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Originally Posted by Argos
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Originally Posted by Kaptain K
1) Bill Gates is not a physicist or an astronomer.
2 Both Einstein and Newton had Ph.D's.
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As you know, what Newton learned in his quadrivium correspond to our 8th grade, versing on humanities and incipient algebra. Such education could be obtained at home with a little effort and interest. By no means it was enough to launch him into the vortexes of calculus. Newton deplored the university of those times. It it was a pain for him (according to "The Life Of Isaac Newton", by Richard Waterfall). He had to make the tools he needed, and his achievements stem from his merits alone. University was kind of an Academy of Notables, and to attend it was a question of social status (as it is today, to a certain extent). |
I guess we can't expect Newton to have taken Calculus 101 at uni,
since he invented it.
What you call Newton's pain with university was probably more his basic ill-at-ease with all people.
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Einstein was an outsider and, again, the fruits of his intellect are not owed to his academic status, or to the curriculum itself. He was intelligence in raw state, and had all the mind stuff he needed by 16. Definitely, he hadnīt to go through all the (proverbial) mental violence and humilliation he suffered at school.
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Einstein was not what we'd consider an outsider. True, he was working in the Patent Office, but he'd completed the physics curriculum and regularly communicated with other physicists.
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Bill Gates was just an example of how boring school can be to a creative guy. He quit it while still a freshman, as you know.
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To form a company. One of their first important customers was IBM, because Gate's mom was on a board with an IBM exec and she made some recommendations.
That's not cutting down those three--they had important insights before they were twenty. If you haven't got anything earth shaking by that time, it might be a good idea to go to school.
PS:
Here's a good fall back school