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Comment by jraph | Hacker News Reader

I was confused by the title because paper rejection is incredibly common in research, but that's the point and one of the goals is to fight imposter syndrome.

It's a good initiative. Next step: everybody realizes that researchers are just random people like everybody. Maybe that could kill any remaining imposter syndrome.

A rejection, although common, is quite tough during your PhD though, even ignoring the imposter syndrome, because in a short time, you are expected to have a bunch of accepted papers, in prestigious publications if possible. It feels like a rejection slows you down, and the clock is still ticking. If we could kill some of this nefarious system, that'd be good as well.

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It’s noteworthy because it’s from Terence Tao, regarded by many as the world’s greatest living mathematician.

If you read the full post he’s making the exact same point as you: it’s common and normal to get a paper rejected even if you’re Terence Tao, so don’t treat a rejection like the end of the world.

> regarded by many as the world’s greatest living mathematician.

Oh?

Perelman comes to mind (as the only person who has been eligible to claim one of the Millennium prizes), although he is no longer actively practicing math AFAIK. Of Abel prize winners, Wiles proved Fermat's last theorem, and Szemeredi has a number of number-theoretic and combinatorial contributions.

Recently deceased (past ~10 years) include figures such as John Nash, Grothendieck, and Conway.

Tao is definitely one of the most well-known mathematicians, and he's still got several more decades of accomplishments ahead of him, but I don't know that he rises to "greatest living mathematician" at this point.

That said, I do appreciate that he indicates that even his papers get rejected from time to time.

Having been a child prodigy somehow gives one infamy (in the wider public consciousness) beyond anything one can achieve as an adult.

He's a child prodigy who didn't burn out, that does make him quite rare.

Well, true.

To add to your list, you can also find Richard Borcherds teaching math on YouTube.

He said “regarded by many”, which I think is probably an accurate statement.

I chose those words deliberately because I knew that if I phrased it too strongly then someone would reply to litigate the claim. Apparently I still phrased it too strongly, but hey, nothing's ever too pedantic for HN.

> It’s noteworthy because it’s from Terence Tao, regarded by many as the world’s greatest living mathematician.

I didn't know :-)

> If you read the full post he’s making the exact same point as you

Oh yeah, that's because I did read the full post and was summarizing. I should have made this clear.

> It’s noteworthy because it’s from Terence Tao, regarded by many as the world’s greatest living mathematician.

I think it's important to post a follow-up comment clarifying that papers are reviewed following a double blind peer review process. So who the author is shouldn't be a factor.

Also, the author clarified that the paper was rejected on the grounds that the reviewer felt the topic wasn't a good fit for the journal. This has nothing to do with the quality of the paper, but uploading editorial guidelines on the subject. Trying to file a document in a wrong section and being gently nudged to file under another section hardly matches the definition of a rejection that leads authors to question their life choices.

Just a quick point: double blind is not common for mathematics journals, at least in my area. Some TCS conferences have started it.

In many fields there are only a handful of researchers that would submit a paper in a given specialty, and a couple of them are the reviewers. At some point blinding is just futile.

It's especially important coming from someone like Terence Tao. If one of the best and brightest mathematicians out there can get a paper declined, then it can happen to literally anyone.

I guess it is nice to know that he is also not perfect. But it’s still the case that his accomplishments outshine my own, so my imposter syndrome remains intact.

I'd counter the "like everybody": they're not. They spent a decade or more focused on honing their skills and deepening their knowledge to become experts in their subfield, and sometimes even entire fields. They are very much not random people like everybody in this context.

terence tao is suffering from imposter syndrome? if anything, imposter syndrome is suffering from terence tao ... do you maybe not know who terence tao is?

It's terence tao trying to help others with imposter syndrome. It seems quite unlikely he himself would suffer from it...

on the contrary, that's exactly what he states in comment discussion below the thread

having higher reputation means higher responsibility not to crush someone with it in the sub-fields you aren't as proficient as

yeah... he's telling a white lie of sorts...reread the comment. That doesn't sound like someone lacking self confidence. "the other members collectively ...". He's basically saying "get the world leading experts in some area of math that I'm sort of interested in in a room and between them they'll know more than I do myself". Lol. And, that's happened "several times".

I'm sure he's a genuinely nice, friendly person trying to do the right thing. But he is also likely confident as hell and never felt like an imposter anywhere.

I don't think it's a white lie. Whether he has imposter syndrome is beside the point. It shows he has sympathy for his colleagues who might have it. Maybe he himself had it before which would let him understand even better what it is, and now he doesn't anymore, this would motivate him to make this point.

The point he is making is all the motr convincing especially that he is seen as very good, whether he had imposter syndrome or not.

Yes, that's the point.

Yes, I think we mostly agree, except for the "white lie of sorts" and the "never felt like an imposter anywhere" parts which could be true but I'm not sure about (because I met bright people with imposter syndrome); but that was not your main point anyway, you were initially answering to 2-3-7-43-1807, who apparently didn't understand my initial comment (in which I never state anything about Terence Tao's imposter syndrome, who, no, I didn't know about, but that doesn't change anything about what I wrote).

At my college, you only need one paper not many

In mine, I don't think there was a hard requirement, but your PhD would be seen as weak with zero paper, and only one would be common enough I guess but still be seen a bit weak. It's not very important to grade, but it's important for what follows: your carrier, including getting a position.

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