[srean]

Quite the contrary. I expect majority of HN readers to know the quote, base 0 if you will, and not harbor thoughts that by having read it they are a part of an exclusive club.

Channeling Good Will Hunting much huh? Most HN'ers would have watched that too.

[almostgotcaught]

I have no idea what you're trying to say - it is generally understood everywhere in the world (ie all forms of human culture) that it's pathetic to pass off someone else's insights as your own.

[srean]

Only when there is an expectation of being perceived as original. When people use differentiation people don't cite Newton or Leibnitz, do they ?

[almostgotcaught]

.... Of course they do? You can still find citations of those papers to this day.

For all of your "forceful" comments on math, I think probably you don't actually know much about it.

[srean]

> You can still find citations of those papers to this day.

That's not what I contested. What fraction of people who use differentials in their published work still cite Newton or Leibnitz was the point. You can count number of such citations in last 10 years of say neural nets literature, or applied maths literature and report. Thats plenty of use.

Citations to their differential calculus that are still made are mostly in the context of history of math.

Seems numeracy or comprehension is not your strong point. LOL.

> I have no idea what you're trying to say

Now I don't doubt it. LOL

[almostgotcaught]

> What fraction of people who use differentials in their published work still cite Newton or Leibnitz was the point

Those papers were written in the 1600s. "The character of physical law", the essay you're ripping off, was written in 1964. 100% papers from the 1960s are cited every single time the techniques are used.

You are as tedious as the original refrain I was complaining about (which is not at all ironic). What's most tedious is you're not actually a mathematician but presume to speak for them.

[1718627440]

And an HN comment is not a scientific paper. When I tell people about ideas I find insightful, I don't cite a proper source either. If they like the idea I might tell them later, how I got it or where they can find more detail about the idea.

Honestly quite often an idea did originate in my own thoughts, but the work to put it into well-formed words, which I will use to tell others about it, was done by someone else, whose formulations of the same idea I had, I have read later.

[srean]

You are changing goal posts now. Your absolute claim was

> it's pathetic to pass off someone else's insights as your own.

To which my point was citations are made when there is an expectation of originality. By now Feynman's anecdotes are folklore and folks wisdom.

OK let's go by your standards. Cooley Tukey's FFT algorithm was "discovered" by them in around 1965. How often do they get a citation when FFT is used, especially in comments on a social site, such as HN is.

LOL even 10 years old results do not get cited because they are considered common knowledge.

That said, Witt's notion of beauty that Propp is critiquing in the posted article is just plane idiotic. Lack of commutativity is not lack of beauty. What a stupid idea.

Mathematical beauty and imagination is different. One of Hilbert's grad students dropped out to become a poet.Hilbert is reported to have said: 'I never thought he had enough imagination to be a mathematician.'

A little unsolicited advice: if you are an aspiring mathematician(I am very happy for you if you are), but if you do not have a sense of a good taste or mathematical beauty, you probably will probably not have a good time.