Friday, April 23, 2010

Paul Krugman on what made Paul Samuelson great

The moral, I believe, is that only someone who doesn’t take himself too seriously is really fit to produce ideas that make the world a much better place. Paul Samuelson didn’t, and he did.

That's from Paul Krugman's remarks at the service held in honor of Prof. Paul Samuelson. Here's a bit about Samuelson's playful geekery:

... We talk about people playing with ideas; Paul Samuelson really did, and it shows throughout his writings. There’s an irrepressible quality to his best work, a sense of someone having a huge amount of fun and wanting to share it with the rest of us. One of his most influential papers ... is brimming with humor, from its mock-pompous title -– “An exact consumption-loan model of interest, with or without the contrivance of money” -– to the footnote that begins, “Surely, no sentence beginning with the word ‘surely’ can validly contain a question mark at its end?”

1 comment:

  1. You know, I have pretty much the same view about bloggers. Only those bloggers who don't take themselves too seriously are fit to produce great posts that help liven up the blogosphere.

    ReplyDelete

Would you like to comment on this post (or, in response to one of the comments)? If so, please note:

1. This blog does not allow anonymous comments (any more), so please use an open-id account to comment.

2. Comments on posts older than 15 days go into a moderation queue, and may take some time to appear.

Thank you for joining the conversation. Have your say: