Jim Watson: Difference between revisions
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Thus inextricably fusing themselves, and our two great nations, together forever. | Thus inextricably fusing themselves, and our two great nations, together forever. | ||
RIP [[Jim Watson|Jim]]. Maybe the greatest man I’ve known. | RIP [[Jim Watson|Jim]]. Maybe the greatest man I’ve known. | ||
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Revision as of 21:14, 2 January 2026
Read Jim Watson's essay Succeeding in Science - Some Rules of Thumb
One of the world’s greatest men has died. Most of you will have no idea who this is. I just don’t know how to bridge that gap yet to tell you what he did.
I was very close with his top collaborator. They were the Watson and Crick of mathematics to me. They rewrote my whole life.
Michael Atiyah OM FRS, President of the Royal Society 1990 -1995, died today. He was "a wonderful person who was a true internationalist and a fervent supporter for investing in talent – themes which resonate very clearly today." Read the full tribute https://royalsociety.org/news/2019/01/tribute-to-former-president-of-the-royal-society-sir-michael-atiyah/
There is a little known stone wall on Long Island. While flawed, it is a gift to all mankind that should be a pilgrimage site, as an understanding of the contents is nesessary to understand our world. Think of it as transcendent graffiti. Atiyah‘s spray-paint is everywhere here.
Imagine watery planets with holes and twists. Knotted donut planets called base spaces. Crazy oceans called “Vector bundles” and “Principal bundles”.
He told us about how the twists and holes determine what waves must live on them and which cannot.
He helped direct Ed Witten and Graeme Segal to truly tell us what Quantum Field Theory really was beyond being a physical theory. These men took a grab bag of techniques developed for calculation and showed us that they were a mellifluous whole of geometry, topology and physics.
If you want to know why I am so passionate about resisting the reign of terror against true scholarship it is this. Universities housed REAL scholarship beyond your wildest dreams. This kind of scholarship is not socially constructed. Almost no one can even do this level of work.
Very sad news indeed - I knew Michael from when I was at @TrinCollCam he was brilliant, warm & amazing. Was at a conference where he was supposed to speak on thursday #higgscentre - he cancelled at the last minute....
More recently we talked about dark matter and black holes (2 yrs ago now) he was very excited about astro... b4 when i was a student he was just very encouraging and warm
I’ll have a lot to say about Jim at some point. But let me share my usual quote before this space fills up with irrelevant comments.
“The legacy of James Watson is so singular and profound, that it was always far too important to Western Science to have been entrusted to Jim.”