Ah, an earth-shaking discovery made by a man in his fifties who was barely within academia [1]. Guess he won't get a Fields Medal for that.
It seems like more and more of the really big discoveries are being made by people who go off and work really hard on their own.
I vaguely recall a claim that the greatest discoveries aren't being made by people in their twenties any more just because math is so huge you need ten years of study to get to the bleeding edge.
Anyway, it seems to say something about academia.
Edit: Just to be clear I neither deny that academia can achieve great things nor do I claim that young people can't do similarly. Certainly, anyone halfway near academia probably see many flaws but that's for another post.
It seems like more and more of the really big discoveries are being made by people who go off and work really hard on their own.
I vaguely recall a claim that the greatest discoveries aren't being made by people in their twenties any more just because math is so huge you need ten years of study to get to the bleeding edge.
Anyway, it seems to say something about academia.
Edit: Just to be clear I neither deny that academia can achieve great things nor do I claim that young people can't do similarly. Certainly, anyone halfway near academia probably see many flaws but that's for another post.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitang_Zhang