Way OT: A Math Genius Blooms Late and Conquers His Field (UM connection)

Submitted by oriental andrew on

https://www.wired.com/story/a-math-genius-blooms-late-and-conquers-his-…

Read an interesting story about a guy who is one of the top young mathematicians in the world. His path was definitely unconventional, having been a poor student who focused on poetry in high school, then astronomy and physics in college, before being apprenticed by a world-famous mathematician in a master's program in math. His path led him from Korea to UIUC to Michigan, and now to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He started studying math at age 24 and is now, at age 34, one of brightest minds in the field. Crazy. 

The article includes a lot of mathematical concepts which I can only pretend to vaguely comprehend (the chromatic polynomial thing is pretty straightforward, but goes quickly downhill from there for me), but more than anything, it's just a fascinating journey.

Also, he collaborates with quirky mathematicians (redundant?) from ohio state and Jerusalem to demonstrate a proof of something called the Rota conjecture. 

UM Sidenote: As a master's student in Korea, he applied to several US programs. All (including UM) except one rejected him. He went to University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, where he proved Read's Conjecture. This earned him a call to speak at Michigan, and then they quickly poached him away b/c they were so impressed with him. This may be proof of the theorem that Illinois can't have nice things. 

DonAZ

July 3rd, 2017 at 5:19 PM ^

He went to University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign

The birthplace of the HAL 9000 computer!

Daisy, Daisy, tell me your answer, do ... 

Bobby Thomson

July 3rd, 2017 at 8:26 PM ^

talent evaluation in the math department needs to improve. we can't rely on people coming back to us as transfer students. go back and watch his recruiting tape. it was obvious he would become a star.

Blue Balls Afire

July 3rd, 2017 at 11:12 PM ^

I actually took a look at the proof for which this guy became known that was linked to in the article, not because I hoped to understand it (it looked like wallpaper to me), but because I was hoping to see at the end, the word, "Voila!"  No luck.

AndArst

April 7th, 2020 at 6:13 AM ^

Hello friends! I am really jealous of people who are good at math. I have never been good at this subject while it has always been very important. Fortunately, I have read about photomath for mac here and I know that there is a special app which is able to count all the stubborn mathematical problems.