“I once heard [Gerald] Feinberg suggest that many of Manhattan's 1970s social problems could be solved by forbidding anyone who earned less than, say, $10,000 per year to live there. It had not occurred to him, apparently, that this excluded many of the people who worked at the university.” GeekManhattanSocial ProblemsDraconianColumbia University Book:My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance Source: My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance
“I wanted to be Feinberg's student, but I didn't know how to go about it. Since it was premature for formal arrangements and since I was naturally reticent and shy, I simply began to greet him very politely whenever our paths crossed. Graduate school was a small community. In corridors and elevators and on campus, I was soon running into Feinberg several times a day, always giving him a polite hello and a nice smile. He would reciprocate similarly with a sort of nervous curling of the lips. As time passed, this limbo of flirtatious foreplay continued unabated. I could never find the courage to broach the question of being his student; I supposed I must have hoped it would just happen wordlessly. Every time I saw him I smiled; every time I smiled he bared his lips back at me with greater awkwardness. Our facial manipulations bore increasingly less resemblance to anything like a real smile; each of our reciprocated gestures was a caricature, a Greek theatrical mask signaling friendliness. One day, on about the fifth intersection of our paths on that particular day, I could stand it no longer. I saw him heading towards me down one of the long dark, old-fashioned Pupin corridors, and immediately turned towards the nearest stairwell and went up one floor to avoid him. Having succeeded at this once, I was compelled to do it repeatedly. Soon I was moving upstairs or downstairs to another floor as soon as I saw him approaching, like the protagonist in some ghastly version of the video game Lode Runner.” GeekShynessColumbia UniversitySocial Phobia Book:My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance Source: My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance