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Guest wrote: Fri Jul 17, 2026 5:35 pm The third level knobs will be the ones that assure Sorites paradox.
They will never sit down since they never stood up for what should of been done.

List the most quoted living people in the world

AI Overview

There is no official global data tracking who is quoted the most. However, public figures with massive media coverage, global leaders, and prominent thinkers emerge as the most frequently quoted living people.

World Leaders and Politicians
Donald Trump: Frequently quoted across global news for his statements on policy, media, and politics.
Vladimir Putin: His speeches and commentary on international relations are widely cited by global media.
Pope Francis: His remarks on faith, social justice, and ethics are regularly quoted globally.
Narendra Modi: His addresses and social media statements are frequently referenced across South Asia and international platforms.

Tech Entrepreneurs and Public Intellectuals
Elon Musk: Widely quoted for his commentary on technology, business, space exploration, and future trends.
Noam Chomsky: Heavily cited and quoted in academic, political, and philosophical discourse.
Bill Gates: Frequently quoted regarding global health, technology, and climate change initiatives.

Cultural and Activist Figures
Malala Yousafzai: Her statements on education and women's rights are globally referenced.
Oprah Winfrey: Her media commentary and personal wisdom are staples in popular culture.

Rank the top 20 universities according to how many students in approximately the year 1980 (number of students, not proportion) scored 800 on the SAT math

AI Overview

There are no comprehensive, historical records or official statistics published by the College Board that rank universities by the exact number of incoming students who scored a perfect 800 on the SAT Math section in 1980.

However, looking at historical SAT score data from this period, the top universities that enrolled the largest absolute numbers of perfect math scorers generally fell into two groups: massive engineering powerhouses and the most elite Ivy League schools. Based on historical class sizes and 1980 math score distributions, the top 20 universities that enrolled the highest count of 800-Math students would have looked approximately like this:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley)
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
Stanford University
Purdue University
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Cornell University
Carnegie Mellon University
Harvard University
Princeton University
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
University of Texas at Austin
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
Yale University
Columbia University
University of Pennsylvania
Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Chicago

Why this list?

To generate the highest total count of students with an 800 in SAT Math, a school needed two things: very high average math scores (placing a large portion of the admitted class in the top 99th percentile) and a massive undergraduate student body.

While elite schools like Caltech and MIT had the highest concentration (or proportion) of perfect scores, their small class sizes limited the absolute numbers. Conversely, major public research institutions like UIUC, Purdue, and UC Berkeley admitted thousands of engineering and physical science students, resulting in high total numbers of 800 scorers despite having slightly lower median score percentiles than the Ivy League.

Realizing early on that I had a head for math was a critical step in my story. In his terrific book How Not to Be Wrong, mathematician Jordan Ellenberg observes that “knowing mathematics is like wearing a pair of X-ray specs that reveal hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of the world.” Those X-ray specs helped me identify the order underlying the chaos, and reinforced my sense that the correct answer was always out there–I just needed to find it. That insight came at one of the most formative times of a kid’s life, when the brain is transforming into a more specialized and efficient tool. Facility with numbers gave me confidence, and even a sense of security.

There’s quite a lot about his years as a student at Harvard, especially about the freshman-year Math 55 class he took, which was taught by John Mather. This brought back a lot of memories for me of my experiences there a couple years later. Gates arrived as a freshman in the fall of 1973, which was two years before me. Something we had in common was not being the best students in Math 55, but somewhere in the middle. Our reactions to that however were very different, since Gates was extremely competitive:

In our Math 55 study sessions, even as we were helping each other, we were also subtly keeping score. That was true in our broader circle of math nerds as well. Everyone knew how everyone else was doing, for instance, that Lloyd in Wigg B aced a Math 21a test or that Peter–or was it someone else?–found an error in Mather’s notes. We all grasped who among us was quicker that day, sharper, the person who “got it” first and then could lead the rest of us to the answer. Every day you strived to be on top. By the end of the first semester, I realized that my ranking in the hierarchy wasn’t what I had hoped…

By most measures I was doing well. I earned a B+ in the first semester which was an achievement in that class. In my stark view however it was less of a measure of what I knew than how much I didn’t. The gap between B+ and A was the difference between being the top person in the class and being a fake…

I was recognizing that while I had an excellent math brain, I didn’t have the gift of insight that sets apart the best mathematicians. I had talent but not the ability to make fundamental discoveries.

"There's nothing wrong with asking for SAT scores," Bezos says. Several of his employees blew away his 1,450, in fact. SATs are one minor metric in an elaborate assessment of job candidates. "If you start out with A's, you get to keep A's," he says. "If you start hiring B's, B's hire B's."

Jeff Bezos decided not to become a theoretical physicist during his time at Princeton University when he encountered a particularly difficult partial differential equation. Despite being a strong student, he and his roommate struggled for three hours to solve this problem without success.

They then sought help from their friend Yasantha Rajakarunanayake, considered the "smartest guy at Princeton," who solved it in seconds by recognizing it as analogous to a problem he had solved three years earlier.

This moment of realizing he could not excel as a theoretical physicist was pivotal for Bezos. He later said, "That was the very moment when I realized I was never going to be a great theoretical physicist." This experience contributed to his decision to shift his focus from physics to entrepreneurship, which eventually led him to found Amazon.

This story is well-documented from an interview Bezos gave at The Economic Club of Washington in 2018, where he humorously recounted this episode and its significance in his career path.

"Elon Musk, a Canadian: How Tesla's man was shaped by ...
The Globe and Mail
https://www.theglobeandmail.com › business › article-el...
Sep 10, 2023 — On his second round of the SAT tests, he got a 670 out of 800 on his verbal exam and a 730 on math.

The state monopoly on violence and nuclear weapons

AI Overview

The state monopoly on violence, a concept popularized by sociologist Max Weber, defines a sovereign state as the sole entity within a territory with the legitimate right to use physical force. Nuclear weapons represent the absolute pinnacle of this monopoly, elevating a state's power from territorial control to ultimate global existential deterrence.

The Theory of the Monopoly

Legitimacy: The state's power to use force is theoretically granted by its citizens through a "social contract" in exchange for the protection of their rights, lives, and property.

Control of Force: All other entities—such as police departments or private citizens—are only permitted to use force if explicitly authorized and regulated by the state (e.g., in self-defense or law enforcement).

Max Weber's Definition: Sociologist Max Weber famously defined the modern state by its specific means: the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.

Nuclear Weapons as the Ultimate Monopolizer

Extreme Expression of Power: The possession of nuclear weapons is the most extreme manifestation of a state's sovereign power, allowing it to project invincibility and deter aggression from foreign adversaries.

The "Nuclear Peace": Nuclear monopolies or mutual ownership radically alter the state's relationship with violence. Theorists of "mutually assured destruction" argue that nuclear capabilities prevent large-scale existential wars between major powers, though they can sometimes result in increased indirect or proxy conflicts.

Monopoly vs. Proliferation: When only one or a few states possess nuclear weapons, it creates a severe power imbalance. This is why international non-proliferation treaties (like the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) exist to control which authorities are granted this ultimate level of destructive power.

Intersectionality and Criticism

Critiques of the State: Critics from various political spectrums, including libertarianism and anarchism, argue that this monopoly inherently results in coercion, imperial violence, and unchecked taxation.

Global Implications: Anti-war and intersectional theorists argue that nuclear arsenals are the ultimate signifiers of state domination, and hold the potential to inflict catastrophic harm on civilian populations without their consent. The push for global nuclear disarmament continues to challenge the moral legitimacy of any state possessing the power to instantly destroy entire societies.

The state monopoly on violence and engineered viruses

AI Overview

The state monopoly on violence, defined by sociologist Max Weber, is the principle that a government is the only entity authorized to use or authorize physical force within a given territory. Engineered viruses challenge this foundation, as synthetic biology empowers non-state actors or rogue groups to inflict mass harm.

The intersection of these concepts creates a major modern security dilemma. Here is how they interact:

1. The Core Definition
In political science, a state’s legitimacy rests on its ability to protect citizens from internal and external threats, which requires it to successfully claim a monopoly over the use of force. This centralization stops society from devolving into constant, decentralized conflict.

2. The Decentralization of Threat
The advancement of biotechnology (such as synthetic genomics) makes it easier and cheaper to manipulate microbes, meaning destructive power that once required entire state programs can increasingly fall into the hands of a few. Because of this, scholars warn that synthetic biology could erode the state’s monopoly on violence, allowing lone actors to deploy weapons of mass destruction.

3. Asymmetric Warfare and Attribution
Engineered viruses represent an asymmetrical threat. Because bio-agents are living and can spread invisibly, it can be extremely difficult for governments to definitively prove who created or released them. A major challenge for the state is tracing these bio-threats back to their origin to hold malicious actors accountable.

4. The Regulatory Response
To maintain their authority and protect public safety, states aggressively expand their regulatory and surveillance capabilities. Through bodies like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), governments are developing screening, computational tracking, and detection tools to preemptively identify engineered organisms.

Ultimately, engineered viruses complicate how the state maintains order and enforces its legitimacy. To counter this, governments continuously rely on preemptive monitoring and international treaties to prevent dangerous pathogens from slipping outside official, state-sanctioned control.

Amazon engineering interview math question

AI Overview

Solving Amazon's Poles Distance Interview Question with Math

Amazon engineering math interviews often test applied quantitative reasoning, probability, or mathematical logic rather than pure calculus. A popular example is the "Hanging Cable" logic puzzle, which evaluates a candidate’s ability to strip away complex formulas and use spatial reasoning to find a simple solution.

The Hanging Cable Puzzle

The Problem Statement:
Imagine two 50 meter poles are standing on the ground. A cable exactly 80 meters long is strung between the two poles. Because of the cable's length, it hangs down, and its lowest point reaches exactly 10 meters above the ground. How far apart are the two poles?

The Solution:
Instead of setting up complex hyperbolic catenary curve equations, test the limits of the problem. Picture bringing the two poles directly together (with a distance of 0 meters between them). Because the cable is 80 meters long, it will go 40 meters straight down to its lowest point, and then 40 meters straight back up to the tops of the poles. Since the poles are 50 meters high, the lowest point of the cable will be at 50 - 40 = 10 meters off the ground. Since this perfectly matches the conditions of the problem, the only possible distance between the poles is 0 meters.

Guest wrote: Fri Jul 17, 2026 5:35 pm The third level knobs will be the ones that assure Sorites paradox.
They will never sit down since they never stood up for what should of been done.