Just state the result. 15 year olds can understand big O notation and arithmetic progressions. Instead we get a long article that nobody gets what is actually going on even after reading it.
I do not really understand the unconditional love for Quanta. Sure it is better it exists than not but I find the articles vague and mostly about people/institution name dropping. "Someone someone from the prestigious MIT said <this is a tremendous result!>". Cool I guess?
Take this one:
- No clear explanation of the problem to solve. Could have given an example or something to hammer out what is an arithmetic progression of 3 numbers.
- No detail about the actual form of the previous bound and the new one.
- Not much detail about the actual technique. I get that it become very technical very quickly. But that is the actual job of a science/math journalist to distill this. "They used a well know technique of increasing density, etc.". If it is well know, why not try to describe how it works.
I wonder what someone like 3blue1brown would make of this.
> I wonder what someone like 3blue1brown would make of this.
Although I am not Grant Sanderson (3blue1brown creator), I would wager very good money that he would strongly approve.
I am a research mathematician, I do read Quanta, and I've been interviewed for them also. Overall my impression is that they do a good job of making at least something of contemporary research mathematics accessible to the general public. Most people have very little concept of what we do.
It is a notoriously hard task, it is a vitally important one, and it is one that too few people are attempting. Quanta does the best job of it of any publication I know, and for that I am very grateful.
