And that’s when he decided he’s going to open up an online bookshop, selling his old used physics books. And boy did he have a lot of physics books to sell.
When I studied for a Ph.D. in physics, I met a fellow student called Brian Josephson. In discussion with him, I realized my understanding was so far behind that after my Ph.D., I gave up physics. Some 10 years later, Brian won the Nobel Prize. Meeting such people can be very daunting!
can you elaborate on this a bit? It seems so interesting. What was it that he knew that made you realise you weren't at his level? Couldn't you just study a bit more of what he studied and catch up? I'm a medical student and I really don't think we have that - for us it's just about volume of information rather than the kind of depth of pure understanding you seem to be describing. If you could explain this phenomenon to be a bit more I'd be really interested.
Good point! Of course, I did not realize that Brian would win a Nobel prize at the age of 33. If I had not met him, I might have thought myself a reasonably good scientist, rather than inferior, and continued in physics.
Once upon a time in the 1970s in my college physics class my professor gave us a quiz. The quiz had three questions. We were all good enough at math to know that if we missed one problem it would result in a D. After a considerable amount of time had gone by and no one had turned in their quiz, one brave soul took his paper to the professor and showed it to him. “Oh!” He exclaimed. “Problem 3 can’t be solved.”
@gthompson58 That reminds me of an exercise in Serge Lang's famous (or infamous, depending on your POV) graduate-level textbook entitled simply "Algebra." At the end of Chapter VII there are nine problems for students to solve. The ninth of these is a problem about polynomials, which Lang prefaces with: "The answer to the following exercise is not known." 😂
Yep. Happens a lot in maths classes as well..I always thought of such questions as to something professors working or interested in and an easy way for them to see if someone else has some insight is for students to be tested on it...
Did the same thing. My father taught me about two approaches to life, if you want to chill work with something you love so you can be around it, if you're extremely ambitious work where you can leverage your skillset best and enjoy your hobbies in your free time (with all your extra resources).
Fun fact: Even Yasantha didn't become a theoretical physicist. He is currently working as a Vice President of Research and AI Analog Inference(Santa Clara County, California, United States ). This shows us how hard is to become a great theoretical physicist.
He probably could’ve made it if he wanted to… it is not hard to get into phd/post doc/tenure if you are top of the class in Princeton…. Maybe he just found other passion
@@koyaxkaymak2183 May be. A guy like him in a prestigious university can get easily get into a theoretical physics Ph.D. program. But previously I've talked about the level of Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Dirac etc; These guys were in a different level.
Yes it’s super hard. It’s almost playing in the NBA level hard. Guys who are able to complete a physics phd is already like 1% smart of all people, and probably only 1/10th of the best ones become a theoretical physicist.
@@johnnychang3456 less than 0.1% theoretical physics PhD graduates will become to the level of Shrodinger. There is a huge difference between solving a selected problem in a PhD vs Making a whole new working theory like Dirac equation or Uncertainty principle.
Just imagine if Yashantha would say “Yes I just did all in my mind” intentionally knowing that he just had that experience before. Oh boy, that would be totally different story! That’s why honesty is important virtue!
That's the sort of thing Richard Feynman would have done. He was notorious for pretending he had miraculously and intuitively solved a problem on the spot which he had actually worked out in detail earlier.
I was great at math and physics. I loved it. I love how honest equations are, and how they can describe, infer, and estimate so many aspects of the world, the universe. But when I got to University and realised how many more hardcore people there are, and that a PhD would be a bare minimum to find work in this field. It awoke me.
Yeah, I came here from a poor village and I don’t care how hard it would be for me to beat all of people like you and others in comments I will do that no matter cost I would pay for it. You never experienced hunger in your childhood probably and never saw the death in the eyes of your enemies, so left it for us and find a job somewhere there you will have competitive advantage. There’s millions people in the US who struggle like my family and it’s better for all of us if people like would care about them.
@@DonLee1980 well you can’t see it through this platform, especially if we talk about math. Perelman even didn’t show up at the Noble Prize, when they gave him
@@gaius-juliuscaesar3979 Why can't we? Tell us about the problems you've solved, the progress you've made learning math or physics, I take you very seriously, and I know not to underestimate a determined person, but it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to work.
Jeff Bezos actually needed to ask one more question after "you didn't just do that in your head?". He should have asked him how long it took to solve the first problem. Bezos had only spent 3 hours on the problem. Perhaps the similar problem took Yashantha way longer to solve. Richard Feynman discussed a similar situation in the book "Classic Feynman" in a chapter called Lucky Numbers. He details having a duel with an abacus salesman where the salesman challenges to find the cube root of 1729.03. Feynman coincidently knows a cubic foot has 1728 cubic inches so he knows the answer is 12.xxx. He then details how the 1.03 difference can be estimated at .002 and in short order he has 12.002 written down while the salesman is struggling just to come up with 12.0. Seeing Feynman ahead, he leaves in shame.
not wanting to break the magic for you, but most of feyman's stories about himself was way way exaggerated to make him feel like he was always way smarter than his fellows. He was definitely very smart, way smarter than any of us mere mortals. But if you read his books too much you'll believe he was surrounded by lesser ones, which is not true
@@astropgn Actually it's quite the contrary. Feynman specifically in this story told it to prove that what seemed like superior intelligence was merely coincidence. I don't know what books you think you read but all I have show Feynman to be quite humble and intent on showing his apparent intelligence was ordinary hard work and luck. But go on give some examples...
Yeah,, I'm a grad student right now and it's very often the case that when someone solves a problem at an impossible speed, they either solved a similar problem before, or they used an approach that's extremely different from what you're trying. I've had an easy time in undergrad and grad physics this way, simply because I knew more math. I know a bit of functional analysis, not nearly enough to claim I know it to a mathematician without blushing, but enough to recognize it when it's used and see the 'big picture' because it's more or less an extension of lin alg. This barebones knowledge made me so much better in all my physics classes, because I don't think of Fourier expansions or infinite series as ersatz solutions, I think of them as vectors and basis expansions, and it makes a world of difference. Feynman is the poster child for this: advocating for his 'different set of tools' Even math research works this way. Very rarely does a big question get solved out of the blue, if at all. First you work on special cases and related problems to gain intuition for the problem. Then you realize why your solution can't be extended to the general case, so you repeat the process to find a solution that will extend to the general case. Without that experience, you're not getting anywhere. Furthermore, many problems are actually solved laterally: you borrow tools from other fields of math, or from scientists or engineers, and recast your problem in that new light, which often leads to a solution. That's why working on related problems is important. And then you have people like John Neumann who you'd think use different methods because of how fast and powerful they are, but no, they're just that good.
Imagine getting to say that you wanted to become a theoretical physicist from Princeton and then just dip and become one of the richest men in the world.
People are taking the wrong message from this. The real message is how problems in the real world are solved. Most problems that we marvel at are not solved by raw creativity, but rather by pattern recognition: by mapping new problems to already solved problems.
no, they're not getting the wrong message. the most obvious human message here is to be honest with yourself and your abilities and to allocate your resources where they fit best. you will never outperform someone who was born with a universe-given talent in mathematics (or whatever else). no matter how much work you put in. but you maybe have abilities that godly mathematician doesn't have and it would be a shame to let them go to waste just to make a point. yours is quite an important point too though. edit: unless it's your passion of course. then you should probably follow it regardless of whether you have talent or not. as long as you're good enough to sustain your life with it.
Still story is kinda funny, but it’s mostly depressing. As a burgeoning mathematician, I’ve seen several friends drop out of my master’s program precisely because I solved a problem they couldn’t solve. Some have had serious existential crises just trying to cope with this. If you are currently experiencing this, then I’d like to tell you: you don’t need to be the greatest in your field to still love that field. Despite being one of the top students in my program, I recognize I will never be as great as those mathematicians whose skills have been crafted from birth and whose brains were so meticulously molded by chance to be optimal for mathematics. Nonetheless, I love mathematics, and I will contribute what little I can for the pure joy of being apart of something bigger. I’ll never be the best, or even the top 100, but nothing will stop me from doing what I love, and I would encourage you to do the same.
@@GT-tj1qg That's essentially what Bezos's friend said. In fact it might be even more humble, since seeing a specific problem that happened to be similar to their problem could have been a coincidence, while having put in an ungodly amount of hours into studying math might appear supernatural.
@@GT-tj1qg For real. It's especially important for people to realise it's not a competition of innate mathematical ability. That millenium prize problem was solved by a mathematician who just happened to have expertise in all the areas needed to solve the problem that very few if any others had on the planet. You don't need to compete with anyone when you're driving your research and playing to your strengths. I've tried explaining the (in my opinion very simple) ideas underpinning my research to my "genius" math friends in physics, and they just stare at me blankly. In fact they often have as much insight as people outside of physics. At least in my area, being able to hold those concepts in your head to drive your research is incredibly important. Sure if I come across maths that I'm rusty on it slows me down, but it's certainly not worth as much as you would think coming away from university coursework.
All my drop out friends have a similar story. Which is why I always tell junior students I used to be confused just like they are, it is just a natural part of academic life. The same thing applies to pretty much everything else in life, everything looks/feels difficult until it is not. Many of my friends realized it too late in life to go back to collage, I hope this video will not "inspire" more people to make the wrong choice.
Yes, all I get from this video is that because someone had solved a similar problem 3 years before and knew how it was done, he felt that he wasn't the best of the best anymore, which he couldn't accept. He needed to be the best. I wonder if he got upset when at some point Elon musk became richest man instead of him.
I'm not particulary good at math but I'm still going for a master soon and had not even done any math homework at the age of 23 (hs drop out). I'm never gonna be a researcher or an advanced mathematician. BUT damn has it thaught me to think and am I planning to get smarter with it! So yea, the important message here for me is that he was not the best but he was still taught how to think abstractically and used that like a champ to say the least. Hopefully I can be the best at something completely differentin in 10 years lol
This is the issue with partial differential equations. There's literally no method to the madness - it's just a bunch of tricks that somehow work into a solution. Anyone who pretends otherwise is kidding themselves.
Meanwhile Yashanta: "Let me tell you about this one time when my dad set up a lemonade stand for me... that's when I knew I'd never become a salesman so I'd better get good a Maths and Physics".
I assume there’s some truth to the story, but not the solution. Simply ‘cosine’ isn’t a solution. It would be like saying the answer to an expression was “plus”.
I had a similar experience. Years ago I was enrolled in a graduate math program at a prestigious university. I was taking a course in abstract algebra, and I had posed a question to myself about group theory. I filled up three notebooks with attempts at a solution and got nowhere. One evening I'm walking back from class to the subway station with a fellow student, a guy I had reason to think was brilliant, and I tell him about the problem I'm trying to solve. He says, "Hmm. That's interesting. Let's see . . ." And as we're walking together, he's thinking out loud . . . and in about 30 seconds he's got the solution, doing it all in his head. That was the moment I knew I'd never be a creative mathematician, and that my talents lay elsewhere.
Great story. I have a similar one during the one year I spent in graduate school in physics before figuring out it wasn’t for me. I was taking the required mathematical methods for physicists class that all first year physics graduate had to take. In that class was one undergraduate kid who we quickly determined who is the smartest person in the class. I remember one day the professor was doing some very intricate problem on the blackboard and I was trying to take notes and process what he was saying all at the same time, as was everyone else. But this one kid was just sitting there with his arms crossed staring at the board. The professor noticed this and asked him, “don’t you think you should be writing this down?” The undergraduate’s response: “No, I don’t need to.” The scary part was that it was true. I knew after meeting this guy that I wasn’t cut out for this line of work.
@@RCmies incorrect. People’s brain are trained differently. Genetics may have a factor, but how you develop your own brain and thinking greatly influences your perspective on numerous things.
I think you’ll only reach a high level in physics if you have that passion to want to know how the universe ticks. No matter what set backs you have you’ll always keep going no matter what. Not being able to solve one problem doesn’t define anyone.
@@htchamber2776 IMO that's very exaggerated and incorrect, physics is pretty much (almost like mike said) science wich studies the universe and how it ticks, saying it's useless math is just incorrect.
@@troyharder7337 good response. I remember some friends saying to me studying maths is pointless and useless in the real world. It’s funny because they sent me the message using a mobile phone which they use daily. Which I’m going to go out on a whim and say the technology behind using phones is heavily maths based. Just like the video games they waste their time on uses a hell of a lot of maths. I could go on!
I expected the story to go like: "I paid the smartest guy in my university 10 dollars for solving a problem impossible for me, that's when I realized I should be an entrepreneur"
@@Terranova339 Elon Musk does that and has said it in several videos. Of course if the problems are simple as in average entrepreneurship, there is no point in paying smart people.
@@MarlonBitoy Rules of Capitalism do apply in academia in Capitalist countries, unfortunately. In Soviet Russia, yes, buying someone's solution would've been a serious offence. You could ask for help, and giving help was also encouraged, but you weren't allowed to buy or sell it. In Capitalist Russia, however, buying someone else's homework, coursewoks and even entire thesis is a frequent deal. It's terrible, but that's how Capitalism is, it twistes everything it touches. In fact, I personally know many students who buy every single coursework every single year, sometimes even with their parents' money.
There is a similar anecdote about Feynman I believe. He inadvertently saw the question before it was posed and he managed to solve it. By the time it was presented, he went up and dazzled the audience by solving such a difficult problem in a matter of seconds.
@Kaptein Kok I'm graduating in June. In any physics class, it can easily take three hours. It can take an entire day. Having said that, if it takes too long, you go to the TAs for help.
@@justinbrah627 I’m not proud of this, but I rarely spend over 10 minutes before going online… then not finding the solution online since every textbook solution site is now behind a paywall
I believe that in maths and physics, especially at the higher levels, it is more important to be able to sit with a difficult question for a long time, go through the process and be able to eventually figure it out. It is very impressive to have the application exhibited by Yashantha but I don't think that it is what will make someone a good mathematician or physicist. I think that it is a slow uphill battle where you need to try out the different methods that you have and are good at. This is just my view and takes no credit away from Yashantha and the pattern recognition ability that he displays. It is certainly important but I don't think that will take you to the edge of our knowledge of maths and physics so I don't believe that this would be the only thing that caused Bezos to stop, simply because one person could remember a question they had previously answered and possibly struggled with then.
Yeah but what people seem to not notice is. Bezos say’s he is “smart”. However, he says he saw this question 3 years ago. If you have seen a problem similar to it, it’s easy. It comes down to practice and not intelligence, he didn’t just guess or anything, it’s practice, to be the best or top you have to put in the hours, just like Yoshanta did to recognise. It’s just like chess, you play it so much you see the patterns again and again or just like past papers. It’s simple, why blow stuff of as “smarts” when you can be the best by putting in the work.
Well, one thing is to tackle problems appearing in the study process, yet another thing is to tackle problems appearing in research. They are practically totally unrelated. If you can solve your research problem by applying something from your former study problem sets, then that is nice in terms of efficiency, but probably quite boring research as well.
I disagree. At such high level, raw intelligence is the key. Even Einstein was frustrated that he did not know enough math to have a unified theory for physics. Einstein basically published all his ground breaking papers in his youth, and for the rest of his life, he pretty much struggled.
You know that 3 years ago thing is a good analogy for percieved intelligence. Instead of raw brain power, intelligence is more the ability to make connections between distant things. It's the ability to draw on past experience, and transfer it to the present situation. Oftentimes I feel like a fraud when I solve a problem, because I've just solved similar problems before (bonus points if it wasn't even me that came up with the solution). But that's pretty much how intelligence works. It's less so about finding the solution, and more about asking the right question. However, I'd argue Bezos was being too hard on himself in this situation, since he didn't have the same experience as the other dude. Then again, that's probably indicative of a lack of real passion for the field. When you're really interested in something, you pursue it under your own fruition, and it's easy to remember.
Heritability of IQ is 60% in childhood 80 % in adulthood. Wilson effect is the phenomenon where IQ becomes more genetic as you age. Google the fadeout effect for a metanalysis on how attempts made to meet parity between kids of different SES levels; failed to see it last into adulthood.
That's not how intelligence works IMO, that's what I'd call being book smart. Intelligence would be being able to solve problems without having solved any similar previous problems, where your thinking must be purely original. And it's not bad to be book smart of course, but I think there's a massive difference between the two.
Reminds me of an electricity and magnetism problem during my college physics studies. I asked one of the smarter students for help with the problem and he magically pulled out a trig function out of nowhere to solve the problem. In hindsight, it's so obvious, but in the moment? Not so much. He's since went on to complete his Physics PhD.
@@trongtue8384 What do you exactly mean by good background? I mean when teachers skim over obscure details and dont even tell you to remember them for the test. Bad teaching.
Perhaps you helped that smarter student and gave him the confidence to go get the PhD. There are many people who don’t have the confidence or determination unless something sparked him or her the demonstrate it.
I had a very similar experience and I'm so glad I changed career tracks. I've found my passion in food and fun, and have no regrets at all in my current role as Head Cheeser at my local Papa John's.
That is why you are getting nowhere, you should have just told your topper do it and realising you can't do should have started the billionaire journey by today you might have been become millionaire
@@jasondads9509 I was referring to the point that he didn't make progress for 3 hours. This is a common thing that you get stuck for hours or days till you find the next step to solve a problem.
@@krzysztof6123 I think they mean that you should never give up because you’re not literally at the par of the best person within one of the best universities in the world, the story was told mostly as a funny story and not a lesson one, i’m sure there are actually greater reasons that he left the field but it probably wont make a funny story
@@talalalhu true that. But at the same time u need an objective view of of things and question if what ur doing is what u really want so u don't end up like the rest who quit. Also don't set the bar too high for you too handle.
He's right about partial differential equations and I was in that same position as well, working on one problem for 3 hrs....I later became a medical doctor.
@Alpha Omega Yep. I'm in my second year of physics graduate school and every class has made me realize how watered down my undergraduate education was.
In CS for algorithm interview practice sometime you have to spend 10 hours solving/coding one question. Once you crack it, you can code 10 similar questions in 3-4 hours. Persistence is really the key in breaking mental barriers.
@@shivam.maharshi exactly, in learning programming, every task has the potential to be an all day affair. I'm soon graduating and programming has taught me how limited our time is and that we can't learn everything but only a few things we choose to focus on in our lifetime. Time is so precious..
I was once stuck on a problem in my maths class. I couldn't solve it and dreamt about how to get it done. The next day I used the formula in my dream to solve the question and also discovered that the formula I had supposedly invented was already there in the book 😂. I think it was a formulae to calculate the diagonals of an n sided polygon. I was in 5th or 6th grade.
as someone who finished high school not just on top of my class but the and entire school district it was extremely humbling to come across people in a whole other league of intellect
I entered college as a biochem major for med school. 4 years later, I graduated with an EE degree. Wild how I was striving to become a doctor only to end up as an engineer. I blame the MCAT for this.
It's amazing how intelligent you have to be to grapple with the most difficult physics questions...you can be brilliant at physics all through school and beginning college, and then you seemingly just hit a wall lol.
Someday everyone will know advanced physics. Just as today many high schoolers take physics and calculus, a thousand years ago teenagers did not. So a thousand years from now most teenagers will learn what today seems very advanced. Everyone will essentially have high level scientific and engineering knowledge as a default. Which will be necessary as humans become space faring.
@@nofurtherwest3474 dude, i highly doubt that given the level of stupidity in our race, good scientists/researchers are like 0.00001% of populations, without them we'll be in dark ages in months..
@@nofurtherwest3474 We don't need all people to know advanced science. We need people to work in all various fields from cooking to cleaning the street. That's why no one should be ashamed to not be the smartest person, we are all usefull to some extent (ok some people are useless). We are all contributing to the progress of humanity. Although, what you said is, i think, quite true. If we automize a lot of activities we maybe will have more people doing research.
I once took a class and felt bad that I was the dumbest one in the class. But 6 out of the 10 kids were math olympiad gold medalists who had been doing math since they were young kids
just because he's a billionaire doesn't mean he's right about everything. early specialization isn't the main variable. if you like what you do, the average career is 80,000 hours. That should be enough to make it to the frontier of your field or at least know it well enough to apply it to industry.
I wanted to do pure mathematics. On the way, I had an advanced calculus class (like calc 6, if one is counting, even though sequence loses meaning at that point; but it was an upper division class). What got to me was when a high school freshman was taking the course, doing better than everyone, while I was staying up nights and working for days on the five or six homework questions we got every week or two. It was rough to meet my limit. I still passed with a good grade and finished my math minor, but that class was the toughest I have taken, by far, even through graduate school in atmospheric science.
@@absolutezero6190 I heard it called "Analysis 2" a few times in there. It didn't help that I never took the preceding course; it wasn't listed as a prerequisite. We used Fleming's "Functions of Several Variables", a funny yellow book that caught people's eye, perhaps because I was always fretting over it. The bulk of the course was spent proving calculus stuff in an arbitrary number of finite dimensions. So I got jumped into topology and manifolds and chaos theory while in there, too. It was a whole lot more than I bargained for in my first math class out of community college. The professor was a wonderful person, very brilliant and patient and understanding. He was really inspiring even though I was hanging on by my fingernails. The next semester, I did some independent study type of work with him related to chaos theory and attractors (specifically the Lorenz attractor) since I am in the atmospheric sciences and chaos and the "Butterfly Effect" are big things in numerical weather and climate prediction. It was a great experience, but super challenging.
@@Krranski that's really cool. I'm excited but nervous to learn some of that stuff in college. I have one of those yellow books myself, and I started trying to read it, but it's so dry and formal that it became quite difficult. Plus the exercises can range from "really easy" to "you can spend days and not get anywhere," and since there are no solutions, you feel kind of like an idiot lol
@@absolutezero6190 Have a good time learning it! Seriously, it can be a blast, even if you only can barely keep up. It took me a HUGE amount of time, but I still loved it because I enjoyed learning the material. And I totally agree with you on the text and exercises. The writing is about as concise as one can be, with almost no examples, and I found the problems to be exactly as you describe lol. Truly, I sometimes spent a few days on a single problem, sometimes never answering them completely. So, you're not alone. Make friends in the class, if you can (I had a hard time with that, tbh; I am extremely reserved in person). But even if you feel like an idiot and are not the "best" in the class (however that is defined), take time to enjoy learning the secrets of this powerful language used to describe reality! I am excited for you. Also, congrats on getting as far as you have. I know it can be a real struggle and even scary at times. Good work. :-)
@@Krranski Thank you, really. I appreciate the response. I do really enjoy it, and I think it's important to remind myself from time to time that there will always be someone better than me at whatever subject I pursue. But that doesn't make it not worth doing. The experience is why you keep going, not whether you can "win." On another note, I think from a pedagogical standpoint the dryness is absolutely terrible. Yes, it's efficient and compact, but that doesn't mean it's good at teaching anything. With these formal texts I often lose the motivation or context behind the abstract definitions, and so I'm left alone guessing at why someone would possibly want to create such a thing. I think it would be much more fruitful, even at the cost of efficiency, to know the background, motivation, context, etc before learning the content, because it gives meaning and purpose to everything. Without that information, the book is nothing but an encyclopedia, a catalog, in an empty void. Ok sorry for all that ranting, lol.
This was incredibly relieving to hear. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who struggles with academics, especially in these upper level STEM courses. Good to know this is just apart of it.
Nobody is born with the ability to solve differential equations that fast. He just needs more practice in solving math problems. It's just people have priority to get a job or start a business.
Listen carefully what bezos said at the end...he said that he realized that he couldnt ever be a GREAT theoretical physicist. He couldve easily become a theoretical physicist, just not a great one. Cuz you see, people who ARE born with the ability to grasp hard concepts such as differential equations quickly are the ones who go on to become scientific legends. Bezos couldnt solve the question in 3 hours and thats when he realized that he didnt have the mental ability to become a theoretical physicist who would actually accomplish something great. It was wise of him to quit after that. Lets be honest, anybody can grasp any concept given enough time. But only people who grasp hard concepts quickly become legends in their respective fields. Others who take a lot of time just become average or at most above average in their field...and to be frank, life for a "just average" theoretical physicist isnt a great one
@@aman-qj5sx So is no person is born with a natural ability to grasp certain concepts more easily than other people do? or are you just disagreeing for the sake of it?
same with my programming path. at first I didn't even think I could do it. Now it's a year and a half later, I do it for a living, in another year and a half, I hope to be great. by practicing everyday a lot
IQ level matters most in the physics and mathematics fields. Newton, Euler, Gauss, Riemann, Fourier, Einstein, Turing, Van Neuman all had something in common. High IQ levels. Maths and physics aren't never meant for the average human beings such as Bezoz. I am glad he quit. Someone who can't solve a trigonometric partial differential equation within three hours has no right to be a theoretical physicist. He'd be good doing other things requiring no IQ like getting into business as what Bezoz did.
It's an interesting story and there's probably more to Bezos' decision than this moment, but in my opinion this is a bad perspective. Some of the greatest minds in physics were not known to be quick thinkers. If anything, this type of quick thinking is usually indicative of a great engineer.
@@BlueCosmology actually it is off most importance. Is not that you need to know previous problem by heart, but you need to recognize those patterns. There is no such thing pure creative brilliance, but transformation of previous knowledge ( except from some few exceptions). I think Bezos ommited It's complete thought process, but he probably realized he was really good at solving problems but lacked the profound understanding to be a proficient phycisit
@@BlueCosmology I get what you are saying, and I completely agree that knowing integral tables, or certain family of polynomials by heart, book reference stuff is not useful at all besides knowing they exists. Said that, when you attack real research problems, where there is no reference, catching those mathematical pattern ( a thing a computer can't give you insight yet, just spit convoluted expression) is paramount! I'm talking off personal experience, having a master in physics and wrote my thesis on quantum heat engines. There is a phrase by Landau: to solve a physics problem, you need to know the answer first. And that's the intuition you get from previous problem and the creativity of relate seemlesly unrelated problem. That's what the Sri Lankan dude did, not applying a table from a reference book
I guess we all have a moment in life with a similar situation. Mine was playing chess as a beeginer when I was 18 years old. 8 years old players defeated me very easily, even when I was studying and practicing a lot. Dedicate my time to other things and I don't regret now
Maybe that yosanto guy faced the same thing kept trying for hours took breaks but just didn't give up and finally came up with the answer.. and then he was able to solve jeff's problem instantly only because he worked through that previous problem and recognised the similar pattern of the problem.
You don't get the point. Nobody become someone if he did not put on hours. the question for everyone of us is are you ready to put on same amount of hours?
@@jatinsinghyadav5941 such bs logic. By believing in that statement, you're putting a ceiling on your potential. You judge your intelligence based on a controversial test which has rarely translated into meaningful results. Dream big and act on it, don't stop until it is done. And don't forget to take help along the way. That's how to live life!
@@gokuafrica some things are just truth .it's best to realize your strength and weakness and realize your limits.the thing about romanticising your dreams and passions don't always work in real life.iq doesn't mean everything but it means something,people should know that
Well, Bezos obviously wanted to be one of the very best at what he does. He just said that he likes a lot of things: CS, Electrical engineering, Physics. But most important to him is to be the best. He made a smart decision
@@Stefan-vz7op yep that is my takeaway too. Bezos might not have been destined to be a theorist at MIT, but he could definitely still have been hired as a physicist somewhere. He wanted to be the very best though. Personally I think it is worth doing what you love even if you aren’t the best - maybe why I’m not the richest man
One of my friends is a physics buff, so I had the advantage with coming to terms with my inability to do well in physics early into high school (I still got 4’s on both AP Physics C exams tho, i wanted to leave this subject on a high note)
Same for a friend of mine who wanted to become a pro golfer . When he was 18 after playing since he was 8 and won a lot of regional trophies in Europe a young 12 years old who just started playing at weekends just smashed the record he himself established in his club . He understood he will never be an international player and just carry on to play but in a recreational mode while starting college.
Makes sense! Theoretical physics is about how quickly scientists can solve arbitrary made up partial different equations (artifically created by teachers to have unrealisticly simple end results). Basically, the other guy had spent a lot of time on a similar problem so he remember the solution and he saw the pattern to solve it quickly... College problems are made this way. If you know the pattern they are easy if you don't they are super hard (because they are made by the teacher to look for a specific pattern) Great story and fun but not a good reason to quit. Bezos quit because he had a better opportunity not because of this silly reason.
Yeah that’s what I thought too, the guy solved the problem because he had seen a similar one, he’s probably very smart but it doesn’t mean Bezos couldn’t do the same if he had seen the similar problem too.
yes but its the fact its from 3 years ago, which is impressive. He is still able to map out and identify pattern, from questions 3 years ago. Idk about you, but i certainly cant do that, especially by how bezos framed it: looked at it, and gave the answer.
yeah. also he is more of a experimentalist rather than theoretical physicist. normally theoretical physicist donot take engineering or computer science classes. they are normally heavily invested in quantum mechanics, relativity, maths and stats.
you know what's wild is I remember doing this problem in school myself. I couldn't solve it and looked at the solution and couldn't believe it. It's just out of this world.
i was working for a week on a non trivial inverse laplace transform using complex analysis techniques , a lot of branch cuts and high order poles, indeed physics problems can be very tedious
When realizing his weakness is what unlocked his greatest strength. The philosophy of this story is quite beautiful really. Even for the richest man in the world, there is always a bigger fish in some waters. Realizing and accepting that can be powerful.
Wait until you get to the addition of angular momentum section in quantum and the professor won't let you use the clebsch-gordan coefficients chart. It isn't hard once you know how to do it, but it's the knowing how to do it is the hard part. LMAO
I imagine it enters many Physics majors' mind that Einstein did very well in most of his graduate physics classes but still couldn't immediately get a faculty position upon graduation.
This is so true. I'm sure many of us have had moments in life where we meet someone who is perfectly tailored for a path that we're on and helps us realize that we're going the wrong way.
And that is precisely why I deviated from going into the profession of MMA, I thought I was pretty good and considered going all in on it until I started training with a pro camp that was preping fighters for professional bouts. I immediately realized the difference between someone like me who was just decently well trained and motivated vs more gifted athletes who where born for the craft, armed with inherent genetic advantages. When you're trying your 110% best and the person next to you proceeds to clown you while barely trying at all, it's like a super loud BANG that wakes you up from the dream. Then you find out that those "gifted" people aren't even in the upper part of the spectrum of the REAL "gifted" people, that's the moment you consider a new career.
The biggest takeaway here is that certain people are just better at doing certain things or performing certain tasks. Know your strengths, know your weaknesses. Don’t try to force yourself into something you know you aren’t good at. Imagine a society where everyone played to their strengths and delegating tasks went to the person most qualified and suitable with a mastery for that task.
You would need to have good compensation and benefits for all jobs for that to happen. People choose to go into fields that are above their intellectual capabilities in hopes of making good money and living a life of dignity because the jobs that would fit their abilities and talents don’t pay very well. As long as the society doesn’t see labor as being valuable, this will never change.
@@MrCmon113not necessarily. Stephen Hawking was a genius and is one of the best theoretical physicists of all time. He also cheated with his nurse, who happened to be the wife of the guy who developed his speech synthesizer (his voice). Would you ever work for a boss like that? There's a difference between management and leadership; the second is a lot harder than the first but you need both to operate at a high level.
Not sure about that. A certain resistance makes you grow. If you are not good at something, but challenge yourself, you can get better at it. It's not unlimited, but can still be very rewarding. People, who have a talent, and for which everything is easy going, are often not succeeding, because they have troubles to persist in tasks which they conceive as being too simple and boring for them. Persistence is, as far as I know, a better predictor for success, than IQ.
I was majored in physics, and I told similar story to a lot of my friends😂 “That one time the class average was 31 and that one kid who was 14 got full credit on the test, and he finished the test, which suppose to take 4 hour, in 49 minutes. Like yeah, if you write none-stop it’ll take around 35 minutes.” And now, I’m in mechanical engineering. 🤷🏻♂️
today someone commented i should delete all videos :( people can be so mean. but i dont care. i know im the best. i never give up. i am age 80+ and will never stop. thanks for caring, dear eli
Ok so I loved music especially played my auto sax in highschool. I was first chair all district by practicing everyday on the piece which everyone is going to be judged on. My friend Ben, the most talented musician in the state looked at it for a minute, and played it with more depth than I could comprehend. I was floored, and understood immediately that I am no musician.
I used to have the same situation in my classes in math. People are thinking that I do them on my head but since I solved a lot of problems I would see similarities between questions and solve them easily. I am not saying I’m smart or neither is Yosantha it’s just hardwork.
@@useruser-jd3ed not true at all, most graduates from mit and t=other tech uni's have come on financial aid, sure there are a few exceptions, money shouldn't be the problem to study as there is everything one needs to get a good education online. People go to uni's to get an official degree that is universally recognized.
As an electrical engineering graduate, I have no problem admitting that physics is the hardest college major. Had a really smart friend who majored in that and it brought him to a breaking point that he dropped out of the program and switched over to civil engineering. He was so happy he did that.
Happy for him. As a civil engineer, it's one of the most difficult engineerings, classic mechanics applied in real life situations. Not compared to quantum mechanics whatsoever
The physicists at my university make well over $250k a year from the school (not including speaking engagements, books etc). I think $250k is decent, but these professors are at one of the best colleges in the country (A level below BErkeley, Stanford, Princeton etc.)
There aren't any theoretical physicists, only theatrical physicists who have no clue what time is - ironically time is at the core of all their theories.
My dad was a chemical engineer and my brother was an electrical engineer. They were my Yosantas.. higher math seemed impossible then. But now 25 years later when I look at the math it doesn't seem so rough.... sometimes it just need s to absorb.
Tbh most potentials given in introductory QM courses allow for you separate variables in the appropriate coordinate systems. The rest you use approximation schemes
As a physics graduate I can't help but point out that most people in the comments did not get the message of the video. No, no...it's not about Bezos not being good at physics. He was trying to point out that many of humanity's problems are not solved by brilliant intelligence but by resourcefulness and skill acquired through experience. In fact, brilliance does not even come into play in most situations. It's only necessary at the level of the most elite researchers and inventors. For most other jobs, other qualities are more important.
I don't know how you being a physics graduate is important to "interpreting" this video. It's just Bezos telling his story on how he realized that being a Theoretical Physicist wasn't for him. Nothing more nothing less.
@@OldSpice605 being a physics graduate no. But having majored in something that requires very tough problem solving does. The whole anecdote of him solving the math problem by asking his TA for help and seeing the way he did it illustrates how resourcefulness will do much more for you than brilliant inteligence or in his case despairing over finding a solution to the problem himself. Most people who don't learn this life lesson at the college level often end up never learning it because life offers little opportunity for you to learn it past that point. That's why we have a cult for super smart people (Big Bang theory, Einstein jokes etc.) and find it hard to relate to them. Most of the time they don't overthink things as much as we think they do, but they are more practical than the majority of us.
Ditto. Became a lawyer when I realized there were others more gifted and more dedicated. However, over the decades physics advancements have become less individual genius and more large group collaboration rewarding organizational and social skills.
No joke, this is a true story. An ability to map your previous experience to make some physics problems even possible is a must. Best example would be every physicist seeing an coordinate-free PDE would in 1 ms find planar waves solution
never thought Jeff Bezos could make me laugh. Also didn't realize he was a low-key genius. I thought he just got rich by selling books out of his garage. my respect for him just went 📈📈📈
And that’s when he decided he’s going to open up an online bookshop, selling his old used physics books. And boy did he have a lot of physics books to sell.
😂 I mean my dads first purchase in 96 on Amazon was a computer science book
😂😂😂😂 👏👏
legends tell that he still sells those physics books
😂😂😂😂 epic
lol
Yashantha once got a receipt from Amazon.
After he had a look at it, everything crossed out and Amazon owes him the money he spent.
Richtiger schlingel
Underrated
*receipt?
Just saw a TikTok about a kid doing that
It's not YoSanta lmao. It's Yashantha
When I studied for a Ph.D. in physics, I met a fellow student called Brian Josephson. In discussion with him, I realized my understanding was so far behind that after my Ph.D., I gave up physics. Some 10 years later, Brian won the Nobel Prize. Meeting such people can be very daunting!
So it's not necessary that you are lagging behind. It always depends on what we are comparing with. You know better than me
Wait what?!
Why is it daunting?
can you elaborate on this a bit? It seems so interesting. What was it that he knew that made you realise you weren't at his level? Couldn't you just study a bit more of what he studied and catch up? I'm a medical student and I really don't think we have that - for us it's just about volume of information rather than the kind of depth of pure understanding you seem to be describing. If you could explain this phenomenon to be a bit more I'd be really interested.
Good point! Of course, I did not realize that Brian would win a Nobel prize at the age of 33. If I had not met him, I might have thought myself a reasonably good scientist, rather than inferior, and continued in physics.
Once upon a time in the 1970s in my college physics class my professor gave us a quiz. The quiz had three questions. We were all good enough at math to know that if we missed one problem it would result in a D. After a considerable amount of time had gone by and no one had turned in their quiz, one brave soul took his paper to the professor and showed it to him. “Oh!” He exclaimed. “Problem 3 can’t be solved.”
LoL
@gthompson58 That reminds me of an exercise in Serge Lang's famous (or infamous, depending on your POV) graduate-level textbook entitled simply "Algebra." At the end of Chapter VII there are nine problems for students to solve. The ninth of these is a problem about polynomials, which Lang prefaces with: "The answer to the following exercise is not known." 😂
That happened to me, complex variables exam, unsolvable integral in the exam found out after a couple hours
jeff: "bro, i'm dying! can you help me solve this?"
yasantha: "ASIAN ADVANTAGE, *ACTIVATE!"*
Yep. Happens a lot in maths classes as well..I always thought of such questions as to something professors working or interested in and an easy way for them to see if someone else has some insight is for students to be tested on it...
As someone who also studied physics, spending fruitless hours in a group on one math problem is definitely an authentic experience.
authentic?
If you spend 3 hours on one problem it's an easy one.
@@davidefilice5703 well 3 hours is pretty long but i get what u mean. The hardest math and physics problems can take days
@@davidefilice5703 so true. In my propulsion class it took a bunch of us 8 hours to solve a problem. That was a nightmare lol.
@@julianh1705 and decades.
Yashantha is the director of California Institute of Technology at present.
Not true exactly, he’s the director at MediaTek
He literally created an Indian cult.
@Milan Velky he is Sri Lankan that's Buddhists name.
@Milan Velky 1:06 he is a srilankan.
@Milan Velky lmao u wish
I'm going from physics into finance. Never thought I'd be leaving physics. It's heart breaking.
Did the same thing. My father taught me about two approaches to life, if you want to chill work with something you love so you can be around it, if you're extremely ambitious work where you can leverage your skillset best and enjoy your hobbies in your free time (with all your extra resources).
Traitor
@@hemmoau A sound advice indeed!
@@hemmoau excellent advice. You need to be useful first and
Make a decent living. All the rest you can do in your spare time.
At least you'll make decent money.
Fun fact: Even Yasantha didn't become a theoretical physicist. He is currently working as a Vice President of Research and AI
Analog Inference(Santa Clara County, California, United States ). This shows us how hard is to become a great theoretical physicist.
He probably could’ve made it if he wanted to… it is not hard to get into phd/post doc/tenure if you are top of the class in Princeton…. Maybe he just found other passion
@@koyaxkaymak2183 May be. A guy like him in a prestigious university can get easily get into a theoretical physics Ph.D. program. But previously I've talked about the level of Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Dirac etc; These guys were in a different level.
Yes it’s super hard. It’s almost playing in the NBA level hard. Guys who are able to complete a physics phd is already like 1% smart of all people, and probably only 1/10th of the best ones become a theoretical physicist.
@@johnnychang3456 less than 0.1% theoretical physics PhD graduates will become to the level of Shrodinger. There is a huge difference between solving a selected problem in a PhD vs Making a whole new working theory like Dirac equation or Uncertainty principle.
Yasantha has like 20+ patents to his credit.
Man, the amount of folk who thought they were good at physics that get the reality check at college is crazy. Good on Bezos for being honest about it!
I agree. College physics is a whole different ball game entirely
I too recieved this reality check.
I didn't. I get it now in my PhD!
@@YassoKuhl We will see...still in 4th year UG...going strong
I think it really isn't about being good at it. It is about perseverance; keep trying until you actually get it.
Just imagine if Yashantha would say “Yes I just did all in my mind” intentionally knowing that he just had that experience before. Oh boy, that would be totally different story! That’s why honesty is important virtue!
That's the sort of thing Richard Feynman would have done. He was notorious for pretending he had miraculously and intuitively solved a problem on the spot which he had actually worked out in detail earlier.
How hard is the problem?and what is it?
How different?
But remembering the core of a problem from three years ago is still impressive.
I disagree. Jeff Bezos would have still been turned off of physics.
I was great at math and physics. I loved it. I love how honest equations are, and how they can describe, infer, and estimate so many aspects of the world, the universe. But when I got to University and realised how many more hardcore people there are, and that a PhD would be a bare minimum to find work in this field. It awoke me.
"Well I guess it's time to learn JavaScript"
Yeah, I came here from a poor village and I don’t care how hard it would be for me to beat all of people like you and others in comments I will do that no matter cost I would pay for it. You never experienced hunger in your childhood probably and never saw the death in the eyes of your enemies, so left it for us and find a job somewhere there you will have competitive advantage. There’s millions people in the US who struggle like my family and it’s better for all of us if people like would care about them.
@@gaius-juliuscaesar3979 talk is cheap, let your actions do the talking.
@@DonLee1980 well you can’t see it through this platform, especially if we talk about math. Perelman even didn’t show up at the Noble Prize, when they gave him
@@gaius-juliuscaesar3979 Why can't we? Tell us about the problems you've solved, the progress you've made learning math or physics, I take you very seriously, and I know not to underestimate a determined person, but it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to work.
Jeff Bezos actually needed to ask one more question after "you didn't just do that in your head?". He should have asked him how long it took to solve the first problem. Bezos had only spent 3 hours on the problem. Perhaps the similar problem took Yashantha way longer to solve. Richard Feynman discussed a similar situation in the book "Classic Feynman" in a chapter called Lucky Numbers. He details having a duel with an abacus salesman where the salesman challenges to find the cube root of 1729.03. Feynman coincidently knows a cubic foot has 1728 cubic inches so he knows the answer is 12.xxx. He then details how the 1.03 difference can be estimated at .002 and in short order he has 12.002 written down while the salesman is struggling just to come up with 12.0. Seeing Feynman ahead, he leaves in shame.
not wanting to break the magic for you, but most of feyman's stories about himself was way way exaggerated to make him feel like he was always way smarter than his fellows. He was definitely very smart, way smarter than any of us mere mortals. But if you read his books too much you'll believe he was surrounded by lesser ones, which is not true
@@astropgn Actually it's quite the contrary. Feynman specifically in this story told it to prove that what seemed like superior intelligence was merely coincidence. I don't know what books you think you read but all I have show Feynman to be quite humble and intent on showing his apparent intelligence was ordinary hard work and luck. But go on give some examples...
you seem to have misunderstood the point/tone of the story
@@astropgnFeynman admitted to only having decently above average IQ
Yeah,, I'm a grad student right now and it's very often the case that when someone solves a problem at an impossible speed, they either solved a similar problem before, or they used an approach that's extremely different from what you're trying. I've had an easy time in undergrad and grad physics this way, simply because I knew more math. I know a bit of functional analysis, not nearly enough to claim I know it to a mathematician without blushing, but enough to recognize it when it's used and see the 'big picture' because it's more or less an extension of lin alg. This barebones knowledge made me so much better in all my physics classes, because I don't think of Fourier expansions or infinite series as ersatz solutions, I think of them as vectors and basis expansions, and it makes a world of difference. Feynman is the poster child for this: advocating for his 'different set of tools'
Even math research works this way. Very rarely does a big question get solved out of the blue, if at all. First you work on special cases and related problems to gain intuition for the problem. Then you realize why your solution can't be extended to the general case, so you repeat the process to find a solution that will extend to the general case. Without that experience, you're not getting anywhere. Furthermore, many problems are actually solved laterally: you borrow tools from other fields of math, or from scientists or engineers, and recast your problem in that new light, which often leads to a solution. That's why working on related problems is important.
And then you have people like John Neumann who you'd think use different methods because of how fast and powerful they are, but no, they're just that good.
Imagine getting to say that you wanted to become a theoretical physicist from Princeton and then just dip and become one of the richest men in the world.
Ikr I wish I could study physics like that
You mean the richest guy in the world
Says something about physicist
@@george45620 second richest after elon musk
@@Phoenix-nh9kt *Richest*
Elon is no longer in the top 3
People are taking the wrong message from this. The real message is how problems in the real world are solved. Most problems that we marvel at are not solved by raw creativity, but rather by pattern recognition: by mapping new problems to already solved problems.
yes, learning the process of solving seemingly insurmountable problems gets you there
Thats why a good portion of the IQ test is pattern recognition
no, they're not getting the wrong message. the most obvious human message here is to be honest with yourself and your abilities and to allocate your resources where they fit best. you will never outperform someone who was born with a universe-given talent in mathematics (or whatever else). no matter how much work you put in. but you maybe have abilities that godly mathematician doesn't have and it would be a shame to let them go to waste just to make a point. yours is quite an important point too though.
edit: unless it's your passion of course. then you should probably follow it regardless of whether you have talent or not. as long as you're good enough to sustain your life with it.
Pretty sure the message is that Bezos felt he was too stupid to be a good theoretical physicist. Idk thats kinda what i got
Every math class ever
Still story is kinda funny, but it’s mostly depressing. As a burgeoning mathematician, I’ve seen several friends drop out of my master’s program precisely because I solved a problem they couldn’t solve. Some have had serious existential crises just trying to cope with this.
If you are currently experiencing this, then I’d like to tell you: you don’t need to be the greatest in your field to still love that field. Despite being one of the top students in my program, I recognize I will never be as great as those mathematicians whose skills have been crafted from birth and whose brains were so meticulously molded by chance to be optimal for mathematics. Nonetheless, I love mathematics, and I will contribute what little I can for the pure joy of being apart of something bigger. I’ll never be the best, or even the top 100, but nothing will stop me from doing what I love, and I would encourage you to do the same.
Don't tell them whatever you just said.
Tell them this:
"I have just done a lot of maths, that's all. I've done thousands of hours of maths."
@@GT-tj1qg That's essentially what Bezos's friend said. In fact it might be even more humble, since seeing a specific problem that happened to be similar to their problem could have been a coincidence, while having put in an ungodly amount of hours into studying math might appear supernatural.
i have no special talents. i am only passionately curious - Albert Einstein
But it is demotivating though, everyone had an ego and some are too broken to continue.
@@GT-tj1qg For real. It's especially important for people to realise it's not a competition of innate mathematical ability. That millenium prize problem was solved by a mathematician who just happened to have expertise in all the areas needed to solve the problem that very few if any others had on the planet. You don't need to compete with anyone when you're driving your research and playing to your strengths. I've tried explaining the (in my opinion very simple) ideas underpinning my research to my "genius" math friends in physics, and they just stare at me blankly. In fact they often have as much insight as people outside of physics. At least in my area, being able to hold those concepts in your head to drive your research is incredibly important. Sure if I come across maths that I'm rusty on it slows me down, but it's certainly not worth as much as you would think coming away from university coursework.
All my drop out friends have a similar story. Which is why I always tell junior students I used to be confused just like they are, it is just a natural part of academic life. The same thing applies to pretty much everything else in life, everything looks/feels difficult until it is not. Many of my friends realized it too late in life to go back to collage, I hope this video will not "inspire" more people to make the wrong choice.
This is the way.
Yes, all I get from this video is that because someone had solved a similar problem 3 years before and knew how it was done, he felt that he wasn't the best of the best anymore, which he couldn't accept. He needed to be the best. I wonder if he got upset when at some point Elon musk became richest man instead of him.
I'm not particulary good at math but I'm still going for a master soon and had not even done any math homework at the age of 23 (hs drop out).
I'm never gonna be a researcher or an advanced mathematician.
BUT damn has it thaught me to think and am I planning to get smarter with it!
So yea, the important message here for me is that he was not the best but he was still taught how to think abstractically and used that like a champ to say the least.
Hopefully I can be the best at something completely differentin in 10 years lol
@@lurven666 good luck!
By "realized it too late", are you saying they SHOULD go back to college?
This is the issue with partial differential equations. There's literally no method to the madness - it's just a bunch of tricks that somehow work into a solution. Anyone who pretends otherwise is kidding themselves.
It is not an issue. This is the way
This can't be any truer.
Well if it was in introductory quantum mechanics, it was probably separable or solvable with a Fourier transform
Are you qualified to make a statement like this? (Not trying to be rude).
@@anantsharma7955 I think I am :D I'm currently studying theoretical quantum optics.
To paraphrase a snarky finance professor,
He wanted to become a physicist but instead became rich. Life just doesn’t work out for you sometimes.
did you get a finace degree?
@@geddon436 no I study in a completely different field, I paraphrased this video around the 4:10 mark
czcams.com/video/omgx5OjjwPo/video.html
I didn't know this until recently but the the most reliable way to make 500k/yr on Wall Street is to first get a PhD in math or physics
poor guy...
@@Derek.Mitchell Yeah but usually math PhDs have more interest in their subject rather than making money.
Meanwhile Yashanta:
"Let me tell you about this one time when my dad set up a lemonade stand for me... that's when I knew I'd never become a salesman so I'd better get good a Maths and Physics".
To each his own 🤣🤣🤣
The moment I knew I wasn’t gonna become a physicist is when I couldn’t complete the macaroni picture before recess.
That sounds like the answer to a fake math question in a Hollywood movie where the student reveals to the professor how secretly brilliant he is.
I assume there’s some truth to the story, but not the solution. Simply ‘cosine’ isn’t a solution. It would be like saying the answer to an expression was “plus”.
@@ArnoldBlues cos(x) probably
@@Pharomid yea like thats obvious....plus and cosine arent same
it isnt. pretty much all these advanced problems just have a bunch of stuff crossing out resulting in simple solution.
It's not your fault
I heard Yosantha once solved for the meaning of life.. it all crossed out and said ASK ALEXA.
Lmfao
You will get thousands of likes
LOL
LMAO
Whatever you choose it to be.
Done. Time to get back to making money.
I had a similar experience. Years ago I was enrolled in a graduate math program at a prestigious university. I was taking a course in abstract algebra, and I had posed a question to myself about group theory. I filled up three notebooks with attempts at a solution and got nowhere. One evening I'm walking back from class to the subway station with a fellow student, a guy I had reason to think was brilliant, and I tell him about the problem I'm trying to solve. He says, "Hmm. That's interesting. Let's see . . ." And as we're walking together, he's thinking out loud . . . and in about 30 seconds he's got the solution, doing it all in his head. That was the moment I knew I'd never be a creative mathematician, and that my talents lay elsewhere.
Great story. I have a similar one during the one year I spent in graduate school in physics before figuring out it wasn’t for me. I was taking the required mathematical methods for physicists class that all first year physics graduate had to take. In that class was one undergraduate kid who we quickly determined who is the smartest person in the class. I remember one day the professor was doing some very intricate problem on the blackboard and I was trying to take notes and process what he was saying all at the same time, as was everyone else. But this one kid was just sitting there with his arms crossed staring at the board. The professor noticed this and asked him, “don’t you think you should be writing this down?” The undergraduate’s response: “No, I don’t need to.” The scary part was that it was true. I knew after meeting this guy that I wasn’t cut out for this line of work.
I kinda think, if you were born to do something, you don't even need to go to university, you'll just absorb it from pure enthusiasm
People's brains work differently
@@RCmies incorrect. People’s brain are trained differently. Genetics may have a factor, but how you develop your own brain and thinking greatly influences your perspective on numerous things.
What if the dude already solved the problem and was trying to flex in front of you
As someone currently studying to become a theoretical physicist, I can relate to that experience, pain is definitely a part of the process
Same here, your comment made me laugh a little dad it’s definitely a painful process lol
I think you’ll only reach a high level in physics if you have that passion to want to know how the universe ticks. No matter what set backs you have you’ll always keep going no matter what. Not being able to solve one problem doesn’t define anyone.
The universe doesn’t rock on physics it’s just a bunch of useless math
@@htchamber2776 Do you also believe the earth is a dinner plate?
@@htchamber2776 IMO that's very exaggerated and incorrect, physics is pretty much (almost like mike said) science wich studies the universe and how it ticks, saying it's useless math is just incorrect.
@@htchamber2776 and this bunch of useless math allowed you to type that
@@troyharder7337 good response. I remember some friends saying to me studying maths is pointless and useless in the real world. It’s funny because they sent me the message using a mobile phone which they use daily. Which I’m going to go out on a whim and say the technology behind using phones is heavily maths based. Just like the video games they waste their time on uses a hell of a lot of maths. I could go on!
I expected the story to go like: "I paid the smartest guy in my university 10 dollars for solving a problem impossible for me, that's when I realized I should be an entrepreneur"
Thats not what an entrepreneur primarely does, you sound stupid
@@Terranova339 Elon Musk does that and has said it in several videos. Of course if the problems are simple as in average entrepreneurship, there is no point in paying smart people.
The rules of capitalism don’t apply to academics, Bezos would’ve been expelled or disciplined immediately
@@MarlonBitoy Rules of Capitalism do apply in academia in Capitalist countries, unfortunately.
In Soviet Russia, yes, buying someone's solution would've been a serious offence. You could ask for help, and giving help was also encouraged, but you weren't allowed to buy or sell it.
In Capitalist Russia, however, buying someone else's homework, coursewoks and even entire thesis is a frequent deal. It's terrible, but that's how Capitalism is, it twistes everything it touches. In fact, I personally know many students who buy every single coursework every single year, sometimes even with their parents' money.
@@awesomebearaudiobooks idk about courseworks, but I do know people who just bought a college seat with their parents' money
There is a similar anecdote about Feynman I believe. He inadvertently saw the question before it was posed and he managed to solve it. By the time it was presented, he went up and dazzled the audience by solving such a difficult problem in a matter of seconds.
I just whispered Yosanta and my dog became a math.
“3 hours” 😂 as if that’s a lot for a physics problem
Yeah I thought of that too. And he said it like it was a big deal, too.
He was in honors class in Princeton...
@Kaptein Kok ive spent 7 hours on a problem before. gave up and went on chegg.
@Kaptein Kok I'm graduating in June. In any physics class, it can easily take three hours. It can take an entire day. Having said that, if it takes too long, you go to the TAs for help.
@@justinbrah627 I’m not proud of this, but I rarely spend over 10 minutes before going online… then not finding the solution online since every textbook solution site is now behind a paywall
“... but what I was really great at was getting employees to piss in bottles and deficate in bags”
and that is amazing
NOT KIDDING
Talents are talents
WHAAAAT!? american employees even have to poo in bags?? There’s something not right about that 😂
@@LuthandoDlomo wdym? are you telling me employees don't defecate in bags? hmmm, I am surprised... :P
I do that without being employed.
Being an astrophysicist I can define this subject as a subject where you look at board for hours to solve why a ball rolls.
I believe that in maths and physics, especially at the higher levels, it is more important to be able to sit with a difficult question for a long time, go through the process and be able to eventually figure it out. It is very impressive to have the application exhibited by Yashantha but I don't think that it is what will make someone a good mathematician or physicist. I think that it is a slow uphill battle where you need to try out the different methods that you have and are good at. This is just my view and takes no credit away from Yashantha and the pattern recognition ability that he displays. It is certainly important but I don't think that will take you to the edge of our knowledge of maths and physics so I don't believe that this would be the only thing that caused Bezos to stop, simply because one person could remember a question they had previously answered and possibly struggled with then.
Yeah but what people seem to not notice is. Bezos say’s he is “smart”.
However, he says he saw this question 3 years ago. If you have seen a problem similar to it, it’s easy.
It comes down to practice and not intelligence, he didn’t just guess or anything, it’s practice, to be the best or top you have to put in the hours, just like Yoshanta did to recognise. It’s just like chess, you play it so much you see the patterns again and again or just like past papers. It’s simple, why blow stuff of as “smarts” when you can be the best by putting in the work.
u that dude in geohot's server
@@photoballaI think the thing that did it for Bezos was precisely that the boy had dealt with such problem THREE YEARS AGO, in high school.
Well, one thing is to tackle problems appearing in the study process, yet another thing is to tackle problems appearing in research. They are practically totally unrelated. If you can solve your research problem by applying something from your former study problem sets, then that is nice in terms of efficiency, but probably quite boring research as well.
I disagree. At such high level, raw intelligence is the key. Even Einstein was frustrated that he did not know enough math to have a unified theory for physics. Einstein basically published all his ground breaking papers in his youth, and for the rest of his life, he pretty much struggled.
You know that 3 years ago thing is a good analogy for percieved intelligence. Instead of raw brain power, intelligence is more the ability to make connections between distant things. It's the ability to draw on past experience, and transfer it to the present situation. Oftentimes I feel like a fraud when I solve a problem, because I've just solved similar problems before (bonus points if it wasn't even me that came up with the solution). But that's pretty much how intelligence works. It's less so about finding the solution, and more about asking the right question. However, I'd argue Bezos was being too hard on himself in this situation, since he didn't have the same experience as the other dude. Then again, that's probably indicative of a lack of real passion for the field. When you're really interested in something, you pursue it under your own fruition, and it's easy to remember.
Heritability of IQ is 60% in childhood 80 % in adulthood. Wilson effect is the phenomenon where IQ becomes more genetic as you age. Google the fadeout effect for a metanalysis on how attempts made to meet parity between kids of different SES levels; failed to see it last into adulthood.
That's not how intelligence works IMO, that's what I'd call being book smart. Intelligence would be being able to solve problems without having solved any similar previous problems, where your thinking must be purely original. And it's not bad to be book smart of course, but I think there's a massive difference between the two.
Exactly this
Kinda agree what you said
@@artomix7 your opinion doesn’t really matter
Reminds me of an electricity and magnetism problem during my college physics studies. I asked one of the smarter students for help with the problem and he magically pulled out a trig function out of nowhere to solve the problem. In hindsight, it's so obvious, but in the moment? Not so much. He's since went on to complete his Physics PhD.
I mean that shit happens so much tho, even in highschool math. Teachers always pull some shit like that.
@@honkhonk8009 yeah you easy to messed up when dont have a good background
@@trongtue8384 What do you exactly mean by good background?
I mean when teachers skim over obscure details and dont even tell you to remember them for the test. Bad teaching.
@@honkhonk8009 Oh that happen in my coutry as usually when teacher thought all the class are the same level as the student backgourd
Perhaps you helped that smarter student and gave him the confidence to go get the PhD. There are many people who don’t have the confidence or determination unless something sparked him or her the demonstrate it.
I had a very similar experience and I'm so glad I changed career tracks. I've found my passion in food and fun, and have no regrets at all in my current role as Head Cheeser at my local Papa John's.
Reminds me of the time i stumbled upon a chalk board with a mathematical equation while I was mopping the floor in a prestigious university..
Just 3 hours ? We had entire weekends of getting nowhere.
That is why you are getting nowhere, you should have just told your topper do it and realising you can't do should have started the billionaire journey by today you might have been become millionaire
Its not the 3 hours that was the issue, it was that his friend looked at it for 5 seconds and got the answer
@@jasondads9509
I was referring to the point that he didn't make progress for 3 hours.
This is a common thing that you get stuck for hours or days till you find the next step to solve a problem.
@@jasondads9509
He got the answer because he invested this time prior.
He said it was a question he already had solved prior to this.
@@Checkthisontube sometimes the right solution just pops in your head, but always when you can't have a pencil nearby xD
I hope a naive bright mind doesn't interpret this too literally
😏
Could you elaborate?
@@krzysztof6123 I think they mean that you should never give up because you’re not literally at the par of the best person within one of the best universities in the world, the story was told mostly as a funny story and not a lesson one, i’m sure there are actually greater reasons that he left the field but it probably wont make a funny story
@@talalalhu true that. But at the same time u need an objective view of of things and question if what ur doing is what u really want so u don't end up like the rest who quit. Also don't set the bar too high for you too handle.
True. We need more scientists in the world right now than ever before.
He's right about partial differential equations and I was in that same position as well, working on one problem for 3 hrs....I later became a medical doctor.
Exact moment which tells us what true love for a subject is vs wanting to succeed in it..
1 homework problem for three hours is interesting.
That was me in calc 2.
@@skyrat2594 😂🤣
@Alpha Omega Yep. I'm in my second year of physics graduate school and every class has made me realize how watered down my undergraduate education was.
In CS for algorithm interview practice sometime you have to spend 10 hours solving/coding one question. Once you crack it, you can code 10 similar questions in 3-4 hours. Persistence is really the key in breaking mental barriers.
@@shivam.maharshi exactly, in learning programming, every task has the potential to be an all day affair. I'm soon graduating and programming has taught me how limited our time is and that we can't learn everything but only a few things we choose to focus on in our lifetime. Time is so precious..
This sounds like a teacher i have. He told us When we got back our end of the year test that He had made up one of the questions in a dream He had.
LMAOOXDD
Bruh
I was once stuck on a problem in my maths class. I couldn't solve it and dreamt about how to get it done. The next day I used the formula in my dream to solve the question and also discovered that the formula I had supposedly invented was already there in the book 😂. I think it was a formulae to calculate the diagonals of an n sided polygon. I was in 5th or 6th grade.
It can happen because your brain is free from immediate distractions while you sleep.
as someone who finished high school not just on top of my class but the and entire school district it was extremely humbling to come across people in a whole other league of intellect
I entered college as a biochem major for med school. 4 years later, I graduated with an EE degree. Wild how I was striving to become a doctor only to end up as an engineer. I blame the MCAT for this.
Is EE easier than going into med school?
It's amazing how intelligent you have to be to grapple with the most difficult physics questions...you can be brilliant at physics all through school and beginning college, and then you seemingly just hit a wall lol.
Someday everyone will know advanced physics. Just as today many high schoolers take physics and calculus, a thousand years ago teenagers did not. So a thousand years from now most teenagers will learn what today seems very advanced. Everyone will essentially have high level scientific and engineering knowledge as a default. Which will be necessary as humans become space faring.
@@nofurtherwest3474 dude, i highly doubt that given the level of stupidity in our race, good scientists/researchers are like 0.00001% of populations, without them we'll be in dark ages in months..
A thousand years ago someone of your mindset would argue that everyone will eventually know how to write in Latin
@@nofurtherwest3474 We don't need all people to know advanced science. We need people to work in all various fields from cooking to cleaning the street. That's why no one should be ashamed to not be the smartest person, we are all usefull to some extent (ok some people are useless). We are all contributing to the progress of humanity.
Although, what you said is, i think, quite true. If we automize a lot of activities we maybe will have more people doing research.
@@adrien8572 nobody should be ashamed of not being smart, but it would be nice if the dumbest people did not overpower the smartest.
3h on a single problem? thats cute.
Regards, a theoretical phycisist
@@jabo0190 pffft no. He’s not a real physicist. Just a theoretical one.
@@jabo0190 In theory, he is.
@@JM1675 lmao
@@JM1675 theoretically
high horse boi
I once took a class and felt bad that I was the dumbest one in the class. But 6 out of the 10 kids were math olympiad gold medalists who had been doing math since they were young kids
Which class?
I think the lesson here is how important is mapping things in solving complex problems
Starting my Phys Degree next month and CZcams brings me here.
Hope you do it. I want to study physics in university.
just because he's a billionaire doesn't mean he's right about everything. early specialization isn't the main variable. if you like what you do, the average career is 80,000 hours. That should be enough to make it to the frontier of your field or at least know it well enough to apply it to industry.
Just remember cosine and you'll be fine
You can do it.
Good luck!!!!!
_”A mans gotta know his limitations”_ ~ Dirty Harry
Lol
Lol
I wanted to do pure mathematics. On the way, I had an advanced calculus class (like calc 6, if one is counting, even though sequence loses meaning at that point; but it was an upper division class). What got to me was when a high school freshman was taking the course, doing better than everyone, while I was staying up nights and working for days on the five or six homework questions we got every week or two. It was rough to meet my limit. I still passed with a good grade and finished my math minor, but that class was the toughest I have taken, by far, even through graduate school in atmospheric science.
was it analysis
@@absolutezero6190 I heard it called "Analysis 2" a few times in there. It didn't help that I never took the preceding course; it wasn't listed as a prerequisite. We used Fleming's "Functions of Several Variables", a funny yellow book that caught people's eye, perhaps because I was always fretting over it.
The bulk of the course was spent proving calculus stuff in an arbitrary number of finite dimensions. So I got jumped into topology and manifolds and chaos theory while in there, too. It was a whole lot more than I bargained for in my first math class out of community college.
The professor was a wonderful person, very brilliant and patient and understanding. He was really inspiring even though I was hanging on by my fingernails.
The next semester, I did some independent study type of work with him related to chaos theory and attractors (specifically the Lorenz attractor) since I am in the atmospheric sciences and chaos and the "Butterfly Effect" are big things in numerical weather and climate prediction. It was a great experience, but super challenging.
@@Krranski that's really cool. I'm excited but nervous to learn some of that stuff in college. I have one of those yellow books myself, and I started trying to read it, but it's so dry and formal that it became quite difficult. Plus the exercises can range from "really easy" to "you can spend days and not get anywhere," and since there are no solutions, you feel kind of like an idiot lol
@@absolutezero6190 Have a good time learning it! Seriously, it can be a blast, even if you only can barely keep up. It took me a HUGE amount of time, but I still loved it because I enjoyed learning the material.
And I totally agree with you on the text and exercises. The writing is about as concise as one can be, with almost no examples, and I found the problems to be exactly as you describe lol. Truly, I sometimes spent a few days on a single problem, sometimes never answering them completely. So, you're not alone. Make friends in the class, if you can (I had a hard time with that, tbh; I am extremely reserved in person).
But even if you feel like an idiot and are not the "best" in the class (however that is defined), take time to enjoy learning the secrets of this powerful language used to describe reality!
I am excited for you. Also, congrats on getting as far as you have. I know it can be a real struggle and even scary at times. Good work. :-)
@@Krranski Thank you, really. I appreciate the response. I do really enjoy it, and I think it's important to remind myself from time to time that there will always be someone better than me at whatever subject I pursue. But that doesn't make it not worth doing. The experience is why you keep going, not whether you can "win."
On another note, I think from a pedagogical standpoint the dryness is absolutely terrible. Yes, it's efficient and compact, but that doesn't mean it's good at teaching anything. With these formal texts I often lose the motivation or context behind the abstract definitions, and so I'm left alone guessing at why someone would possibly want to create such a thing. I think it would be much more fruitful, even at the cost of efficiency, to know the background, motivation, context, etc before learning the content, because it gives meaning and purpose to everything. Without that information, the book is nothing but an encyclopedia, a catalog, in an empty void.
Ok sorry for all that ranting, lol.
This was incredibly relieving to hear. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who struggles with academics, especially in these upper level STEM courses. Good to know this is just apart of it.
are you sure you got his message? if you're struggling in what someone is not then quit it and do something else
@@argynkuketayev4166 If the whole world was thinking that way, we would still be living in caves.
@@rysiokowalski7194 au contraire, we'd be more productive if people developed their talents instead of struggling pointlessly
I think I know what the problem is
Nobody is born with the ability to solve differential equations that fast. He just needs more practice in solving math problems. It's just people have priority to get a job or start a business.
Listen carefully what bezos said at the end...he said that he realized that he couldnt ever be a GREAT theoretical physicist. He couldve easily become a theoretical physicist, just not a great one. Cuz you see, people who ARE born with the ability to grasp hard concepts such as differential equations quickly are the ones who go on to become scientific legends. Bezos couldnt solve the question in 3 hours and thats when he realized that he didnt have the mental ability to become a theoretical physicist who would actually accomplish something great. It was wise of him to quit after that. Lets be honest, anybody can grasp any concept given enough time. But only people who grasp hard concepts quickly become legends in their respective fields. Others who take a lot of time just become average or at most above average in their field...and to be frank, life for a "just average" theoretical physicist isnt a great one
@@Struggler_5 great answer man
@@aman-qj5sx So is no person is born with a natural ability to grasp certain concepts more easily than other people do? or are you just disagreeing for the sake of it?
same with my programming path. at first I didn't even think I could do it. Now it's a year and a half later, I do it for a living, in another year and a half, I hope to be great. by practicing everyday a lot
IQ level matters most in the physics and mathematics fields. Newton, Euler, Gauss, Riemann, Fourier, Einstein, Turing, Van Neuman all had something in common. High IQ levels. Maths and physics aren't never meant for the average human beings such as Bezoz. I am glad he quit. Someone who can't solve a trigonometric partial differential equation within three hours has no right to be a theoretical physicist. He'd be good doing other things requiring no IQ like getting into business as what Bezoz did.
It's an interesting story and there's probably more to Bezos' decision than this moment, but in my opinion this is a bad perspective. Some of the greatest minds in physics were not known to be quick thinkers. If anything, this type of quick thinking is usually indicative of a great engineer.
@@aman-qj5sx These sort of parlour tricks really are not even useful to being a good scientist, let alone important.
@@BlueCosmology actually it is off most importance. Is not that you need to know previous problem by heart, but you need to recognize those patterns. There is no such thing pure creative brilliance, but transformation of previous knowledge ( except from some few exceptions). I think Bezos ommited It's complete thought process, but he probably realized he was really good at solving problems but lacked the profound understanding to be a proficient phycisit
@ཀཱ that's right, but everyone sees patterns, especially when they dont exist. Seems proper judgment to tell an actual pattern is significant.
@@BlueCosmology I get what you are saying, and I completely agree that knowing integral tables, or certain family of polynomials by heart, book reference stuff is not useful at all besides knowing they exists.
Said that, when you attack real research problems, where there is no reference, catching those mathematical pattern ( a thing a computer can't give you insight yet, just spit convoluted expression) is paramount! I'm talking off personal experience, having a master in physics and wrote my thesis on quantum heat engines. There is a phrase by Landau: to solve a physics problem, you need to know the answer first. And that's the intuition you get from previous problem and the creativity of relate seemlesly unrelated problem. That's what the Sri Lankan dude did, not applying a table from a reference book
@@matiasbpg Pattern recognition between equations is *not* paramount at all, and absolutely is something that computers can do.
I guess we all have a moment in life with a similar situation. Mine was playing chess as a beeginer when I was 18 years old. 8 years old players defeated me very easily, even when I was studying and practicing a lot. Dedicate my time to other things and I don't regret now
Don't give up Jeff, I'm sure you'll be still rich someday.
Maybe that yosanto guy faced the same thing kept trying for hours took breaks but just didn't give up and finally came up with the answer.. and then he was able to solve jeff's problem instantly only because he worked through that previous problem and recognised the similar pattern of the problem.
Obviously, but that's not what he his talking about . he means he wasn't going to become a good or a great theoretical physicist
You don't get the point. Nobody become someone if he did not put on hours. the question for everyone of us is are you ready to put on same amount of hours?
@@hamedgholami3664 that's not how it works.you can't be a above average iq kid and become a great physicist or mathematicians
@@jatinsinghyadav5941 such bs logic. By believing in that statement, you're putting a ceiling on your potential. You judge your intelligence based on a controversial test which has rarely translated into meaningful results. Dream big and act on it, don't stop until it is done. And don't forget to take help along the way. That's how to live life!
@@gokuafrica some things are just truth .it's best to realize your strength and weakness and realize your limits.the thing about romanticising your dreams and passions don't always work in real life.iq doesn't mean everything but it means something,people should know that
If u like doing something just keep doing it. Don't stop because someone else doing it better then you.
exactly .
god bless
Well, Bezos obviously wanted to be one of the very best at what he does. He just said that he likes a lot of things: CS, Electrical engineering, Physics. But most important to him is to be the best. He made a smart decision
Yeah. Thanks 😶
@@Stefan-vz7op yep that is my takeaway too. Bezos might not have been destined to be a theorist at MIT, but he could definitely still have been hired as a physicist somewhere. He wanted to be the very best though.
Personally I think it is worth doing what you love even if you aren’t the best - maybe why I’m not the richest man
This is an underrated video. Sometimes it really is best to give up
One of my friends is a physics buff, so I had the advantage with coming to terms with my inability to do well in physics early into high school (I still got 4’s on both AP Physics C exams tho, i wanted to leave this subject on a high note)
Once I was seven years old and my father told me REMEMBER SON THERE'S ALWAYS AN ASIAN BETTER THAN YOU.
Lmao
Hahaha
In this case a Sri Lankan
@@RapScotty Sri Lanka is an asian country.
The worst part is even our parents tell us that (u guessed it, I am an Asian 2)
Same for a friend of mine who wanted to become a pro golfer .
When he was 18 after playing since he was 8 and won a lot of regional trophies in Europe a young 12 years old who just started playing at weekends just smashed the record he himself established in his club . He understood he will never be an international player and just carry on to play but in a recreational mode while starting college.
Makes sense! Theoretical physics is about how quickly scientists can solve arbitrary made up partial different equations (artifically created by teachers to have unrealisticly simple end results). Basically, the other guy had spent a lot of time on a similar problem so he remember the solution and he saw the pattern to solve it quickly... College problems are made this way. If you know the pattern they are easy if you don't they are super hard (because they are made by the teacher to look for a specific pattern)
Great story and fun but not a good reason to quit. Bezos quit because he had a better opportunity not because of this silly reason.
Yeah that’s what I thought too, the guy solved the problem because he had seen a similar one, he’s probably very smart but it doesn’t mean Bezos couldn’t do the same if he had seen the similar problem too.
except this isn't necessarily true
yes but its the fact its from 3 years ago, which is impressive. He is still able to map out and identify pattern, from questions 3 years ago. Idk about you, but i certainly cant do that, especially by how bezos framed it: looked at it, and gave the answer.
yeah. also he is more of a experimentalist rather than theoretical physicist. normally theoretical physicist donot take engineering or computer science classes. they are normally heavily invested in quantum mechanics, relativity, maths and stats.
What is the point?
you know what's wild is I remember doing this problem in school myself. I couldn't solve it and looked at the solution and couldn't believe it. It's just out of this world.
I just finished my second quarter of quantum mechanics. I can confirm that it can take well over three hours to solve one HW problem.
Is it any fun?
@@jamesking2439 Absolutely fun
What book you used?
you are not bezos, offcourse it will take you more than 3 😂😂
"Worked on that one Problem for three hours"
Me on a small break here after spending 6 hours on a Lie-Algebra symmetry - problem in QFT:
" =) "
Yes, when he said that he worked on it for 3 hours, I was like "yeah, that is to be expected"
I only ever did one course on field theory, but it was probably my favorite course in my undergrad.
i was working for a week on a non trivial inverse laplace transform using complex analysis techniques , a lot of branch cuts and high order poles, indeed physics problems can be very tedious
That was my argument with math. A tremendous investment in time for a very small result.
When realizing his weakness is what unlocked his greatest strength. The philosophy of this story is quite beautiful really. Even for the richest man in the world, there is always a bigger fish in some waters. Realizing and accepting that can be powerful.
I am a Physics major and college physics is so much tougher than I'm used to from high school :_)
Wait until you get to the addition of angular momentum section in quantum and the professor won't let you use the clebsch-gordan coefficients chart. It isn't hard once you know how to do it, but it's the knowing how to do it is the hard part. LMAO
@IT guides I graduate in June. I already have an electrical engineering job offer and two data science job offers.
That is why.
@IT guides That's the thing. I know nothing about data science.
I imagine it enters many Physics majors' mind that Einstein did very well in most of his graduate physics classes but still couldn't immediately get a faculty position upon graduation.
One of my favorite videos of all time. I usually see myself as the Bezos in the situation, only rarely as the Yosanta.
"I was able to map that problem on this problem". Superb!
And that is why two is Always better than one. 😉
This is so true. I'm sure many of us have had moments in life where we meet someone who is perfectly tailored for a path that we're on and helps us realize that we're going the wrong way.
@@ludo-ge9fb Preach man.
And that is precisely why I deviated from going into the profession of MMA, I thought I was pretty good and considered going all in on it until I started training with a pro camp that was preping fighters for professional bouts. I immediately realized the difference between someone like me who was just decently well trained and motivated vs more gifted athletes who where born for the craft, armed with inherent genetic advantages. When you're trying your 110% best and the person next to you proceeds to clown you while barely trying at all, it's like a super loud BANG that wakes you up from the dream. Then you find out that those "gifted" people aren't even in the upper part of the spectrum of the REAL "gifted" people, that's the moment you consider a new career.
Finally a moment I can proudly say I'm Sri Lankan 🇱🇰
This is your first moment you’ve been proud to say you’re Sri Lankan? Come on my brother 🤦♂️
@@AK-de7jn turn on the TV and watch the news. Our country is in a shit storm
@@ijazhaniffa don't know about the country , but the cricket team surely is .
@@rahulmalik1083 our cricket team is not even a topic worth talking about so lets not.
Wait, what kind of hard PDE in QM has cosine as solution?
Final answer equals cos? What is the parameter? So is it cos(x), or cos(pi) or cos(x^2)?
The biggest takeaway here is that certain people are just better at doing certain things or performing certain tasks. Know your strengths, know your weaknesses. Don’t try to force yourself into something you know you aren’t good at. Imagine a society where everyone played to their strengths and delegating tasks went to the person most qualified and suitable with a mastery for that task.
The theoretical physicists would also be good at managing a company. Some things are just harder than others.
You would need to have good compensation and benefits for all jobs for that to happen. People choose to go into fields that are above their intellectual capabilities in hopes of making good money and living a life of dignity because the jobs that would fit their abilities and talents don’t pay very well. As long as the society doesn’t see labor as being valuable, this will never change.
@@MrCmon113not necessarily. Stephen Hawking was a genius and is one of the best theoretical physicists of all time. He also cheated with his nurse, who happened to be the wife of the guy who developed his speech synthesizer (his voice).
Would you ever work for a boss like that? There's a difference between management and leadership; the second is a lot harder than the first but you need both to operate at a high level.
Not sure about that. A certain resistance makes you grow. If you are not good at something, but challenge yourself, you can get better at it. It's not unlimited, but can still be very rewarding. People, who have a talent, and for which everything is easy going, are often not succeeding, because they have troubles to persist in tasks which they conceive as being too simple and boring for them. Persistence is, as far as I know, a better predictor for success, than IQ.
I was majored in physics, and I told similar story to a lot of my friends😂 “That one time the class average was 31 and that one kid who was 14 got full credit on the test, and he finished the test, which suppose to take 4 hour, in 49 minutes. Like yeah, if you write none-stop it’ll take around 35 minutes.” And now, I’m in mechanical engineering. 🤷🏻♂️
31 percent?? With or without a curve?
today someone commented i should delete all videos :( people can be so mean. but i dont care. i know im the best. i never give up. i am age 80+ and will never stop. thanks for caring, dear eli
@@AxxLAfriku you're 80?
@@AxxLAfriku no you really should. Ur content is fcking trash. Ur talents probably lie elsewhere
@@AxxLAfrikuyou should delete all your videos
Does someone know the link to the full video? Would be interesting to see the whole interview.
Ok so I loved music especially played my auto sax in highschool. I was first chair all district by practicing everyday on the piece which everyone is going to be judged on. My friend Ben, the most talented musician in the state looked at it for a minute, and played it with more depth than I could comprehend. I was floored, and understood immediately that I am no musician.
I used to have the same situation in my classes in math. People are thinking that I do them on my head but since I solved a lot of problems I would see similarities between questions and solve them easily. I am not saying I’m smart or neither is Yosantha it’s just hardwork.
I saw the title “the exact moment Jeff bezos decided not to become a ph…” assumed philanthropist. Lol this isn’t what I expected..
@Aidan Kitt because theyre usually already born into wealth that provides them with better education than everyone else.
@@useruser-jd3ed not true at all, most graduates from mit and t=other tech uni's have come on financial aid, sure there are a few exceptions, money shouldn't be the problem to study as there is everything one needs to get a good education online. People go to uni's to get an official degree that is universally recognized.
"And that's the moment I decided to become a multibillionaire"
As an electrical engineering graduate, I have no problem admitting that physics is the hardest college major. Had a really smart friend who majored in that and it brought him to a breaking point that he dropped out of the program and switched over to civil engineering. He was so happy he did that.
Happy for him. As a civil engineer, it's one of the most difficult engineerings, classic mechanics applied in real life situations. Not compared to quantum mechanics whatsoever
If only he ordered 'Differential Equations for Dummies' from Amazon...
If only!
When he realized there was no money to be made in physics.
The physicists at my university make well over $250k a year from the school (not including speaking engagements, books etc). I think $250k is decent, but these professors are at one of the best colleges in the country (A level below BErkeley, Stanford, Princeton etc.)
@@speedspeed121 There's no money in physics unless you're at the top. Most people in physics and science generally make relatively little.
Yo Santa, merry christmas.
There aren't any theoretical physicists, only theatrical physicists who have no clue what time is - ironically time is at the core of all their theories.
I feel like no matter what this guy would have said Jeff bezos would have given up physics
This is exactly the samething with Computer Science, even down to the solution. Yet I still pursue.
My dad was a chemical engineer and my brother was an electrical engineer. They were my Yosantas.. higher math seemed impossible then. But now 25 years later when I look at the math it doesn't seem so rough.... sometimes it just need s to absorb.
Tbh most potentials given in introductory QM courses allow for you separate variables in the appropriate coordinate systems.
The rest you use approximation schemes
CZcams just started recommending this now... Just took two years
As a physics graduate I can't help but point out that most people in the comments did not get the message of the video. No, no...it's not about Bezos not being good at physics. He was trying to point out that many of humanity's problems are not solved by brilliant intelligence but by resourcefulness and skill acquired through experience. In fact, brilliance does not even come into play in most situations. It's only necessary at the level of the most elite researchers and inventors. For most other jobs, other qualities are more important.
Thank you. I needed this.
I can't even believe that that's the message considering Bezos is absolutely part of the systemic problem.
I don't know how you being a physics graduate is important to "interpreting" this video. It's just Bezos telling his story on how he realized that being a Theoretical Physicist wasn't for him. Nothing more nothing less.
@@OldSpice605 being a physics graduate no. But having majored in something that requires very tough problem solving does. The whole anecdote of him solving the math problem by asking his TA for help and seeing the way he did it illustrates how resourcefulness will do much more for you than brilliant inteligence or in his case despairing over finding a solution to the problem himself. Most people who don't learn this life lesson at the college level often end up never learning it because life offers little opportunity for you to learn it past that point. That's why we have a cult for super smart people (Big Bang theory, Einstein jokes etc.) and find it hard to relate to them. Most of the time they don't overthink things as much as we think they do, but they are more practical than the majority of us.
@@OldSpice605 hahahaha, killer comment
Ditto. Became a lawyer when I realized there were others more gifted and more dedicated. However, over the decades physics advancements have become less individual genius and more large group collaboration rewarding organizational and social skills.
No joke, this is a true story. An ability to map your previous experience to make some physics problems even possible is a must. Best example would be every physicist seeing an coordinate-free PDE would in 1 ms find planar waves solution
He has freaked me out...!!!
Same
never thought Jeff Bezos could make me laugh. Also didn't realize he was a low-key genius. I thought he just got rich by selling books out of his garage. my respect for him just went 📈📈📈
I can relate to studying in a group for hours on one problem for Real Analysis. I'd spend all day on those homework assignments.
For a moment I thought that Yo Santa solved it in his head