My Life as a Quant
Reflections on Physics and Finance
Chapter One
Elective Affinities
* The attractions of science * The glory days of particle physics
* Driven by ambitious dreams to Columbia * Legendary
physicists and budding wunderkinder * Talent
versus character, plans versus luck *
I expected New York to glitter. Instead, when I arrived on that hot
August afternoon in 1966, the city was grimy and littered, disappointingly
unmodern. I was jet-lagged and weary, and the sweaty cab
ride from Kennedy airport to upper Manhattan tilted me towards depression.
The cramped Formica-filled rooms in International House,
a graduate student established by the Rockefeller Foundation on the far
reaches of New York's Upper West Side, bore little resemblance to the
spacious-looking illustrations in the brochure they had sent to me in
South Africa. The sickly green-and-white walls in the corridors and the
guards at the back entrance added to the prison sensibility. It took several
months before habit obscured all of this ugliness. "I. House," as we
all called it, was actually a very good place for foreigners.
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