Comment by llm_trw
3 days ago
There's a difference between being able to memorize what a square root is and being able to do math - which to mathematicians means being able to organize a proof.
I've found that the people who most believe in math being a genetic ability are the ones who do not work in the symbolic world of modern math, but in the semantic world of whatever the field the math describes is.
The two are rather different.
Square roots are not some "mathematical trivia", they're amongst the most fundamental operations in mathematics.
In arithmetic. There is a lot more to math than arithmetic.
Square roots are fundamental to (real and complex) analysis and to algebra (in the study of polynomials), so the two major branches of modern mathematics.
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Strangely enough, you'd be hard pressed to find a mathematician who doesn't know what a square root is.
And I didn't mention genetics. Nature is complicated.
You'd also be hard pressed to find one who doesn't know how to flush a toilet.
Neither trivia has anything to do with being good at mathematics as done by mathematicians.
Are you an LLM? You brought up the point of mathematicians not knowing what a square root is yourself. Anyway, the square root is is so many levels below maths as done by mathematicians, it's laughable.
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