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The Numberphile Podcast

The Hyper-Curious Billionaire - Jim Simons (1938-2024)

The Numberphile Podcast

Brady Haran

Natural Sciences, Science & Medicine, Social Sciences, Educational Technology, Education

4.9619 Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2024

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This podcast marks the passing of James Harris Simons, better-known as Jim. The interviewees are John Ewing, David Eisenbud and Andrew Millis. The Simons Foundation - https://www.simonsfoundation.org Simons Foundation article about Jim’s life - https://www.simonsfoundation.org/2024/05/10/remembering-the-life-and-careers-of-jim-simons/ Brady’s interview with Jim for Numberphile (full hour-log version) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0 Shorter 18-minute version - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjVDqfUhXOY Math For America - https://www.mathforamerica.org The Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath, formerly MSRI) - https://www.slmath.org The Flatiron Institute - https://www.simonsfoundation.org/flatiron/ The Chern-Simons form - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chern%E2%80%93Simons_form The Archimedes (Jim’s yacht) - https://www.feadship.nl/fleet/archimedes1 Numberphile has been supported by The Simons Foundation (via SLMath) for many years. We are yet another of Jim’s legacies. You can support Numberphile on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/numberphile Here are our Patrons - https://www.numberphile.com/patrons Numberphile Podcast by Brady Haran

Transcript

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0:00.0

I was a pretty talented student.

0:02.0

I knew I was very smart somehow.

0:04.0

On the other hand, I was very careless,

0:06.0

so I sometimes score up arithmetic tests

0:09.0

because I did it too fast or sloppily.

0:12.0

But I liked everything about it.

0:14.0

I liked everything about math.

0:15.0

I loved learning the formulas for the volume of a sphere,

0:19.0

four-thirds pi-r cubed.

0:22.9

I always thought that was a great formula.

0:28.6

When I got to high school, we started with plain geometry, proofs and theorems.

0:30.5

That's where I really got gripped.

0:31.9

I really loved that.

0:34.2

That was the voice of Jim Simons.

0:37.2

Jim just recently died at the age of 86. Now, some listeners may know who Jim is,

0:40.9

others might not. First and foremost, he was a mathematician. Jim made some celebrated discoveries

0:46.6

in the 1970s, the most famous being something called churn Simon's forms. But he then started

0:52.5

dabbling in the finance markets, applying mathematical techniques

0:56.7

and data analysis. And I think it's fair to say he was pretty successful. At the helm of a hedge fund

1:03.9

called Renaissance Technologies, Jim amassed incredible wealth. At the time of his death, he was reported to be worth about $31 billion.

1:15.2

That would make him the 51st richest person in the world for those who like to keep count.

1:19.7

For those of you hoping to hear stories of super yachts and private jets and behind the scenes,

...

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