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Root of Maths Genius Sought
ananyo writes "He founded two genetic-sequencing companies and sold them for hundreds of millions of dollars. He helped to sequence the genomes of a Neanderthal man and James Watson, who co-discovered DNA's double helix. Now, entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg has set his sights on another milestone: finding the genes that underlie mathematical genius. Rothberg and physicist Max Tegmark, who is based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, have enrolled about 400 mathematicians and theoretical physicists from top-ranked US universities in a study dubbed 'Project Einstein'. They plan to sequence the participants' genomes using the Ion Torrent machine that Rothberg developed. Critics say that the sizes of these studies are too small to yield meaningful results for such complex traits. But Rothberg is pushing ahead. 'I'm not at all concerned about the critics,' he says, adding that he does not think such rare genetic traits could be useful in selecting for smarter babies. Some mathematicians, however, argue that maths aptitude is not born so much as made. 'I feel that the notion of "talent" may be overrated,' says Michael Hutchings, a mathematician also at Berkeley."
Don't be such a square.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Hell no, we need to integrate them in!
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Is it odd that the "root of maths genius" is actually the inverse function of multiplying two maths geniuses together?
That's my line. But I see your point.
what a derivative remark...
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I think we should stop this tangent...
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
We're getting off on a tangent here.
But that is the root of the problem.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
In the US, jocks pay attention to sports while geeks pay attention to math. In the UK, jocks pay attention to sport while geeks pay attention to maths. Clearly at some point in the past US jocks beat up the geeks at took their "s."
Wrong organ. Although the mistake is understandable.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!