This One is for You, Lubos

From David Ruelle's Chance and Chaos
Mathematical talent often develops at an early age. This is a common observation, to which the great Russian Mathematician Andrei N. Kolmogorov added a curious suggestion. He claimed that the normal psychological development of a person is halted at precisely the time when mathematical talent sets in.

He credited himself with a mental age of 12.

OK Lubos, how old were you when your mathematical precocity showed up?

Comments

  1. Anonymous12:22 AM

    There is no peer reviewed study that gives support for Kolmogorovs suggesting, so why do you ask that question?

    Here is another unsubstantiated question: Have you stopped beating your wife, Yes or No?
    rgds
    Mike Ros

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wolfgang6:45 AM

    CIP,

    a (somewhat related) idea, which goes back to Sigmund Freud, assumes that the psychology of the "genius" and narcist neurosis are connected to the experience of masturbation:
    i) Little boy plays with his penis.
    ii) Little boy makes a great discovery.
    iii) Little boy assumes he found something nobody else knows about (because nobody talks about it).
    iv) Little boy concludes that he is a genius.
    v) Little genius tries to repeat this experience, even after he learns the truth about his first great discovery.

    Of course, I would never compare theoretical physics to (intellectual) masturbation 8-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. CapitalistImperialistPig6:18 PM

    anonymous - I think AMK's suggestion should be treated as a joke, but like all good jokes, one with a hint of truth in it.

    Wolfgang - no comment, except to say that discovering a great passion, and devoting your life to it from an early age, might easily be imagined to curtail ones development in other directions.

    Lubos - sorry you haven't answered, but I thought I recalled you saying you won a Czech math prize at age eleven or thereabouts. Is that correct?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Luboš Motl6:32 AM

    If you find it that useful and you think it will help you, no prob.

    I learned how to read & write & calculate simple things at the age of 3. In the first grade, age 6+, I started to convert friends in our gang to factorials and powers.

    In the fifth grade, age 11-, I started to win the mathematical olympiads at the highest available, regional (Western Bohemia) level, and at the end of the high school, there were higher levels of the competition (Czechoslovakia) where I ranked 1st-2nd. Only bronze medal followed from the International Math. Olympiad (with 30 other people or so); let me not discuss whether their assigned the points correctly there. ;-)

    Since the age of 5, I was thinking about the world in terms of some kind of theoretical physics model based on classical field theory. An article from Discovery, translated to Czech, in 1987 convinced me that string theory was serious as a candidate theory for a TOE. It was only confirmed once I got an access to Nuclear Physics and other things in the college.

    But at the high school I learned quantum mechanics and went through all the beginners' (and Einstein's) questions whether there can be a complete deterministic description of it. Eventually I failed to find it and decided that it could not exist and only very weak physicists continue to attempt to find something like that.

    Best wishes
    Lubos

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous2:56 PM

    Oh my god! Lubos is was child prodigy!!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous11:07 PM

    Eventually I failed to find it and decided that it could not exist

    Obviously, if Lubos fails to find something, then it does not exist (which he, of course, decides by fiat).

    ReplyDelete
  7. CapitalistImperialistPig6:59 PM

    Lubos - Thanks much for your very interesting comments. I thought I vaguely remembered a little bit of what you said. I know that a number of the greatest mathematicians, and at least some physicists, fell under the spell of mathematics at a very early age. If you ever choose to write a long post on the subject, I, at least, would be very interested. One or more mathematicians has written about their experiences, but mostly only after they are so old that they may have forgotten a lot.

    Do you have an opinion on Kolmogorov's joke?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Luboš Motl8:24 PM

    Dear CIP,

    I certainly don't think at this very moment that you should pick me as an example of a prodigy.

    Wait if I happen to find a TOE, or choose someone else.

    All the best
    Lubos

    ReplyDelete
  9. CapitalistImperialistPig6:54 AM

    Lumo - I'm a little leary of words like "prodigy," because lots of prodigies fail to become adult geniuses, for all sorts of reasons. That's why I say my interest is more in people who's talent develops early.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec...
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st...
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more