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  • Jon Sterlingjonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz
    Sep 29, 2026, 6:36 AM

    I have for the most part organized my professional life to make the following thing possible:

    If there is a question I am interested in, I am happy rather than sad if someone solves it satisfactorily before me.

    This means I do not work on high-value “leaves” in the tree of knowledge, where a solution would bring great prestige but little transferable knowledge. I would be very happy if the “leaves” become devalued in the coming years, and just get blown away and raked up.

    My style of work is to have something I want to be able to *do* but can’t yet, and then work on fundamental problems a few layers below in the stack. Over time I get closer to the surface, and if someone resolves one of those fundamental problems before me, it just accelerates my progress toward the goal.

    This is a low-stress high-reward style of doing science, and I encourage anyone who feels anxiety over being “scooped” to try it out.

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Replies

  • Jon Sterlingjonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz
    Sep 29, 2026, 6:52 AM

    Even my proof assistant / project pterodactyl. If someone beats me to building a satisfactory thing that meets my goals, that is fantastic because I can then move onto my actual goals: using it to learn and develop tons of mathematics that I am interested in.

    Not one of my research projects is make-or-break. They are all designed to enable me to ^do^ something else that I want to do.

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  • Jon Sterlingjonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz
    Sep 29, 2026, 7:06 AM

    It’s similar to how, paraphrased, @david_chisnall is building CHERI so that he can one day get back to Étoilé OS (or a successor). We have to have a reason for doing what we are doing that is more than just collecting tokens.

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  • David Berrydgb37@mathstodon.xyz
    Sep 29, 2026, 10:13 AM

    @jonmsterling It seems that a lot of type-theory research is done so that we can have our dream proof assistant to express Mathematics more beautifully. That we are able to do beautiful Mathematics along the way is just pure cherry-on-top (or in the case of @david_chisnall's research programme CHERI-on-top).

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  • ohadohad@mathstodon.xyz
    Sep 29, 2026, 7:48 AM

    @jonmsterling My version of this, probably because I'm quite slower than you: I only start working on something when I have at least 2 different reasons for doing it. This is so that if someone does it first, I then have two new things I can do (one of which might not work).

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  • Matt Mackmatthras@aus.social
    Sep 29, 2026, 8:19 AM

    @jonmsterling
    I've been telling people that I tend to veer away from anything popular: "Best way to win a game is not to play it at all".

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I've been thinking very similarly.

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  • Liam O'Connorliamoc@types.pl
    Sep 29, 2026, 10:12 AM

    @jonmsterling I am not worried about being scooped myself. I am more worried if my PhD student gets scooped, because they have a time limit and a single well-defined project

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  • John EricsonEricson2314@mastodon.social
    Oct 1, 2026, 6:55 AM

    @jonmsterling in other words, the "two cultures" essay is too kind to the "problem solvers" when the truth is that the "theory builders" are more virtuous?

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  • Jon Sterlingjonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz
    Oct 1, 2026, 7:10 AM

    @Ericson2314 I personally believe so, but it is not my intention to get into a culture war over it. Keep in mind that the essay is written by a problem solver, and is really a defense of combinatorics (broadly construed) against mathematics that fosters theory.

    I personally don’t subscribe to a hard line between the two, specifically because of my faith in theory: if theory has not yet served combinatorics in the way it has served the rest of mathematics, then surely the reason is that theory is still too young.

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  • John EricsonEricson2314@mastodon.social
    Oct 1, 2026, 7:34 AM

    @jonmsterling

    I do think

    > I would be very happy if the “leaves” become devalued in the coming years, and just get blown away and raked up.

    Is the right view, but also tantamount to entering the culture war. A lot of leaf-chasers are feeling rug-pulled right now. A lot of people have not cultivated the patience and creativity to do theory work when there was plenty of glory/money/whatever available without it.

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  • John EricsonEricson2314@mastodon.social
    Oct 1, 2026, 7:37 AM

    @jonmsterling

    > if theory has not yet served combinatorics in the way it has served the rest of mathematics, then surely the reason is that theory is still too young.

    I also agree. Now that we have robo-Erdős maybe we'll finally be incentivized to figure out that theory.

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  • Jon Sterlingjonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz
    Oct 1, 2026, 7:50 AM

    @Ericson2314 I don’t even rule out the possibility that robo-erdős could contribute to this theory… I don’t think that theory is something only humans can do. One thing about theory is that its entire purpose is to serve and edify the human intellect, but this doesn’t mean it must be produced in some pure act of inspiration as opposed to aggregation, even statistical…

    With that said, I personally am not interested in exploring the possibilities above until certain political/economic changes take force — which I sadly no longer expect to take place in my lifetime. I think for the rest of my life I will keep doing things the way I do them. But we will see.

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  • Jon Sterlingjonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz
    Oct 1, 2026, 7:37 AM

    @Ericson2314 funny, some of us theory people simply do not feel intelligent enough to do non-theory work… every side has their own insecurities.

    Whether I am in the culture war, I don’t know. I think it is more like acknowledging a reality that a previously valuable (but contentiously valuable) part of mathematics is not as valuable anymore.

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  • John EricsonEricson2314@mastodon.social
    Oct 1, 2026, 8:15 AM

    @jonmsterling Oh yes I'm bad at sudokus and even calculating the tip. But I have plenty of weaknesses and insecurities where I don't disparage the other thing and the jealousy is not sublimated :)

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