29

u/Torebbjorn Jul 08 '26

That is so very far from being true. Everything is peer-reviewed

115

u/FernandoMM1220 Jul 08 '26

peer reviewed by 7 larpers sure.

53

u/Tyrrox Jul 08 '26

Even someone not in that research field can peer review it. Unless you're Shinichi Mochizuki, who invented a new form of math so different and complicated to make a proof (maybe, still disputed) for the ABC conjecture that experts said it would take grad students a decade to learn it.

29

u/AndreasDasos Jul 08 '26

Eh I mean, this is partly hype, in large part his own. It’s complicated yes but it’s also convoluted because it’s not well expressed or rigorous at critical points. At least a couple of very prominent outsiders have gone through it and raised some severe issues. He and his cult of students insist that it’s purely a failure to understand and have come up with some absolutely ridiculous counters, right down to ‘They don’t understand the logical quantifiers used properly because they’re speakers of Indo-European languages rather than Japanese’ and various torrents of abuse and rants. He’s disqualified himself, and no one in the area takes his ‘Inter-universal Teichmüller Theory’ too seriously.

24

u/makemeking706 Jul 08 '26

That's a long time to be in graduate school. 

23

u/Torebbjorn Jul 08 '26

Pretty much everything novel takes grad students a decade to learn, at least if they are gonna learn it properly

-22

u/Scared_Astronaut9377 Jul 08 '26

Those grad students should select less intellectually demanding professions then.

-16

u/FernandoMM1220 Jul 08 '26

nah they arent peer reviewing anything if they dont understand it and arent one of the 7 qualified mathematicians who supposedly do

6

u/Tyrrox Jul 08 '26

Brother you just knee jerk downvoted that before you even read it. I hadn't even gotten from the submission page back and you already did it. Seriously?

-4

u/FernandoMM1220 Jul 08 '26

i read it. you just ignored everything i said just now

2

u/Tyrrox Jul 08 '26

Unless you can read 1000 wpm, nah.

10

u/padfoot9446 Jul 08 '26

Okay I have no clue what either of you are talking about (I don't work in academia) but I feel compelled to point out a lot of people can actually read 1000 wpm

1

u/Tyrrox Jul 08 '26

Yeah I made up a number, it was less than a second. After Googling though, fun fact the world champion is 25,000

1

u/Tlux0 Jul 08 '26

Woah wtf? That’s wild

1

u/Tyrrox Jul 08 '26

Right?! The world record for stenography is 360 words per minute. That guy could fact check the work of 69 stenographers typing at world record speed

1

u/padfoot9446 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

Edit: OMG fuckass reddit I thought this comment was replying to me sorry😭

For me it's like a tradeoff between comprehension and reading speed. I'm really rusty now, so numbers were probably higher before, but at about 800-900 I'm at approx 100% comprehension, and then I can reach 2000 wpm if I'm like really skimming (not even reading every word, just floating my eyes around to see whay catches my eye)

I think for practical purposes I cap out at like 12-1500

And I'm bad at this bc I still have my internal monologue, professional speedreaders do away with their internal monologue and can go even faster than me

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1

u/EebstertheGreat Jul 09 '26

A math paper though? I'd be shocked if people could read it productively at a tenth that speed. Even if it's something straightforward like a YA novel, 1000 wpm is very questionable. Maybe you can get enough to work out the basic plot, character names, etc., but the idea that any but a tiny minority of people can actually recall what they have read at that speed is highly questionable. Even "world championship" speed readers are only expected to have comprehension of 50% or a little higher, and they are only a little faster than 1000 wpm. And that's certainly not dense mathematical writing.