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Actually Ed Witten was not a total newbie to advanced Math before grad school.From his commemorative lecture: At about age 11, I was presented with some relati
by ekm2 9y ago
Actually Ed Witten was not a total newbie to advanced Math before grad school.From his commemorative lecture:
At about age 11, I was presented with some relatively advanced math books. My father is a theoretical
physicist and he introduced
me to calculus. For a while, math was my passion. My parents, however, were reluctant
to push me too far, too fast with math (as they saw it) and so it was a long time after that before I was exposed to
any math that was really more advanced than basic cal
culus. I am not sure in hindsight whether their attitude was
best or not. However, the result was that for a number of years the math I was exposed to did not seem
fundamentally new and challenging. It is hard to know to what extent this was a factor, but
at any rate for a number
of years my interest in math flagged.
https://www.sns.ias.edu/ckfinder/userfiles/files/ComemorativeLecturePopular(1).pdf https://www.sns.ias.edu/ckfinder/userfiles/files/Comemorativ...
- sn9 9y agoThat he learned calculus when he was younger doesn't really explain how he so easily transitioned into mathematical physics after a liberal arts education. Calculus is relatively basic compared to grad level work in that area.
- ekm2 9y agoCalculus at 11 and never having been challenged for a while at school implies he self studied some courses that he is not explicitly mentioning.
- sn9 9y ago>and so it was a long time after that before I was exposed to any math that was really more advanced than basic calculus. This suggests calculus was all he knew before at least college (for some value of "a long time").