No it’s typically not bad but it makes it harder to get you tenure at Stanford, unless, as they lucidly explain here, you are the right time at the right place and get lucky.
I agree 100% on the Gabber’s comment: there is no comparison between the twos.
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...
And I'm sure Conrad played an important role in the modularity stuff, imply by having enough stamina to carefully do disgusting near-impossible calculations with Breuil modules.
Breuil can do very tricky computations. And Taylor can do them too when there's a juicy result on the line. I think BC himself would say he was at the right place at the right time. I think he is a really good resource for graduate students at Stanford but in a different world he may have ended up somewhere not as strong.
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.
Agree that Gabber is at a different level in both technical prowess and originality. One of the reasons that the field of algebraic number theory has been going strong is that there are top talents like OG who are willing to use their precious time to provide "check and balance" on important works.
Speaking of check and balance, it's somewhat ironic that Conrad, with his outward reputation, turned a blind eye on his own students (Masullo, possibly others).
Gabber is now over 60. It's interesting to ask if there're any worthy successors of his among the younger generation. Perhaps TK comes close?
Gabber is now over 60. It's interesting to ask if there're any worthy successors of his among the younger generation. Perhaps TK comes close?
Perhaps TK can inherit the AMM legacy.
Apparently people misunderstood the TK comment. It's not about TK of Zimbabwe. (We are aware of the memes.) Rather, the above was a serious comment about TK of RIMS.
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