Cosine: The exact moment Jeff Bezos decided not to become a physicist

[VwapTrader]

And that’s when he decided he’s going to open up an online bookshop, selling his old used physics books. And boy did he have a lot of physics books to sell.

[JudoP_slinging]

As someone who also studied physics, spending fruitless hours in a group on one math problem is definitely an authentic experience.

[EwenKing-Smith]

When I studied for a Ph.D. in physics, I met a fellow student called Brian Josephson. In discussion with him, I realized my understanding was so far behind that after my Ph.D., I gave up physics. Some 10 years later, Brian won the Nobel Prize. Meeting such people can be very daunting!

[Mohan-obcr]

Yashantha is the director of California Institute of Technology at present.

[ClemensAlive]

Yashantha once got a receipt from Amazon.
After he had a look at it, everything crossed out and Amazon owes him the money he spent.

[gthompson]

Once upon a time in the 1970s in my college physics class my professor gave us a quiz. The quiz had three questions. We were all good enough at math to know that if we missed one problem it would result in a D. After a considerable amount of time had gone by and no one had turned in their quiz, one brave soul took his paper to the professor and showed it to him. “Oh!” He exclaimed. “Problem 3 can’t be solved.”

[falcodarkzz]

Man, the amount of folk who thought they were good at physics that get the reality check at college is crazy. Good on Bezos for being honest about it!

[neomacaleph]

Just imagine if Yashantha would say “Yes I just did all in my mind” intentionally knowing that he just had that experience before. Oh boy, that would be totally different story! That’s why honesty is important virtue!

[Ducktility]

I'm going from physics into finance. Never thought I'd be leaving physics. It's heart breaking.

[Phoenix-nhkt]

Imagine getting to say that you wanted to become a theoretical physicist from Princeton and then just dip and become one of the richest men in the world.

[ks-ddgv]

People are taking the wrong message from this. The real message is how problems in the real world are solved. Most problems that we marvel at are not solved by raw creativity, but rather by pattern recognition: by mapping new problems to already solved problems.

[ashanmaynard]

Fun fact: Even Yasantha didn't become a theoretical physicist. He is currently working as a Vice President of Research and AI
Analog Inference(Santa Clara County, California, United States ). This shows us how hard is to become a great theoretical physicist.

[matthewmullin]

This is the issue with partial differential equations. There's literally no method to the madness - it's just a bunch of tricks that somehow work into a solution. Anyone who pretends otherwise is kidding themselves.

[jeremiahnoar]

That sounds like the answer to a fake math question in a Hollywood movie where the student reveals to the professor how secretly brilliant he is.

[DonLee]

I was great at math and physics. I loved it. I love how honest equations are, and how they can describe, infer, and estimate so many aspects of the world, the universe. But when I got to University and realised how many more hardcore people there are, and that a PhD would be a bare minimum to find work in this field. It awoke me.

[thomas.]

To paraphrase a snarky finance professor,
He wanted to become a physicist but instead became rich. Life just doesn’t work out for you sometimes.

[Mikebigmike]

I think you’ll only reach a high level in physics if you have that passion to want to know how the universe ticks. No matter what set backs you have you’ll always keep going no matter what. Not being able to solve one problem doesn’t define anyone.

[dou]

All my drop out friends have a similar story. Which is why I always tell junior students I used to be confused just like they are, it is just a natural part of academic life. The same thing applies to pretty much everything else in life, everything looks/feels difficult until it is not. Many of my friends realized it too late in life to go back to collage, I hope this video will not "inspire" more people to make the wrong choice.

[Elmatador]

I heard Yosantha once solved for the meaning of life.. it all crossed out and said ASK ALEXA.

[crimpers]

Reminds me of an electricity and magnetism problem during my college physics studies. I asked one of the smarter students for help with the problem and he magically pulled out a trig function out of nowhere to solve the problem. In hindsight, it's so obvious, but in the moment? Not so much. He's since went on to complete his Physics PhD.