The point Jared is making seems meaningful to me. It is important to remember that a very important part of math research is not only proving theorems but also innovating on definitions and formalisms. That is, coming up with novel concepts. It indeed seems correct to operationalize “original” as “involving novel concepts” to me, and this observation should not be dismissed simply because it can be pattern-matched to arguments the ignorant make.
The point Jared is making seems meaningful to me. It is important to remember that a very important part of math research is not only proving theorems but also innovating on definitions and formalisms. That is, coming up with novel concepts. It indeed seems correct to operationalize “original” as “involving novel concepts” to me, and this observation should not be dismissed simply because it can be pattern-matched to arguments the ignorant make.
Agree, it’s the thing Scholze seems to do spectacularly well for instance. Not sure why I wrote that, thanks for the callout.