In fact, most of these comrades who I gauged to be more brilliant than I have gone on to become distinguished mathematicians. Still, from the perspective of 30 or 35 years, I can state that their imprint upon the mathematics of our time has not been very profound. They’ve all done things, often beautiful things, in a context that was already set

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But I was learning that succeeding at a research institution like Penn required skills that had little to do with science. You needed the ability to sell yourself and your work. You needed to attract funding. You needed the kind of interpersonal savvy that got you invited to speak at conferences and made people eager to mentor and support you. You... See more

Like Ahmed, she found that traits like curiosity were essential. But she found that they also needed high emotional resilience to pursue their interests in the face of external expectations. “Because we live in a society that tells us to specialise, and these are people who didn’t do that – they forged their own path.” Many people may lack the... See more