Re:Are You Smarter Than a Quant? Questions from the MoMath M...
by owenversteeg on Saturday March 05, 2016 @11:44AM
(#11229964)
> Hilariously simple and trivial are insulting terms to use for problems that challenge many others.
I'd generally be inclined to agree, and I think that there are too many people on HN that constantly call legitimately hard things trivial, which I dislike. But in this case, the two that I referred to as such are actually solvable by an eleven year old. I refuse to believe that any quants -- a profession known to be composed of some of the smartest people on earth -- have any difficulty whatsoever with these problems.
If they were in a book of brain teasers, I wouldn't go through the book and laugh at how "trivial" all the questions were, that would make me a dick. But these are questions asked to goddamn quants, and in that context these questions are certainly hilariously simple.
I'd generally be inclined to agree, and I think that there are too many people on HN that constantly call legitimately hard things trivial, which I dislike. But in this case, the two that I referred to as such are actually solvable by an eleven year old. I refuse to believe that any quants -- a profession known to be composed of some of the smartest people on earth -- have any difficulty whatsoever with these problems.
If they were in a book of brain teasers, I wouldn't go through the book and laugh at how "trivial" all the questions were, that would make me a dick. But these are questions asked to goddamn quants, and in that context these questions are certainly hilariously simple.