Math panel discusses Phantom Polymarket
by Tufail: Polymarket
The academic culture surrounding the Millennium Problems is practically hostile to anyone trying to tackle them. Some of my PhD friends are advised against working on the Millennium Problems from their professors, and honestly, the reasoning is brutal. It's like, 'Oh, it's not done for decades or centuries. Don't waste your career. You'll ruin your ability to get tenure.' The system basically tells you that top talent in the world isn't actively firing on the remaining Millennium Problems, so why bother? Even though these are famous math problems, I actually don't buy that people are working on even the most famous of them that intensely. There's a reason the one Millennium Problem solved by a human decades ago required the solver to go solve it in secret just to stop being made fun of. If you do solve it, sure, it's incredible, but no one's supporting you on the journey. On the journey, you're being made fun of the whole way, and if you one day make it through, okay, you're a hero. But until then, you're facing mockery without any institutional backing. The speaker notes that while solving these problems is incredible, the academic community does not support the journey at all. It feels like a trap where you risk your entire professional future for a reward that only comes after surviving ridicule.
Transcript (en)
Some of my PhD friends or people who are doing their postdocs are advised against working the millennium problems from their professors because it's like, oh, it's not done for decades or centuries. Don't waste your career. You'll ruin your ability to get tenure. So even though these are famous math problems, I actually don't buy that people are working on even the most famous them that intensely. Like the one millennium problem that was solved by a human decades ago, that was the whole thing of he had to go solve it in secret to stop being made fun of. really yeah so it isn't this like academic prestige to solve one of these problems if you do solve it it's incredible but no one's supporting you on the journey on the journey you're being uh made fun of the whole way and if you one day make it through okay you're a hero but uh the whole process is no no people tell you not to do it because like top talent in the world isn't actively firing on the remaining millennium problems okay makes sense that's good I did not know that
