Encouraging Katy
My sister Katy is closing in on oral exams, which are an important milestone on her way to math Ph.D. stardom! With the goal of encouraging her, I’ve excerpted sentences from a recent Computerworld article about celebrities with math majors:
- “Art Garfunkel has a master’s in math from Columbia University.”
- “John Astin (the original Addams Family patriarch) studied math, not theater, at Johns Hopkins University, though he’s currently a professor in the latter department.”
But wait, there’s more!
- “Danica McKellar (Winnie, The Wonder Years)… is currently a Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience at UCLA; McKellar started UCLA as a film major but clicked with calculus and has since co-authored both a statistical mechanics paper that led to getting her name on a theorem (the Chayes-McKellar-Winn theorem) and a new book for middle schoolers, Math Doesn’t Suck.”
And of course, who could forget Tom Lehrer, who entered Harvard at 15. Here’s a good quote from him: “I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky. In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize!”
So that’s it, Katy. I hope you’ve enjoyed this break from studying; remember, you can do it!