interview with Gian-Carlo Rota

[gusl]

"Mathematics, Philosophy, and Artificial Intelligence" is a dialogue with Gian-Carlo Rota on a variety of questions:

"There is a ratio by which you can measure how good a mathematician is, and that is how many crackpot ideas he must have in order to have one good idea. If it's ten to one then he is a genius."

Comments

[jcreed.livejournal.com]

So is >10 or <10 meant to be better?

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I don't see any ambiguity here.

<10 is ueber-genius.

[smandal.livejournal.com]

I heard a personal relationship with Prof. Rota -- I took three classes with him at MIT, and his famous Probability and Statistics class was probably my favorite ever.

He passed away too soon for my tastes.

[dankamongmen.livejournal.com]

http://www.rota.org/hotair/rotasharp.html

for anyone else who wants to read it

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I forgot to do that.