Comment by singpolyma3
2 months ago
> Mathematicians are paid to prove theorems
lol who is paying for this? Mathematicians are generally paid to do other things and get to do this kind of work as a side effect.
2 months ago
> Mathematicians are paid to prove theorems
lol who is paying for this? Mathematicians are generally paid to do other things and get to do this kind of work as a side effect.
In academia they are paid to produce papers (and get some chores done like teaching), hopefully ones that can result in bombastic press releases, or winning awards.
On a more abstract level they are paid to bring funding and prestige to the university, but that often goes through the route of papers. And papers often involve proving theorems.
Actually, no. They are hired to do research but not paid for it. They get a 9 month salary to teach, not for research.
They have to publish papers to get tenure but the university doesn't pay most math faculty for it.
If they want to get paid for research they apply for grants and get the max of a third more salary.
Most other departments make getting grant money a prerequisite for tenure. Math departments typically don't.
So in most math departments faculty members don't bother with grants. Usually only a minority of them do because they want more money.
They're not paid to do research.
I consider "get paid to do X" to be equivalent to "you get to have your paid job and career as long as you do X". In that case research and papers qualify. Whatever is technically written in the contracts is just surface level bureaucracy. Publish or perish.
2 replies →
Not a mathematician, but I suppose there is pressure to publish like everywhere else in academia. And a publication generally requires a new contribution.