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Comment by ace2358 | Hacker News Reader

When one of my physics class mates told me he was reading topology at the age of 7, I knew I would never make it with my mere hard work. I still love physics but I’m glad I never tried academia. I would have been chewed up

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Gotta call the bluff. That's how I ended up a prof.

> When one of my physics class mates told me he was reading topology at the age of 7

Oh man, everybody with a physics degree met a guy like that, the sort who claims to have learned differential geometry at 2 or some such bs.

don't worry, Richard Feynman read Trigonometric functions when he is 7 years old. that's guy better than Feynman!

I was also reading topology around that age, doesn't mean I understood much if it, lol. In all likelihood you are far smarter than I am.

How does one end up reading topology at age 7? Were your parents math professors or something? Or were you just a very mathematically curious 7 year old?

Not same commenter, but we just went to the library as a family every 3 weeks. Around that age I was bored with the childrens section, so I tended to pick books on computing and quantum field theories :)

I ditched the math side soon for the computing section though.

It was a picture book of donuts.

this is the most amazing and inspiring comment i have read on hackernews, and it just made my day

thank you

I learnt to use a computer very early and I had few friends, so I would spend my days reading Wikipedia. The maths and physics articles for some reason drew me in particularly, and some times I'd also look at other sources. But really, I didn't understand most of it.

Ahh. I can relate, in that case. I thought you meant that you were seriously studying from topology textbooks.

I read Aha Gotcha at about that age, if I recall. It was sitting around my house.

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