[...]Grouping DZB with the other two is pretty insane, since he isn't in any way a lemon?
Also wasn't DZB Ken Ono student lol
What? Totally wrong part of math.
DZB was really a Bjorn Poonen student, but since Poonen moved to MIT partway through his graduate studies Brian Conrad took over some of the advising duties.
Speaking of, anyone know what happened to EW? He was a postdoc at columbia for 5 years, no longer listed there.
Evan Warner was a Ritts Assistant Professor at Columbia for 5 years and didn't publish anything. In fact, there's no evidence that he even obtained PhD from Stanford. On his old webpage, he kept saying that his PhD thesis is being revised. Yet, to this day, a search at Stanford Library returns nothing. (Even Alessandro Masullo eventually submitted his thesis, which is available at Stanford Library.)
The only reason Columbia would even give the Ritts AP position to EW was the influence of Brian Conrad, who oversold his student. After the Masullo affairs, we know this is not an isolated incident.
To be fair, BC had some good students. Tong Liu is good. Zavyalov seems to be very promissing. But those are rather the exceptions.
Speaking of, anyone know what happened to EW? He was a postdoc at columbia for 5 years, no longer listed there.
Evan Warner was a Ritts Assistant Professor at Columbia for 5 years and didn't publish anything. In fact, there's no evidence that he even obtained PhD from Stanford. On his old webpage, he kept saying that his PhD thesis is being revised. Yet, to this day, a search at Stanford Library returns nothing. (Even Alessandro Masullo eventually submitted his thesis, which is available at Stanford Library.)
The only reason Columbia would even give the Ritts AP position to EW was the influence of Brian Conrad, who oversold his student. After the Masullo affairs, we know this is not an isolated incident.
To be fair, BC had some good students. Tong Liu is good. Zavyalov seems to be very promissing. But those are rather the exceptions.
Hey give the guy a chance, maybe if he spends 5 more years as a BP fellow at Harvard he'll write something.
Speaking of, anyone know what happened to EW? He was a postdoc at columbia for 5 years, no longer listed there.
Evan Warner was a Ritts Assistant Professor at Columbia for 5 years and didn't publish anything. In fact, there's no evidence that he even obtained PhD from Stanford. On his old webpage, he kept saying that his PhD thesis is being revised. Yet, to this day, a search at Stanford Library returns nothing. (Even Alessandro Masullo eventually submitted his thesis, which is available at Stanford Library.)
The only reason Columbia would even give the Ritts AP position to EW was the influence of Brian Conrad, who oversold his student. After the Masullo affairs, we know this is not an isolated incident.
To be fair, BC had some good students. Tong Liu is good. Zavyalov seems to be very promissing. But those are rather the exceptions.
Not true, here is Evan’s thesis: https:// searchworks. stanford. edu/view/12135003
[...]Evan Warner was a Ritts Assistant Professor at Columbia for 5 years and didn't publish anything. In fact, there's no evidence that he even obtained PhD from Stanford. On his old webpage, he kept saying that his PhD thesis is being revised. Yet, to this day, a search at Stanford Library returns nothing. (Even Alessandro Masullo eventually submitted his thesis, which is available at Stanford Library.)
The only reason Columbia would even give the Ritts AP position to EW was the influence of Brian Conrad, who oversold his student. After the Masullo affairs, we know this is not an isolated incident.
To be fair, BC had some good students. Tong Liu is good. Zavyalov seems to be very promissing. But those are rather the exceptions.
Not true, here is Evan’s thesis: https:// searchworks. stanford. edu/view/12135003
Then, we take back the claim about non-submittal of thesis. It remains true that EW didn't publish anything.
[...]Evan Warner was a Ritts Assistant Professor at Columbia for 5 years and didn't publish anything. In fact, there's no evidence that he even obtained PhD from Stanford. On his old webpage, he kept saying that his PhD thesis is being revised. Yet, to this day, a search at Stanford Library returns nothing. (Even Alessandro Masullo eventually submitted his thesis, which is available at Stanford Library.)
The only reason Columbia would even give the Ritts AP position to EW was the influence of Brian Conrad, who oversold his student. After the Masullo affairs, we know this is not an isolated incident.
