I am filling out an online recommendation form for a student who is applying to graduate school at Berkeley. One of the questions is: “Rate the applicant in comparison to others you have known in a similar capacity.” My choices are:
(This is an actual screen capture from the actual form.)
Unless I select one of the options, I am unable to submit the form.
I find myself at a loss for snarky words. What ought to have been the title of this post?
The other night at dinner, I was asked whether, when the Beatles came to the US in 1963, I had had any sense that something really big had happened.
Well, I was pretty young in 1963, probably too young to think about such matters. I remember having little interest in the Beatles, but being being very aware that they were something very big. Everyone was aware of that. But unless I am mistaken, pretty much nobody realized that we were witnessing something really big and lasting. More generally, I doubt that anyone at the time had any inkling of the long-term significance of rock ‘n’ roll. We knew it was popular, but we had no idea it would change the world. I’m not sure that in 1963 anyone knew that it was possible for music to change the world.
This led to the more general question: How quickly are great cultural watersheds recognized for what they are? In the few areas I know something about, I think the answer is “usually pretty quickly”. I remember 1910 even less vividly than I remember 1963, but I am pretty sure that it wasn’t long between the appearance of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and the realization (at least among people who care about this sort of thing) that poetry had changed forever. In mathematics, at least in the past century (and I’m pretty sure for several centuries, or even millenia, before that), major paradigm shifts have generally been recognized very quickly. When a Serre or a Grothendieck upends the mathematical world, the mathematical world quickly knows it’s been upended.
(Larger and more easily viewable version here.)
1) I just had an extremely pleasant walk around the Beale Street area in Memphis, which strikes me, roughly, as Bourbon Street without the urine. (Also without the trash and the high general level of obnoxiousness — though also of course without the magnificent architecture, etc.) Yes, I realize it’s also a different musical genre (though in both cases it’s a sub-genre of “too loud”). But it’s astonishing to me how clean the streets are here, and how well-behaved the crowds, compared to what I’ve seen in Louisiana. If they can do that here, why can’t they do it there?
2) This weekend marks the anniversary of a world-changing event — an event that might be of particular interest to readers of The Big Questions, both the book and the blog. Who can tell me what event I have in mind? (Hint: It’s an anniversary ending in zero.) I’ll blog the answer on Monday.
3) The discussion of the Allais paradox rages on in comments on multiple posts. For the few of you who have not yet tuned this out, my latest comment is an attempt to cut through the fog and identify the locus of some commenters’ confusion, or disagreement, or both. I think it will very much help focus the discussion if the dissenters could tell us where they stand on these questions. (My answers are all “yes”.)
Data from 9,785 users of the dating site OKCupid reveal that iPhone users have 50% to 100% more sex partners than Android users, at every age.
This graph combines men and women, but the same pattern holds for each gender separately.
Explain this to me!
More info here (if you scroll down a couple of screens).
Here are some things I don’t quite get. Maybe someone can explain them to me.
1. All through 2008, then-Senator Obama kept telling me that “America’s reputation in the world is critical, not just to our security but to our prosperity”, and therefore American policies should be set with a decent regard for world opinion. Now, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, he keeps warning me that it will be disastrous if foreign interests are allowed to express their opinions in our political campaigns. How are we supposed to have a decent regard for foreign opinions if we don’t listen to them?
