Richard Feynman and Ronald Reagan both worked for GE a long time ago. I'm not sure how close in time and space they got.
But it sort of boggled my mind when I realized people who worked there in the 50s saw them more as co-workers than as a Nobel Prize winner and world famous politician. Because that stuff happened in the 60s.
The anecdotes about the propagation of the mannerisms of Wittgenstein are a gem.
Here’s a particularly nice one about David Foster Wallace:
> James Wallace, who was a graduate student in
philosophy in 1959-1962, not only learned philosophy at Cornell but also picked up
a gesture of Wittgenstein. The gesture - hitting himself in the back of his head, to
indicate what a fool he was
was then passed on to his son, David Foster Wallace,
who eventually figured out its origin.
I like the anecdotes about quirky logicians and I thought I'd share one... I was taking a logic class with Leonard Adleman (the A in RSA). I was doing pretty poorly in the class (not good at proofs) but he was pretty helpful and he asked why I was taking the class. I mentioned that I took a philosophy of language class that I liked and then he asked what I thought of Wittgenstein. I said that I'm interested in all that stuff but I understand Wittgenstein the least. Prof. Adleman pretty much agreed and said that he didn't get Wittgenstein. I told him I was worried about passing the class and he asked me if I'd be ok with a C- and I said yeah... Best C- of my academic experience!
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[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 29.9 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byi3vOnVodQ
But it sort of boggled my mind when I realized people who worked there in the 50s saw them more as co-workers than as a Nobel Prize winner and world famous politician. Because that stuff happened in the 60s.
Here’s a particularly nice one about David Foster Wallace:
> James Wallace, who was a graduate student in philosophy in 1959-1962, not only learned philosophy at Cornell but also picked up a gesture of Wittgenstein. The gesture - hitting himself in the back of his head, to indicate what a fool he was was then passed on to his son, David Foster Wallace, who eventually figured out its origin.