having studied algebraic geometry in and out of school, this explains some of the overwhelming confusion at where the textbooks leave off. there's kind of a massive gulf between what's in the textbooks and what anyone is writing papers about, which makes them incomprehensible.
This is honestly one of my main gripes with mathematicians. Maybe everyone else is actually a super genius who doesn't need anything spelled out for them, ever, and wants to put in hours trying to dig through incomprehensible papers with incompatible and confusing notation to try and figure out what the fuck is even happening, but I really doubt it. I think as a field a little more emphasis needs to be placed on making papers comprehensible and textbooks should be written more often and, more importantly, more clearly, with as many examples as possible.
Ah well, I'm just angry about this today. It's fine, I'm leaving the field anyway because there are no jobs and it turns out I actually hate research, actually.
When they say that it's called proof by intimidation lol
To be fair sometimes it is a little obvious or not necessary for education to really dive into the details (unless you're in senior courses about those details but then they handwave all the "simple stuff"). Sometimes it's better to start with the view from 10000 feet and then zoom in on the relevant stuff, then for the people who are into the details you can let them try to work it out - which will really help them learn too. I agree, modern papers and textbooks do have a readability problem even still.
having studied algebraic geometry in and out of school, this explains some of the overwhelming confusion at where the textbooks leave off. there's kind of a massive gulf between what's in the textbooks and what anyone is writing papers about, which makes them incomprehensible.
Might as well be carved on a mathematician's tombstone.
Also, if you like math history, read "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers", the biography of Paul Erdos. He was a cool dude.
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This is honestly one of my main gripes with mathematicians. Maybe everyone else is actually a super genius who doesn't need anything spelled out for them, ever, and wants to put in hours trying to dig through incomprehensible papers with incompatible and confusing notation to try and figure out what the fuck is even happening, but I really doubt it. I think as a field a little more emphasis needs to be placed on making papers comprehensible and textbooks should be written more often and, more importantly, more clearly, with as many examples as possible.
Ah well, I'm just angry about this today. It's fine, I'm leaving the field anyway because there are no jobs and it turns out I actually hate research, actually.
When they say that it's called proof by intimidation lol
To be fair sometimes it is a little obvious or not necessary for education to really dive into the details (unless you're in senior courses about those details but then they handwave all the "simple stuff"). Sometimes it's better to start with the view from 10000 feet and then zoom in on the relevant stuff, then for the people who are into the details you can let them try to work it out - which will really help them learn too. I agree, modern papers and textbooks do have a readability problem even still.