Raoul Bott: Difference between revisions

''Man, great stuff happens at Harvard. Make no mistake about it. Harvard is an amazing and horrible place. And we're going to all now focus on how dumb it is and how horrible it is. And like then you're not seeing the tragedy, you're not seeing—look, I didn't have an advisor. I am one of the only people you'll ever meet with the PhD that had no advisor. But the guy who saved me was named [[Raoul Bott]]. And [[Raoul Bott]] discovered something that's so important called [[Raoul Bott|Bott Periodicity]] that, if I could convey it to you, your mind would be—you'd think DMT was for children. It has to do with the fact that there are only four systems of numbers that have a particular property, and one of those sets of numbers spins a merry-go-round with the other three with an eightfold sort of symmetry. Who knew that this thing was even possible? It's just it's an incredible fact about the world. I associate him with Harvard. That's unfudgable. There's no—There's no one in the world who can tell me that Bott Periodicity wasn't one of the most important things that happened in the 20th century. And to have a person like that, you know, just feet from John Tate. I could go on and on about all the real things that happened in Harvard.''