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A comment on Teenager Finds Classical Alternative to Quantum Recommendation Algorithm. Parent comment

Re:Teenager Finds Classical Alternative to Quantum Recommend... by archgoon on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @12:42PM (#17654667)
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.
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Re:Teenager Finds Classical Alternative to Quantum Recommend... by n4r9 on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @12:49PM (#17654728)
As someone who has done research in quantum information, the age shifts this result from "very impressive" to "extremely impressive".
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Re:Teenager Finds Classical Alternative to Quantum Recommend... by lozenge on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @12:58PM (#17654830)
"Person discovers result in complexity theory" doesn't really beckon your mouse.
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Re:Teenager Finds Classical Alternative to Quantum Recommend... by sharpneli on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @01:40PM (#17655227)
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.
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Re:Teenager Finds Classical Alternative to Quantum Recommend... by lordnacho on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @01:22PM (#17655066)
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.

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Re:Teenager Finds Classical Alternative to Quantum Recommend... by chongli on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @02:07PM (#17655511)
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.
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