Curated playlist
Jewish American scientists
- Carl SaganCarl Sagan once asked a librarian for a book on stars and got one about movie stars.
- Irvin D. YalomIrvin D. Yalom is an American psychiatrist, born on the 13th of June 1931 in Washington, D.C. He is now an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. In 1974 he published Every Day Gets a Little Closer, a book with an unusual…
- Herbert A. SimonHerbert Simon argued that people don't pick the best option, they settle for good enough. He called it satisficing.
- Terry WinogradTerry Winograd once taught a computer to obey commands about toy blocks.
- David ChaumDavid Chaum's 1982 dissertation held nearly every idea behind the blockchain.
- Jonas SalkJonas Salk, the American virologist who developed one of the first successful polio vaccines, was once asked a simple question by the television personality Ed Murrow: who owns the patent? Salk answered, "Well, the people I would say.…
- Amos TverskyAmos Tversky ran toward a live explosive to save a frozen soldier. The shrapnel stayed in his body for life.
- Gerald HoltonGerald Holton was labeled an "Enemy Alien" in America, yet Harvard hired him. He taught naval officers to use radar.
- Peter BergmannPeter Bergmann's mother wrote to Einstein in 1933 asking him to take her son as a student.
- Jerome WiesnerJerome Wiesner, Kennedy's science advisor, told Wernher von Braun "No, that's no good" in front of the press.
- Jim SimonsJim Simons, born James Harris Simons, once explained his dislike of publicity by borrowing a line from Benjamin the Donkey in Animal Farm. "God gave me a tail to keep off the flies. But I'd rather have had no tail and no flies. That's kind…
- Frank RosenblattA 1969 book led many to wrongly think Rosenblatt's learning machines were fatally limited.
- Judea PearlJudea Pearl gave computers a way to reason when facts are incomplete.