October 10, 2016 Monday
Bedtime Story
Ezra Cornell the Carpenter
Let me take you back to Hans Bethe.
The digression was necessary to explain the chain of events and
the contribution of visionaries who made it possible to make the United States
the power house of both science and education by 1930s.
As you can see history is played out very chaotically and there
are series of random and unforeseeable events and turning points that determine
the course of nations and civilizations.
Contributions to such historically relevant events can come from
very large political figures like Hitler, Napolean, industrialists and bankers
like the Rockefellers, the House of Rothschild, Carnegie, from prevailing
zeitgeist like imperialism, colonialism, industrial revolution or from
relatively obscure men such as Abraham Flexner, Alan Turing or John von
Neumann.
Geography and the climatic location (tropical or temperate) is
another crucial factor that was strongly made a case for by Jarred Diamond in
his 1997 bestseller:
Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.
Hans Bethe was another of those relatively unknown men who was
handed over to the United States by the Nazi Germany free of charge, in the
lines of Albert Einstein, Kurt Gödel and John von Neumann among others.
By this time the United States had built several centers of
excellence which we call universities funded initially mostly by individual
endowments and grants.
Cornell University at Ithaca, New York state for instance was
initially authorized by the New York Senate in 1865, but the actual land and
the fund of 500,000 USD to initiate it came from the senator Ezra Cornell.
Ezra Cornell by the way was a carpenter who made his fortune in
laying down one of the first telegraph lines between Baltimore, Maryland (where
I spent 10 months at the Johns Hopkins) and Washington DC.
It is fascinating that even right after the Civil War, the United
States had so many individual tycoons and self-made businessmen who were able
to make themselves rich and thus felt thankful to the nation that allowed them
to do so.
The system rewarded honesty, hard-work, education, intelligence,
diligence, business astuteness, investment in technology, free market and
patenting system which created a positive feed-back loop such that the
successful individuals in turn invested back into the society in the forms of grants
to universities.
Universities of the United States were becoming a powerful
combination of not only education and skill transfer but also innovation in
technology, science, engineering, biology and medicine.
The United States of late 1800 and early 1900s had all the factors
going in its favor, including the devastating World Wars I and II in Europe and
the closing down of colonialism and imperialism of the major European Powers
which limited their source of resources.
Jared Diamond has called it the Anna Karenina principle.
Now what is this Anna Karenina principle?
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or
login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Another great educator and teacher that I am aware of is Professor
Subhashish in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, he actually does and teaches real
mathematics and physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All
his books can be downloaded for free through this link.
For
entertainment may I suggest Kids Songs channel.
Ezra Cornell (a carpenter to begin with) in 1865 donated $ 500,000 along with his farm in Ithaca for the establishment of the university.
A magnificent view of Cornell overlooking Cayuga Lake. The American Universities in my opinion are the greatest wonders of America followed by their National Parks.
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