I wrote a blurb earlier this week about Carnegie Mellon professor Steven Rudich being honored with a share of the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2007 Gödel Prize in June. In the write-up, I made note of Rudich saying of the 20th century mathematician for whom the award is named: “Gödel has been my luminary hero since I was 12.” I pointed out that what separates accomplished computer scientists like Rudich from lowly editors like me might be that my heroes at age 12 were a couple of Red Sox baseball players whose mathemetical prowess mostly likely consisted of tracking their batting statistics and their contracts.
Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to get a heartfelt and eloquent note from Rudich about the posting, and he noted this was his first ever blog post. In case you missed it:
Submitted by Steven Rudich (not verified) on Wed, 05/23/2007 – 12:38am. When I was 12, I stumbled upon a little book called “Gödel’s Proof” by Ernest Nagel. It had an unintimidating format and used full English sentences to avoid presuming mathematical background. Nagel’s classic book is a gem of accessibility; it empowers the reader to follow Gödel’s entire argument. I certainly didn’t get the whole thing, but I got a great deal of it, and formed a good high level picture of Gödel’s mathematical and philosophical significance. Now the human reason I even picked up the book was not that I was a prefabricated, poised little prodigy, but rather that I was very short for my age, brutally picked on, and had no friends. By the time I finished the book my life was changed – Gödel was new friend. My demonstrated ability as a 12 year old is not an inherently rare thing – such as winning the state spelling bee. I would guess that, in any given year, in Pittsburgh, PA there are at least 10 twelve year olds who could similarly read Nagel’s classic book, and be appropriately thrilled. I really know what I am talking about. For seventeen years, I have run a summer enrichment program for high school kids at Carnegie Mellon called Andrew’s Leap. Most of the kids are high school aged, and I always have a few 12 year olds too. I teach Gödel’s proof and lots of other great ideas in the six weeks that I have with the group. I get to know them in depth – to give them the living mentorship and role modeling that a sadly dead Gödel never gave to me. I see lots of 12 year olds who get it – some even completely. A striking number of those kids have chosen to go into Computer Science, and some into complexity theory. Perhaps one of them will be the one to solve the P vs. NP question. The talent is plentifully available, if we simply take the trouble to develop it. If Pittsburgh has ten – the nation has thousands of 12 year olds who can appreciate an accessible invitation to consequential and empowering ideas. It was fun to read your post. This has been the first blog post of my life. Steven Rudichon being a smart 12 year old.
