While taking the taxi from the Bund back to the hotel, Vignesh and I talked about the complexity of talks - of TCS and management science. Here’s the conversation.
Me: So it was like, for management science, delivery of the talk really matters. For the TCS community it doesn’t seem to matter that much. At least well, to a lesser extent.
Vignesh: Yeah it’s true. But usually I’d like to view it from another perspective. In MS or B school people really like to present their work to be as complicated as possible so as to impress others. But I think nowadays what people here are doing is, they try to make their points and proofs so easy that audience are able to understand and do follow-ups.
Me: Make sense.
Vignesh: Yes. And therefore, you’re seeing people using all these stupid examples like apples and bananas, dividing cakes, splitting dinner tables. Just every proofs seem so straightforward and intuitive. People hear it will be like, hmm interesting and let me cite your work in my paper next time because it’s easier to read.
True. We laughed so hard on the taxi.