// HACKER NEWS — CYBERSECURITY
No Country for Mediocre Mathematicians
Lying is a core part of communicating mathematics. We lie to kindergarteners when explaining fractions. We lie to fourth graders when approaching limits. We lie to the NSF whenever they question if our work is important. And, I lie to anyone who asks me why I’m a mathematician. It is much easier to claim “I love learning the laws of life,” while literally handwaving, than it is for me to flashback to the twenty or so pivotal moments that lead to me walking out of Gainesville with a PhD in Arithmetic Geometry. Unfortunately, career choice happens to be the prototypical conversation starter, so hundreds of times over the past year I have had to choose between an hour-long walkthrough of my childhood or a small fib, and I am yet to tell anyone of my days at puzzle camp. Lying, however, is a sin, and those small fibs add up to a big wrong. Hence, I make it a point to counteract my lies by always answering the inevitable follow-up question of “what do you plan to do with a math PhD?” honestly, with a shrug.
Other mathematicians answer easily with “math.” I’ve met career mathematicians before. They’re at conferences and universities and on twitter (sometimes). If you find the right corner of our sphere, you can stand inches away from the “smartest people alive” and revel in their brilliance. But strangely enough, every time I interact with any of these geniuses, the feeling I get is never an awe-filled “golly this person’s intellect dwarfs mine,” but instead an unblinking “wow this mfer really loves math.” Passion, talent, and ego intertwine inseparably in the world of academic mathematics, and my personal passion has always been scarce. When I first met with my advisor, Jeremy, he asked me whether or not I planned on pursuing academia, which I responded to in the negative. I figured it required momentum and ego beyond what I had accrued. Jeremy did not disagree, and so we set off to learn at a leisurely pace for four years. At the end of my doctorate, I had accidentally accomplished more than we both expected: solo published in a solid journal, presented at a big conference, and stowed some cash from a couple teaching awards too. Three decades ago this curriculum vitae would have been a golden ticket to almost any post-doc position of my liking, but it is impossible to live today three decades ago, and competition has done naught but accelerate. Jeremy and I were not mistaken to not believe in me.
We had factored the climate of the present day in, of course. We were aware that I needed triple the amount of conferences and maybe two more solid publications to guarantee a post-post-grad position. In the present moment, one where I’m flailing without a concrete job or future, I can’t stop myself from imagining where I could be if I had just produced a little bit more. Don’t be mistaken, I was not a terrible post-doc candidate, simply a weak one. I just graduated into a tough market for a mediocre grad student turned mediocre mathematician.
Jealousy is never a good look on a woman, which may be why my modeling career never took off. During the 2026 winter olympics, prodigy figure skater Alysa Liu won the gold medal in the women’s singles event and shot to stardom seemingly overnight1. The twenty one year old’s passion for ice skating lit up the American public and dating rumors swirled as she was caught hanging around hyperpop idol glaive2. And for some unbeknownst reason, I seethed with envy. Despite the fact that I have touched an ice rink twice in my life total, I lamented not having Alysa’s focused devotion to the sport as a youth. I don’t even listen to glaive and still I wanted to be her so bad. Jealousy sometimes strikes when you least expect it. Other times, it can be pretty easy to predict. Almost exactly a year before Alysa’s ascent, Hannah Cairo submitted her first preprint to ArXiv3. Within a couple of months, the media and mathematical community took note and had become abuzz about her age (17), her clever counterexampl