Ryan Peterman

It's rare.

I tell all my students and postdocs that

You don't work for the million dollar.

Million dollar is nothing, of course, for some of these problems.

But you work because you enjoy the practice of it.

You enjoy thinking about these problems.

In fact, most days in the life of my life, mathematician's life, is unlike a systems person.

You go in the morning, you come back in the evening, and you fail to do what you wanted to do.

You just couldn't.

You just thought more.

I think that it's really important.

It's not for everybody.

Clearly, it's not satisfying if this happens every day and every week.

It's not for everybody.

It's for the people for whom this activity of trying to think, of throwing ideas

or failing but learning from the failures, people don't realize that often you learn.

I mean, the fact that you fail is not just a wasted day.

There is something that you gain from it, maybe subconsciously, that will help you later.

So unless you enjoy this activity, maybe this field is not for you.

And then you see something, and even if it's small, sometimes it's very satisfactory.