| Topic: |
Science > Physics |
| User: |
"OsherD" |
| Date: |
28 Jan 2007 09:06:30 PM |
| Object: |
Quantum Gravity 83.6: Italia Continued |
From Osher Doctorow
By an astonishing (to me, anyway) coincidence, I think
that I have come to understand what makes Academic
Bureaucracies tick thanks to a conversation that I had
with a pharmacist at a pharmacy within the last week.
The man comes from Mexico but neither talks with a
Mexican accent nor has any "Hispanic appearance."
He mentioned that he graduated college in Mexico, and
thinking of H. Rosu's papers on the Riccati Differential
Equations in Mexico (which I've cited frequently), I said
that Mexico has a very good reputation academically. He
said, "No." Apparently Mexico's education is not very
good, according to him. So how could Rosu be explained?
Very simple, according to him: "The really great scientists
or mathematicians are almost all extremely rich from very
rich families and go to very rich schools."
Now, I know that wealth is not what made Princeton and
Chicago and Stanford and even Harvard (well, I don't
think Harvard) or MIT or CalTech so good compared with
most public universities, so I don't think that the pharmacist
was right about the USA, but it got me to thinking about
India and even the U.K. and Mexico.
I studied Mexico when I was in the social sciences, and
there really does seem to be a deficiency in their public
educational system beyond what can be explained by
anything but money or power. There has been for "ages"
a struggle between the "white Spanish-imitating-marrying"
people in Mexico and the "darker Indian-marrying poorer"
Mexicans. That is to say, the former are oriented toward
white Spain, the latter toward Aztec or Mayan civilizations
more or less.
A similar situation occurred in India, this time between most
universities and the Maharaja-super-wealthy ones with
only the latter producing great scientists or mathematicians
and the former producing worse ones than the worst USA
universities in general.
In the U.K., a mixture of the two trends occurred, with
super-wealthy people gaining a tremendous advantage
but also with universities having great reputations
attracting "naturally Creative Genius" students. This has
happened in the USA too. It's at the level of students and
faculty to the highest seniority.
In Italy, which as I've explained often has a remarkably
excellent science and mathematics research section,
we are arguably seeing the two trends in the U.K. and
USA becoming even more pronounced, as has happened
in their politics too. Between Ricci and Levi-Civita and
Vivaldi and Rossini and Verdi and Leonardo Da Vinci on
the one hand, and Mussolini and some of his descendants
on the other hand, there is indeed a deep gulf that is not
entirely disguised by the name "Italy" but which occasionally
arises to haunt us as in Ancient Rome.
Osher Doctorow
.
|
|
| User: "Dumbledore_" |
|
| Title: Re: Quantum Gravity 83.6: Italia Continued |
28 Jan 2007 09:43:45 PM |
|
|
"OsherD" <> wrote in message =
news:1170039990.316160.33010@j27g2000cwj.googlegroups.com...
From Osher Doctorow
=20
By an astonishing (to me, anyway) coincidence, I think
that I have come to understand what makes Academic
Bureaucracies tick thanks to a conversation that I had
with a pharmacist at a pharmacy within the last week.
The man comes from Mexico but neither talks with a
Mexican accent nor has any "Hispanic appearance."
=20
He mentioned that he graduated college in Mexico, and
thinking of H. Rosu's papers on the Riccati Differential
Equations in Mexico (which I've cited frequently), I said
that Mexico has a very good reputation academically. He
said, "No." Apparently Mexico's education is not very
good, according to him. So how could Rosu be explained?
Very simple, according to him: "The really great scientists
or mathematicians are almost all extremely rich from very
rich families and go to very rich schools."
=20
Now, I know that wealth is not what made Princeton and
Chicago and Stanford and even Harvard (well, I don't
think Harvard) or MIT or CalTech so good compared with
most public universities,=20
Who said they were?
That's merely your prejudice; define "good".
=20
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
