What do Bill Gates and Richard Stallman have in common ?

If anyone is interested, here are the textbooks for the course:

Math 55a

* Required: Axler, Linear Algebra Done Right, Springer, 1997.

* Required: Artin, Abstract Algebra, Prentice-Hall, 1991. * Recommended: Halmos, Naive Set Theory, Springer-Verlag, 1974.

* Also useful: Halmos, Finite-Dimensional Vector Spaces, Springer-Verlag, 1987.

* Also useful: Fulton and Harris, Representation Theory: A First Course, Springer-Verlag, 1991. See especially Appendix B.

* Also useful: Bott and Tu, Differential forms in Algebraic Topology, Springer-Verlag, 1982. See especially Chapter 1.

Math55b

* Required: Rudin, Principles of Mathematical Analysis, McGraw-Hill, 1976.

* Required: Marsden and Hoffman, Basic Complex Analysis, Freeman, 1999.

* Recommended: Stein and Shakarchi, Fourier Analysis, an Introduction, Princeton University Press, 2003.

* Also useful: Stein and Shakarchi, Complex Analysis , Princeton University Press, 2003.

* Also useful: Bott and Tu, Differential Forms in Algebraic Topology , Springer, 1982. See especially 1.1-1.3.

* Also useful: H. M. Schey, Div, Grad Curl and All That , Norton, 2005.

* Also useful: Hubbard and Hubbard, Vector Calculus, Linear Algebra and Differential Forms, Prentice Hall 1999.

* Also useful: T. Needham, Visual Complex Analysis , Oxford University Press, 1997.

I remember friends who took Math 55 pulling ridiculously long hours. It either makes you or breaks you as a potential mathematician.

One friend took up smoking, just so he would have an excuse to break.

Two friends ended up becoming philosophers, which is the mathematics of the humanities.

At the end of the class, they printed a t-shirt with a tiny little diagram on the breast, and "Math 55" on the back. The tiny little diagram? A Dynkin Diagram (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/DynkinDiagram.html). As the story goes, Prof. Pavel Etingof, before introducing Dynkin Diagrams, said: "If aliens ever came to earth, and told us that we were primitive, I would say 'No, we are not primitive', and I would show them Dynkin Diagrams to prove it."

Math 55 isn't nice because of how much math it covers (you could take equivalent classes that cover the same material, just split up, at the same or higher level). It's nice because of the bonds it forges between the students, who are usually the top mathematical talent at Harvard. I'd suspect that it's these bonds that help the students throughout the rest of their mathematics education rather than their incoming ability or what the class teaches.

If you look at the problem sets, they're very hard (especially given that the students are all freshmen - a few of whom haven't ever done advanced mathematics before), but not unreasonably so (not really even beyond the top math majors of most top schools, I'd wager). Having made friends in a trial by fire like the 55 a/b series though, is a key to surviving later ones.

From the title I fully expected to find out they both had studied under the same Shao-Lin Kung Fu Master. But many years ago, they had a falling out, after their master was murdered and each blamed the other for it. One dedicated himself to the pursuit of Evil. The other would walk the path of Light. Legend says they will one day meet again, and a great fight will occur, and only one will be left standing, and on that day, the world will finally learn what truly happened to their master.

Or maybe this is just me.

"In the class of 1970, only 20 of the 75 students who began the class finished it due to its difficulty."

Now I am curious if either BG or RS successfully COMPLETED the course (and hell, while we are at how well they did!)

They are way over-discussed on technical blogs, hero worship or demonization alike.

"Gates said the experience of taking a class "where everybody had an 800 on their SAT and 5 on their AP"

I'm a bit perplexed by this statement. An 800 on the SAT (even before they changed the scores) isn't a huge achievement is it?

Shouldn't that read "What do Bill Gates and Richard Stallman have in common"?

<pedantry> What do Bill Gates and Richard Stallman have in common? </pedantry>