Deciding To Be A Scientist
[Quoting Michael Wigler,] “‘Too often, people give up on those things they realize they don’t have a genius for. That’s especially true of very bright people who start out wanting to be scientistis. I think a lot of young people get discouraged when they find that they’re not an Albert Einstein or a Laplace. So they may quit trying, give up on science entirely, rather than using the talent they do have to contribute something to society. They decide it’s easier to do something like go into business, where at least they’ll be able to earn a lot of money…The real reason I left math was that I thought math emphasized some of my most negative qualities–my tendency toward self-involvement and alienation. Math has very little social relevance. I suppose in the long run it’s useful to society, but in the short run math is more autistic than poetry. And I decided in college that I wanted to do something with my life that might be socially useful.’”