I don’t think this problem is limited to math: it’s present in all cutting-edge or graduate school levels of technical subjects. Basically, if you make your work easily accessible to a lay audience[1], it’s regarded as lower status or less significant. (“Hey, if it sounds so simple, it must not have been very hard to get!”)
And ironically enough, this thread sprung from me complaining about exactly that (see esp. the third bullet point).
[1] And contrary to what turf-defenders like to claim, this isn’t that hard. Worst case, you can just add a brief pointer to an introduction to the topic and terminology. To borrow from some open source guy, “Given enough artificial barriers to understanding, all bugs are deep.”
I don’t think this problem is limited to math: it’s present in all cutting-edge or graduate school levels of technical subjects. Basically, if you make your work easily accessible to a lay audience[1], it’s regarded as lower status or less significant. (“Hey, if it sounds so simple, it must not have been very hard to get!”)
And ironically enough, this thread sprung from me complaining about exactly that (see esp. the third bullet point).
[1] And contrary to what turf-defenders like to claim, this isn’t that hard. Worst case, you can just add a brief pointer to an introduction to the topic and terminology. To borrow from some open source guy, “Given enough artificial barriers to understanding, all bugs are deep.”