Insight
Strogatz: Weeding out STEM students ignores their true potential
“You know, you hear this idea of weeding out the people who have the right stuff from those that don't. I really don't accept that idea. People have a lot of potential, more than That kind of superficial analysis would lead you to think.”
Opinion
Strogatz: Biology is purely material and will ultimately be explained by physics
“It is ultimately chemistry and physics. I mean, there's no, I don't believe in any vital spirit Or soul, or anything like that. I'm sure some people do, but I don't, I mean, to me, it's all material. It's gonna ultimately be understood in purely materialistic,…”
Insight
Strogatz: Strict tit-for-tat strategies trap players in endless vendettas after mistakes
“Here's the weakness of tit-for-tat. Sometimes people make mistakes. And not because they're mean, or, I mean, just, Mistakes happen. Sometimes you are trying to be nice, and a person interprets it as an insult. Now, if that person is following a tit-for-tat mo…”
Insight
Strogatz: Bright math freshmen achieve astonishing results under mercilessly unreasonable challenges
“You can really, you know, by the time they're seasoned, if they've been in college a few years, they start to know the game, but freshmen don't really know what college is going to be like, and so you can do mercilessly unreasonable things to the bright freshm…”
Insight
Strogatz: Math is an interconnected web rather than a linear tower
“The reality is that math is a web, not a tower. That you can jump in at different points in the network of ideas, And then find your way around from there.”
Insight
Strogatz: Parents should admit mathematical ignorance rather than passing on anxieties
“We have to try not to pass on our own anxieties to our kids. What I try to do and what I would recommend other people do is to not be afraid to admit that you don't know something. That's a big, strong reaction to say, I don't know. Let's figure it out.”
Assertion Supported
Strogatz: Math revealed HIV produces a billion virus particles daily
“By making measurements on the rate of this exponential drop Perelson and Ho were able to show that the body HIV was producing about a billion virus particles every day. HIV was making an enormous amount of new virus, and the immune system was clearing it out a…”
Assertion Supported
Strogatz: Mathematical modeling proved three-drug therapy suppresses long-term HIV mutations
“What Perilson's math showed is that if you did two drugs, your odds were a little better, because then the virus would have to do two simultaneous mutations. The odds of that were lower than one. But three drugs would be the sweet spot where The odds were so l…”
Insight
Strogatz: Social sciences are harder than physics because subjects react to measurement
“The laws governing inanimate bodies are just a lot simpler and more easily quantified than the laws governing populations or individual people. So, the task of the social sciences is extremely hard. They get to feed back on the system that's measuring them. It…”
Insight
Strogatz: Researchers often succeed more by targeting second-hardest problems
“Sometimes it's better to go, as you say, after the second hardest problem. So maybe the gold ring, you know, is premature. We have to build up to it. So there are people who try for the hardest thing, and they never succeed. Because they're going for pie in th…”
Assertion Supported
Strogatz: In taxicab geometry, pi equals four
“If you calculate the circumference and you calculate the diameter, you'll end up getting that they're always in the ratio. I think I'm doing it right. It's always going to be four times the diameter will be the circumference, which is interesting that pi is, i…”
Opinion
Strogatz: Online creators like 3Blue1Brown have sparked a golden era of math
“There are just excellent, it's like a golden era of math communication. There's someone named Three Blue One Brown, at least that's his handle on YouTube, who makes really great videos about everything.”
Assertion Supported
Strogatz: GPS would fail within 20 minutes without Einstein's relativistic corrections
“If we didn't build in the Einsteinian corrections to timekeeping, the whole GPS system would fall apart in about 20 minutes. It would, it wouldn't be able to keep accurate time.”
Assertion Supported
Strogatz: All electrons in the universe are identical and never age
“Any two electrons anywhere in the universe are absolutely indistinguishable. There is no diversity of subatomic particles. I mean, they're different particles. Electrons are different from protons, but every electron is completely the same in every respect as …”
Assertion Supported
Strogatz: Winning game theory strategies are nice, forgiving, retaliatory, and clear
“What he found when he ran these tournaments of all these programs playing against each other he found that the programs that tended to do well in the tournament had four properties in common, and he summarized these four properties by saying that first, they w…”
Assertion Supported
Strogatz: The optimal game theory strategy was only four lines of code
“In fact, it was the shortest computer program submitted, only four lines of code. On the first move, cooperate, and on every subsequent move, do whatever the opponent did on the previous move.”
Steven Strogatz