/sci/ - Science & Math

Did he even contribute anything great or make a profound discovery?

I want to become like Terence Tao. How long would I have to study mathematics to be at his level?

On the recently removed paper from the New York Journal of Mathematics
https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2018/09/11/on-the-recently-removed-paper-from-the-new-york-journal-of-mathematics/

>In the last week or so there has been some discussion on the internet about a paper (initially authored by Hill and Tabachnikov) that was initially accepted for publication in the Mathematical Intelligencer, but with the editor-in-chief of that paper later deciding against publication; the paper, in significantly revised form (and now authored solely by Hill), was then quickly accepted by one of the editors in the New York Journal of Mathematics, but then was removed from publication after objections from several members on the editorial board of NYJM that the paper had not been properly refereed or was within the scope of the journal; see this statement by Benson Farb, who at the time was on that board, for more details. Some further discussion of this incident may be found on Tim Gowers’ blog; the most recent version of the paper, as well as a number of prior revisions, are still available on the arXiv here.

>For whatever reason, some of the discussion online has focused on the role of Amie Wilkinson, a mathematician from the University of Chicago (and who, incidentally, was a recent speaker here at UCLA in our Distinguished Lecture Series), who wrote an email to the editor-in-chief of the Intelligencer raising some concerns about the content of the paper and suggesting that it be published alongside commentary from other experts in the field. (This, by the way, is not uncommon practice when dealing with a potentially provocative publication in one field by authors coming from a different field; for instance, when Emmanuel Candès and I published a paper in the Annals of Statistics introducing what we called the “Dantzig selector”, the Annals solicited a number of articles discussing the selector from prominent statisticians, and then invited us to submit a rejoinder.)...