White society has an underlying current of the drive to excel. -But that is putting it politely. In fact it is the drive to be better than anyone else. This creates a environment in which people that can excel do so. For me however this caused me a great deal of discomfort. In any case it explains why in fact White society does come up with all the new and neat stuff.
[Euclidean geometry. Parabolic geometry. Hyperbolic geometry. Projective geometry. Differential geometry. Calculus: Limits, continuity, differentiation, integration. Physical chemistry. Organic chemistry. Biochemistry. Classical mechanics. String Theory, The indeterminacy principle. The wave equation. The Parthenon. Air conditioning. Number theory. Romanesque architecture. Gothic architecture. Information theory. Entropy. Enthalpy. Every symphony ever written. Pierre Auguste Renoir. The twelve-tone scale. The mathematics behind it, twelfth root of two and all that. S-p hybrid bonding orbitals. The Bohr-Sommerfeld atom. The purine-pyrimidine structure of the DNA ladder. Single-sideband radio. All other radio. Dentistry. The internal-combustion engine. Turbojets. Turbofans. Doppler beam-sharpening. Penicillin. Airplanes. Surgery. The mammogram. Polio vaccine. The integrated circuit. The computer. Football. Computational fluid dynamics. Tensors. The Constitution. Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Homer, Hesiod. Glass. Rubber. Nylon. Roads. Buildings. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. (OK, that’s nerve gas, and maybe we didn’t really need it.) Silicone. The automobile. Really weird stuff, like clathrates, Buckyballs, and rotaxanes. The Bible. Bug spray, public-key cryptography, and RSA. Et cetera.]
Things like this:
I found the Beit Midrash environment--in [Litvak yeshivas] much more congenial to my taste. It also had an element of the drive to excel-- but in a much more relaxed form.
And in fact, even today I noticed that I do not work well under pressure.
You might have noted in the two books on Gemara that I put links to that I bring down the Chidushei HaRambam of Rav Soloveitchik and Tosphot. But as a rule, I never was able to understand Tosphot except by a kind of learning in which I would just say the entire Tosphot from beginning to end every day for a few weeks without understanding a single word. But then at some point after a few weeks or more the whole Tosphot would become clear. But the learning to get to that point was always in this kind of relaxed way or not even thinking whether I understand it or not
[That was however not when I was learning with my learning partner David Bronson who in general took the more direct approach to Tosphot: "Stay on it until you get it."]
[That is I think some people like my own Dad worked well under pressure. But that is not me.]
[Euclidean geometry. Parabolic geometry. Hyperbolic geometry. Projective geometry. Differential geometry. Calculus: Limits, continuity, differentiation, integration. Physical chemistry. Organic chemistry. Biochemistry. Classical mechanics. String Theory, The indeterminacy principle. The wave equation. The Parthenon. Air conditioning. Number theory. Romanesque architecture. Gothic architecture. Information theory. Entropy. Enthalpy. Every symphony ever written. Pierre Auguste Renoir. The twelve-tone scale. The mathematics behind it, twelfth root of two and all that. S-p hybrid bonding orbitals. The Bohr-Sommerfeld atom. The purine-pyrimidine structure of the DNA ladder. Single-sideband radio. All other radio. Dentistry. The internal-combustion engine. Turbojets. Turbofans. Doppler beam-sharpening. Penicillin. Airplanes. Surgery. The mammogram. Polio vaccine. The integrated circuit. The computer. Football. Computational fluid dynamics. Tensors. The Constitution. Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Homer, Hesiod. Glass. Rubber. Nylon. Roads. Buildings. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. (OK, that’s nerve gas, and maybe we didn’t really need it.) Silicone. The automobile. Really weird stuff, like clathrates, Buckyballs, and rotaxanes. The Bible. Bug spray, public-key cryptography, and RSA. Et cetera.]
Things like this:
I found the Beit Midrash environment--in [Litvak yeshivas] much more congenial to my taste. It also had an element of the drive to excel-- but in a much more relaxed form.
And in fact, even today I noticed that I do not work well under pressure.
You might have noted in the two books on Gemara that I put links to that I bring down the Chidushei HaRambam of Rav Soloveitchik and Tosphot. But as a rule, I never was able to understand Tosphot except by a kind of learning in which I would just say the entire Tosphot from beginning to end every day for a few weeks without understanding a single word. But then at some point after a few weeks or more the whole Tosphot would become clear. But the learning to get to that point was always in this kind of relaxed way or not even thinking whether I understand it or not
[That was however not when I was learning with my learning partner David Bronson who in general took the more direct approach to Tosphot: "Stay on it until you get it."]
[That is I think some people like my own Dad worked well under pressure. But that is not me.]
