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Hawking Searching For Africa's Einsteins
nuke-alwin writes "Stephen Hawking has traveled to South Africa in search of Africa's Einsteins. The project will create Africa's first post-graduate center for math and physics. The British government has unfortunately decided not to back the project, which is hoping to fight poverty by identifying the kind of talent that can create wealth." Neil Turok is deeply involved as well; he was recently named to head the Perimeter Institute in Canada, whose server we brought to its knees this morning.
If the purpose is to somehow stimulate the local economy, I think it would make more sense to help build and expand the underlying infrastructure that would eventually lead to the desire to have top math/science experts in the region. Otherwise they will most likely just move somewhere where they're actually wanted and can be sufficiently compensated. Is there a need for physics experts when the region is severely lacking in agriculture?
That's you - and many others I'm sure.
You don't know what it's like to grow up in an impoverished country. Hence you don't know what it's like to hurt for your country and to have a sense of duty to make it better.
Also, just because the talent is exported, people can still do great things to enable others to become great. You see this in soccer all the time. African talent is being exported to the top clubs in Europe but many players go back home to establish soccer academies, schools and the like.
Hats off to Hawking.
I personally know someone who attended a good college here in the states, got a job with MS back in the late 80s/early 90s, cashed out, and moved back to Africa to found a college.
Some people do genuinely have a feeling of responsibility.
That aside, it is an established fact that people living outside impoverished areas send a lot of money back home. In some countries, this is the primary source of foreign currency.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
There was one Einstein, there will not be another, ever. Nor will there be another Newton, Maxwell, Bohr, Dirac, Feynman, Weinberg, or Hawking. Very accomplished folks, but all over the place with their personalities, like how they would be in a bar (a topless bar if it was Feynman).
I support the project, not the marketing of the project.
Working on new views of old physics at http://VisualPhysics.org
New studies show there is more genetic diversity between humans in Africa:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1288178
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050310103042.htm
http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/Tishkoff1-1999.htm
It might be easier to find a genius among very different subjects, than finding one in a group where everybody is similar.
Hawking is a genius
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
rising to the bait, there are fundamental problems to Africa, the two key ones are corruption in the governments and the continuous fighting within and between countries (for resources and between tribes). The D.R. Congo should be one of the richest countries in the world with its unequalled wealth of mineral resources, but years of corruption, greed and fighting have ensured its ability to exploit those resources are minimal.
another key problem is that foreign governments have caused major problems. for example, when Belgium controlled one part of Africa they deemed it unncessary to have much if any higher education, so there are very few universities, and thus people's education plateaus.
Despite how people play the "brain drain" story, how many people in any country even feel that the job they're doing REALLY benefits their country directly? Sure you may feel you're benefiting your company/boss, but your contribution feels so diluted by the time it reaches the country level it doesn't even matter.
One can talk about "some kind of loyalty to the country" but calling that into question based on taking a overseas job because you want better pay to help support yourself and your family is utterly unfair. We all want to see our country do well, but sometimes you can help more by becoming an export that keeps paying the country back. If you want to use nonsense metrics to compare ones sense of civic duty, why don't you compare voter turnout: US voter turnout in 2004 was 56%, compared to South Africa at 77%.
(I am South African, I have worked in the UK, I am now living back in South Africa and did bring money back.)
If this is the same person I'm thinking of, he gave a TED talk on Africa and his university not long ago.
India and China have seriously better prospects than say Sierra Leone or Ethiopia. By contrast to many Sub-Saharan African countries where there is no wealth to be had, China gained 50 new billionaires in 2007 and India has three of the world's ten richest people. While they aren't yet at the EU's standard of living, to call modern day China or India impoverished is laughable.
We are all just people.
Ah. Locombia. My favorite Latin American country. Where the girls are pretty and the people are some of the nicest and friendliest on Earth. Living in the USA is good for making and spending money (the internet!!), but it's not so good for just living your life. If you just want to be happy and are not very materialistic I think Colombia is a much better place to live. Of course it sucks to only get paid $10/day. But I think many Colombians would be unhappy here. There are any number of third world countries that I would rather live in than the US or Canada.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
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Put any kid of any race (say, your kid) in a third world country with little food, no medical care, and have unlearned people raise him, and don't send him to school, and he'll be just like the native Africans.
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Absolutely true. As an example, look at the Kalash tribal people of Pakistan. They're basically white-caucasian (descended from Greeks), but they are among the poorest ethnic groups in the region.
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand