Why mathematical freaks are (almost) exclusively male?

[posic]

https://www.facebook.com/posic/posts/2155909881090501

Потому, что "непризнанный гений" -- мужская фигура. На всем протяжении спектра "непризнанных гениев", с обоих его концов (от заслуженно непризнанных до незаслуженно).

Более развернутый комментарий в комментариях, по-английски:

https://www.facebook.com/yuri.bilu.9/posts/1936767719667125

Men may be interested in the ontological and epistemological status of what they are doing, for its own sake. Not all men, not anything like a majority of men, not even a large minority, but quite a few of them. Women are much less likely to be so interested. Women are interested in the social status of what they are doing.

Now, opinions as to the epistemological status of fermatist writings may vary, depending on who you ask (the fermatist himself, the professional mathematicians, various segments of the public at large, etc.) But everybody knows (as a matter of common sense, experience, conspiracy theorising and whatnot) that their achievements or "achievements" are not going to be socially recognized. That should suffice to make women uninterested.

In other words: men are stubborn and romantic. Foolish, to put it bluntly. Women, much less so.

Comments

[passerby-fl.livejournal.com]

I am not a mathematician, but for a certain convoluted reason, back in '94, I received a letter from a Russian-born Parisian, a trained philologist. The letter contained a 14-line proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Needless to mention the author was a man.

[posic.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, here is an inspiring story of an amateur mathematician woman (neither a freak nor an unrecognized genius, but a discoverer of new objects):

https://www.facebook.com/posic/posts/2155909881090501?comment_id=2155974471084042

Martin Gardner discussed the problem in a July 1975 Mathematical Games column, "On Tessellating the Plane with Convex Polygon Tiles." Gardner’s account led to the discovery by Richard James III of an additional pentagonal tiling.

Majorie Rice, a homemaker in San Diego, regularly read her son's copies of Scientific American and took particular note of Gardner's original article and its December follow-up describing James's discovery. Inspired by the articles, Rice began her own search for additional pentagonal tilings. She developed a unique notation and procedure for systematically investigating the possibilities and eventually discovered four additional types and more than 60 distinct tessellations by pentagons.

Rice was also interested in art and used her novel pentagonal tilings as the basis of beautiful geometric designs and Escher-like patterns.

Rice's efforts raised the total to 13 distinct classes of convex pentagons that can be used to tile the plane. Rolf Stein discovered a fourteenth in 1985. However, no one has yet proved that the list is complete.

Rice continued exploring tessellations and subsequently came up with the pentagonal variant that became the basic unit of the unique floor pattern displayed in the lobby at MAA headquarters.

[passerby-fl.livejournal.com]

I have heard of this woman. An inspiring story indeed. On the other hand, there's always the other hand.