The answer to this question depends upon how you define success. If you look at the people we see profiled in the media and the people who are called “celebrities,” then it’s true that very few of them majored in mathematics. One reason for their scarcity is merely the fact that only a small fraction …
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High performers, including those of high intelligence, are used to being right, especially when making judgements in a domain where they have special expertise. In 1943-44, John Mauchly and Presper Eckert, built the ENIAC3 computer at the University of Pennsylvania. It spanned an area of 20 feet × 40 feet with circuitry that incorporated 18,000 …
The courses in the various disciplines vary somewhat within each field depending on the area of specialty. For example, there is a significant difference in the requirements of electrical, mechanical and civil engineering and a civil engineer may not require a lot of knowledge in the use of Fourier transforms. Also, general economics would not …
Before Darwin’s publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859, most human characteristics such as talent, personalities, and moral behaviors were thought to be acquired through environmental influences such as family, education, cultural training, and other factors described as “nurture.” However, Francis Galton (Darwin’s half-cousin) had observed that many …
Your premise that both groups are equal in intelligence and looks, suggests that there would be no particular reason to join one group rather than the other. The best group for you to join is the one in which you find kindred spirits–the people with whom you connect at an intellectual and visceral level. One …
The concept of infinity has baffled the human mind since the time of Zeno of ancient Greece (490–430 BC.) who proposed several paradoxes about infinity. These paradoxes were later resolved with the development of calculus and the concept of limits. For example, up to the 17th century, it was unknown whether the sum of the …
The Statement and Implications of Gödel’s Theorems In 1931, an Austrian mathematician, Kurt Gödel, at age 25 published his doctoral thesis, On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems. In this epoch-making paper, Gödel enunciated a theorem and corollary that registered a magnitude ten on the seismometer of mathematical quakes. Simply stated, they …
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During the last decades of the 20th century, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) decried the claim by many females that they didn’t have the “math gene” required to study mathematics at an advanced level. However, when Miriam Mirzekhani was awarded in 2014, a Fields Medal for her “outstanding contributions to the dynamics …
There is a very strong correlation between good results and hard work. This is readily apparent in athletics. Those gifted with superior athletic ability, usually discover early in their lives that they are more agile than most, can run faster or jump higher, or have greater physical strength. As they outperform their teammates or competitors, …
People who are described as geniuses in mathematics or theoretical physics were often precocious and their gifts were recognized early. The quintessential mathematical genius in the 18th century, was Karl Friedrich Gauss. He was a calculating prodigy, whose remarkable gifts emerged when he was 3 years old, enabling him to perform long and intricate computations …
