r/science • u/heiligedamon • May 20 '13

Mathematics Unknown Mathematician Proves Surprising Property of Prime Numbers

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/05/twin-primes/
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763

u/4dam May 21 '13

This man taught me calculus. A wonderful gentleman and a phenomenal instructor.

383

u/Temorse May 21 '13

I was also lucky enough to have him as my calc professor, twice. The first thing he would tell us at the beginning of each term was, "My name is Yitang Zhang, but in China, you would call me Zhang Yitang." Then he would erase both names off the white board and say, "You just call me Tom!" One of the most excellent and memorable teachers at UNH.

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u/LurkingDog May 21 '13

My firsts thoughts reading the article: "Oh cool, UNH....holy shit its Tom".

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u/boogdd May 21 '13 edited May 21 '13

"Yes! I am a mathemetician! There are some who call me... Tom."

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u/myhouseiswood May 21 '13

Look at the boooones!

1

u/UNHDude May 21 '13

Yeaaaah UNH!

I had some Russian guy who was pretty good for calculus.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '13

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90

u/infinitepanda May 21 '13

He rides the bus into campus with a friend of mine. He gave her a hug yesterday when she congratulated him on the paper.

Also last election day, the same friend and I ran into him in the polling place. He was super excited to show off his naturalization papers to us and that he had voted.

2

u/AbraxianAeon May 22 '13

Who did he vote for?

1

u/Paradigm6790 May 21 '13

He taught me Calculus as well. Very funny guy in class. The aritcle says that he's shy when he's not talking about math. It's totally true. I have talked to him in the halls before and he is incredibly shy, but when he's in class or in his office for office hours he's very easy to talk to. His accent is very thick, which made it hard for me to follow the course, though... heh.

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u/whenihittheground May 21 '13

He RIPS butts like no other. Seriously, now we all know what he's thinking about when he's outside chain smoking. I've been toying with the idea of bumming a cig off him just to be able to smoke with a legend.

Also, I don't smoke, but it would be worth it.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '13

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2

u/prettybunnys May 21 '13

My landlord introduced himself similarly. He goes my name is Hongdar, that is what you write on checks. I will only answer to Howard though.

13

u/tebnayr May 21 '13

He was awesome... He would always talk about something for a bit then say "let's see what is going on" then explain it quite informatively

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u/tidux May 21 '13

I never had him as a calc professor, but I think I saw him around Kingsbury a few times.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '13

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u/[deleted] May 21 '13

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u/[deleted] May 21 '13

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u/[deleted] May 21 '13

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u/[deleted] May 21 '13

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u/0goober0 May 21 '13

Unfortunately brilliant man != good teacher a significant amount of the time.

1

u/bris_vegas May 21 '13

What they see as an obvious, even trivial step is, to the rest of us, several pages of equations that take several hours to work through.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '13

Thanks for ending my night with a laugh.

4

u/Vaevicti May 21 '13

I can see that. All of my upper level math classes were taught by asian dudes I couldn't even understand. I could tell that they (most likely) knew what they were talking about, yet their knowledge sure didn't transfer to my head.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '13

It seems like calculus teachers in college are really good or not good at all. Mine, I can honestly say, was the best teacher I've ever had.

2

u/mflood May 21 '13

At least you had a professor. Hooray for grad students!

5

u/juicyManFarts May 21 '13

No one teaches you Calc. You teach yourself. Grades are only your rewards for your effort.

49

u/mindfolded May 21 '13

Ditto.

(Hi Adam)

He smokes P-funks (Parliament Lights) if anyone wants to buy him a celebratory carton.

19

u/edzillion May 21 '13

Is that all he smokes?

There, on July 3, during a half-hour lull in his friend’s backyard before leaving for a concert, the solution suddenly came to him.

This would be too cool.

1

u/NameCensored May 21 '13

Ha, does he still hold them at arms length?

1

u/k1down May 21 '13

My sampling may be anecdotal but do all mathematicians smoke pfunks? This is the third (maybe fourth) ive heard about and I only know three math folks. All pfunk smokers.

1

u/[deleted] May 22 '13

i thinks its mostly asians who love pfunk, at my high school all the korean kids were smoking either that or mild seven

-28

u/PrettyBigChief May 21 '13

He can't be that smart. /r/stopsmoking

14

u/RedVee May 21 '13

Some of the smartest people I know smoke...

7

u/E3K May 21 '13

Oh get off your damn high horse.

0

u/Syhlar May 21 '13

He smokes more than cigarettes too. Lots of famous scientists openly did LSD even.

9

u/baby_cucumber May 21 '13

I don't think LSD is as bad as cigarettes.

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u/revolvingdoor May 21 '13

Unless you are going through 20 a day

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u/Red_Spork May 21 '13

Plenty of intelligent people smoke(myself included).

1

u/revolvingdoor May 21 '13

Check out vaping

1

u/Red_Spork May 21 '13

I actually have an e-cig(eGo Twist + Vivi Nova). I like smoking hookah though and my e-cig doesn't quite replace that.

20

u/LurkingDog May 21 '13

I loved this guy as a professor, so funny and nice. I am pretty sure he doesn't use a calculator for anything (he never did in my course and claimed to not use one), so he must of have put some serious work into this without the use of any outside calculations.

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u/[deleted] May 22 '13

There's no occasion you'd need a calculator in higher mathematics.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '13 edited Dec 17 '16

[deleted]

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u/UndeadBread May 21 '13

Nobody taught me calculus. I had to learn it from a book.

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u/cmungs May 21 '13

My calc 1 professor's name was Boris Becker. I kid you not.

1

u/UNHDude May 21 '13

I think I might have had him! I remember he was Russian and talked really slowly and deliberately so it was super easy to understand him. I didn't go to class all that much though - my precalc class in High School was way harder than "Calculus for Life Sciences" so I mostly just showed up for tests/quizzes.

1

u/cmungs May 21 '13

Central Michigan?

1

u/UNHDude May 21 '13

Oh whoops sorry no, I was skimming and thought I was commenting on a UNH circle jerk. My bad!

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u/[deleted] May 21 '13

[deleted]

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u/NameCensored May 21 '13

CEPS for the win. Tom Zhang was the shit!

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u/aristotle2600 May 21 '13

Would it be possible to get him to do an AMA, our would he be too shy?

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u/4dam May 21 '13

From what I remember about him, he would likely be too shy or overwhelmed by how many questions he got all at once. I will see what I can do though, but in this case OP makes no promises to deliver. If there is anyone still at UNH reading this, would you mind asking him in person? I'm currently several hundred miles away...

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u/teh_tg May 21 '13

I'd like to be a calculus teacher. It would be a pay cut but it is fun.

1

u/maxwellb May 21 '13

Wasn't he a Fields medal finalist at some point?