Maybe I'm just easily impressed but the idea of a 17 year old who skipped three grades and is already a third-year university student who was talented enough to catch Scott's attention and then address a technically challenging problem like this certainly warrants at least some recognition for the age at which he made this accomplishment.

Or maybe I'm just not smart enough to hang out on Hacker News.

The issue is that the title actually diminishes the accomplishment by focusing on the wrong thing. The work is impressive independent of the authors age. By emphasizing the age, the focus shifts from what he did, which he should be proud of, to something he will no longer have in two years.

As someone who has done research in quantum information, the age shifts this result from "very impressive" to "extremely impressive".

"Person discovers result in complexity theory" doesn't really beckon your mouse.

Precisely this. He already was awesome by getting a bachelors so soon and going to grad school next year. This result is on top of an awesome beginning of a career, not just a thing a random teenager did.

Surely him being very young impresses more.

Kylian Mbappe won the World Cup a couple of weeks ago. He was 19. That makes it a bigger deal.

Generally people are impressed by accomplishments made by younger people. I suppose there is also a similar effect at the other end, for a similar reason: you're disadvantaged in accomplishing stuff if you're at either end of the age spectrum. You either had a lot less time to get to the top, or your faculties are waning precipitously.

The piece was written by a journalist. Journalists know how to write for a general audience. That means making the story about a human being. The general public loves reading stories about prodigies. They don't care at all about the "quantum advantage" of this or that algorithm.

>Maybe I'm just easily impressed but the idea of a 17 year old who skipped three grades and is already a third-year university student..

Not saying this applies to Tang. But would you be equally impressed by a 17 year old from an upper middle class family whose parents recognized their gifts and used their influence to assist them in skipping 3 grades and enrolling in college early vs 17 year old from lower income family who is equally bright as the former kid, but graduates at 21 and receives no recognition for it due to an unheard of advisor at a low ranked school? On paper you'd be more amazed by the former, while the latter is equally as bright but is sort of dismissed because of their situation.

Ok, so is your solution to be unimpressed by both, or... ?

Note that Aaronson also thought that a fast classical algorithm was impossible. Tang found the algorithm in spite of that false start.

Always be skeptical of "impossible" without proof.

I thought it was taking a poke at quantum computing by putting the emphasis on his age. But that could be straight up projection on my part - I admit to having serious doubts about both the relevance and practicality of quantum computers. Yes, how I interpret it is influenced by my own bias ;-)