To be fair, BC had some good students. Tong Liu is good. Zavyalov seems to be very promissing. But those are rather the exceptions.
Hey give the guy a chance, maybe if he spends 5 more years as a BP fellow at Harvard he'll write something.
I know you wrote this in jest :) But in reality there are many cases of prestigious postdoc positions given to mediocre candidates due to influences of powerful advisors. This squeezes out more deserving candidates, some might quit academia because of it. I think this is grossly unfair.
[...]Hey give the guy a chance, maybe if he spends 5 more years as a BP fellow at Harvard he'll write something.
I know you wrote this in jest :) But in reality there are many cases of prestigious postdoc positions given to mediocre candidates due to influences of powerful advisors. This squeezes out more deserving candidates, some might quit academia because of it. I think this is grossly unfair.
Why is BC influential? He's not even good. It was astonishing that he was editor of JAMS at some point.
[...]Hey give the guy a chance, maybe if he spends 5 more years as a BP fellow at Harvard he'll write something.
I know you wrote this in jest :) But in reality there are many cases of prestigious postdoc positions given to mediocre candidates due to influences of powerful advisors. This squeezes out more deserving candidates, some might quit academia because of it. I think this is grossly unfair.
Oh I know, didnt bring up BP for nothing. FG (barghava student) became a BP fellow with only his thesis as a preprint. Ended up doing nothing and became a lecturer.
I understand that people have different standards. But to call BC “not even good” transcends internet trolling and/or ironic delusion and is squarely in the territory of raw, unfiltered stupidity of the lowest order.
OK big guy. Other than modularity where BC was probably not the main contributor what are BCs main contribution? He's like a narrow technician. He has no top 5 other than modularity.
[...]I know you wrote this in jest :) But in reality there are many cases of prestigious postdoc positions given to mediocre candidates due to influences of powerful advisors. This squeezes out more deserving candidates, some might quit academia because of it. I think this is grossly unfair.
Why is BC influential? He's not even good. It was astonishing that he was editor of JAMS at some point.
Conrad is known for his mastery of certain technical aspects in algebraic geometry and algebraic number theory. The community consults with him when they encounter those aspects in their research. In that sense, he is a very useful contributor to the field. (Think of someone like Ofer Gabber, who is highly regarded for his expertise in technical things.)
But let's also not forget that Breuil-Conrad-Diamond-Taylor on modularity in Q, and a couple of related works, are landmark papers in algebraic number theory that greatly influenced the field for 20 years.
Why is BC influential? He's not even good. It was astonishing that he was editor of JAMS at some point.
He was in the right place at exactly the right time with the right advisor, has been energetic about doing "plumbing" of various sorts -- teaching, exposition, editing, rewriting old work in modern formalism -- that make him a reliable workhorse wherever hired and within the field.
Conrad is known for his mastery of certain technical aspects in algebraic geometry and algebraic number theory. The community consults with him when they encounter those aspects in their research. In that sense, he is a very useful contributor to the field. (Think of someone like Ofer Gabber, who is highly regarded for his expertise in technical things.)
He is nowhere Gabber's level of ability or accomplishment. BC would have landed at a top 30-40 place if not for getting in on the ground floor of the Wiles modularity industry.
I happen to like his pseudoreductive groups work, which is finally his own stuff rather than polishing other people's machinery, and many of his undergrad expositions are very well done. But that is not the kind stuff that normally gets tenure at Stanford.
It is funny that the truth about BC is finally being discussed honestly. Indeed, he is an excellent technician, but aside from the modularity stuff his work is of narrow interest and lacks exciting ideas. People are very respectful of him, but you can't say with a straight face that he's been influential.
Gabber is both technically amazing and full of original ideas: his proof of purity for intersection cohomology, and his work on local uniformization and finiteness theorems for etale cohomology of excellent schemes, are both incredible achievements, just to pick two off the top of my head.
most people don't really have the whole package (technique + creative vision)
but is it really bad to only be 90% technician? it seems like good collabs could come from technical contributions, just by observing how the 'creatives' operate...
No, it's not bad. And I'm sure Conrad played an important role in the modularity stuff, simply by having enough stamina to carefully do disgusting near-impossible calculations with Breuil modules. That's a real contribution!
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