How do you tell how much innate mathematical abilty you have?

by producing mathematics

>>8733075
You just know by how good you are at solving problems and stuff

let's say there are type 1 errors where you believe you have a significant degree of talent at mathematics but you don't and type 2 errors where you believe that you do not have a significant degree of talent at mathematics but you do.

Where "significant degree" let's say means that you would be a middle of the pack PhD student at a university with good reputation and department for mathematics. like anywhere in the top 30 university departments in the world for mathematics.


We can eliminate type one errors as much as we want simply by choosing how ever high a stage we want in mathematics comptitions to be our threshold or test.

For example, 100% of type 1 errors will be eliminated if we say "if you get a gold medal at the IMO then you have a significant degree of talent at maths and if you don't you don't".
Every single gold medallist at the IMO has the mathematical raw ability and talent to do fine at a PhD mathematics program, though they might not be tempermentally suited. (although that in itself could probably be worked around by having them do more applied research into specific investigations like https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/upside-down-and-inside-out rather than open ended , staring into the abyss stuff)

if you lowered that threshold to say simply participating at the IMO then it would vary from country to country how selective their IMO team selection process is, but for most quite big and quite rich countries like america, UK, France, still at least 95% of type 1 errors would be eliminated. These kids are very very naturally strong at mathematics. They would not be chosen if they were not because being chosen means they're the better at solving very difficult mathematical problems than anyone else in theeir age in their country.


so type one errors we can create a criteria that eliminates them basically as much as we want, not a problem.
No one who gets a gold medal at IMO is going to be an imposter.

The problem is type 2 errors.

there are definitely many more people who would be good PhD students at strong universities, such that htey could probably become productive mathematics researchers as a career if they wanted to, than just those who competed at the IMO.

infact you're probably filtering out more than 95% of the whole crop of decent PhD students at strong universities if you just looks at IMO competitors, meaning you will only be eliminating less than 5% of the type 2 errors.


But happily if we relax the IMO criterion we only suffer a slight drop off in type 1 error elimination but we get a far higher increase in type 2 error elimination.

What we do is look at just state or national level math competitions that most schools make their students do at some point.

We can say "if you managed to get to the third round of the american mathematics competitions ( which basically means the third round of being selected for the IMO team) then you there's probably only a 20% or less chance that you are an imposter and you would not have enough mathematical talent to be a decent PhD student at a top 30 uni"

"if you fail to get to the into the 3rd round of the american mathematics competitions then there is only around a 20% chance that you really have enough talent to be a decent PhD student at a top 30 university".

This is the kind of approach you need to have.

what do you consider more important, type 1 or type 2 errors?

>>8733670
thanks, you just reformulated OP question in 1500 characters.

He was clearly referring to type 2 errors. If you get a gold medal at a IMO you KNOW you have mathematical ability. Moreover, to participate in one you must previously get recognized by others as having some potential and participate in advanced programs and regional olympiads.

OP was clearly referring to the potential Fermat who is already in another job and wants to know his innate, possibly hidden ability.

>>8733694
literally nothing in the OP specified he was talking about type 2 errors.

We have no idea whether he is a university student wondering whether his self-belief in his talent or if he is an imposter who would be chewed up and spat out by doing a PhD at Penn or stanford or somewhere. We also have no idea whether he's someone who assumes he is no good but is wondering if maybe he fell through the cracks and really has something to offer mathematics.

don't project so much kiddo

>>8733706
*whether his self-belief in his talent is justified

take a wechsler iq test
if you do well on the fluid intelligence part, in particular figure weights and matrices, you will probably be well suited to maths.
this test might be a good indicator too:
http://similarminds.com/int-number.html

>>8735316
iq is worthless

>>8733075
There's no such thing as innate ability. "Being born good at math" is what people who are too lazy to work hard at anything say to make themselves feel better.

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>>8735584

>>8735643
>just b urself

>>8735584
>Hurr all animals have innate natures, BUT NOT HUMANS!

>>8735643
>>8735877
believing that does nothing more than promoting laziness. keep being lazy brainlets

>>8735883
>advocates ignoring truth because the truth is really mean!!!!1!!
brainlet detected

I'm guessing you are still in High school so here is my advice:

The most basic thing is your grade in current math classes vs your effort studying, if you have never gave a shit about studying and always get good grades, you are on the right path.

See how well you understand concepts when being taught in class. Generally if you understand concepts well you will be able to rephrase them and come to conclusions regarding the topic before the teacher teaches them.

Take "math ability" tests without studying. This can be anything from standardized testing to college placement exams.

Try to look at Math Olympiad type questions and start trying to solve them. Remember you don't necessarily have to get the correct answer, you just have to see how much progress you were able to figure out.

>>8735643
"Everyone has the potential to be great!"

>>8733075
At least you can blame your failure on lack of innate ability

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>>8733075
By how far you got in A Synposis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics

>>8735899
I'm a high school drop out, but I did take some sort of mathematical reasoning test before I left, got 95%ile. Never studied or did any homework for maths, the only year I payed attention was year 11 (grade 10?) and by that I essentially mean just working through the exercises and not paying attention to the teacher as she spoke broken as fuck english. That was also the only year I got good grades, the other years I simply passed but was not exceptional. Dropped out halfway through year 12 (before even being introduced to calculus), which was when I took the test along with a few others. The test seemed very low-level, but apparently is supposed to be normed against people the same age as I was at the time. I just looked at some olympiad questions online, and I don't know what many of the symbols mean. I guess I should probably learn up to end-of-high-school level before I try them.

>>8733670
>t. retard who failed everything in his uni ranked 4000 pretending to be smart by reformulating OPs clear question in 15 lines of bullshit

I'm 34 years old and can't do basic algebra. I can't even understand fractions.

Senior Web Developer btw

>>8736016
My father has this story he use to tell me:
when he was in the army he was in a company of roughly 300 men. At one point they gave out an IQ test to each person in the camp. My father scored 2nd and first only got a few points higher than him, but he forgets what the scores were.

Later that week he was sitting down by himself eating and a man came up to him asking, "Are you Adams?" He said yes. The man introduced himself as first place on the IQ test. He graduate from Cambridge. "So where did you go to school Adams?" "I went to Silsbee." "Oh, I didn't realize they had a college in Silsbee." My father said, "Oh, they don't. High school." Then the man said, "Oh, so you graduated from Silsbee high school?" And my father said, "No, I dropped out in the 9th grade." He said the man turned around and walked away without ever saying anything.

>>8736029
kinda reminds me of my mum. she scored 160 on an iq test when she was younger but dropped out in year 11 (10th grade)

>>8736047
Yea, the guy never learned basic algebra and loathed studying. He just loved playing cards, backgammon, hunting, fishing, and going to the bar and that's what he's done all his life

>>8736047
Well that and working quite a bit in a lot of different places

>>8736047
>>8736050
>>8736051

>tfw 100 IQ

Intelligence is more than just IQ though I guess. My working memory might be bang average but I find I learn best through trial and error and not by rote study. I'm pretty creative

Still wish I was a high IQ math/programming genius though

>>8736055
Smart or not, we're all fucked. Try and enjoy yourself. I'm pretty smart and would care a little if I was moved to average intelligence, but not as much as you'd think

>>8736058
i would fucking love to be smart

>>8733075
the size of your fireplace

>>8737522
k

>>8733075
take the sat