On Sun, 16 Sep 2007 13:40:46 +0200, andrel wrote:

> Ah yes, Utah. I do have friends over there, but the friend (Willibrord
> Crijnen) I could refer you to lives in Marseille. That is a bit far away
> I am afraid. :(

Yeah, France is a little bit of a plane ride away. :-)

> Willibrord and I studied physics together, but although he was extremely
> good (as in: better than me), after 2 or 3 years his genetic
> predisposition took over and he dropped out of university to become a
> fulltime violin builder. I spent many happy afternoons in his workshop
> talking a.o. about the physics of the violin family. I still use him now
> and then to make the point that talent is important in finishing a
> degree in physics, but motivation is much more important.

I think it's a combination, really - if you have no talent but have 
motivation, you'll end up largely frustrated.  Similarly, if you have 
talent but no motivation, you'll do poorly in the classes because you'll 
blow off your assignments.

My younger brother was a physics major (once upon a time - he ended up 
with philosophy & religion as his major with a music minor); he found 
that he couldn't hack the math.  Similar sort of thing for me, I was 
motivated to do aeronautical engineering, but once I got to organic 
chemistry and the professor from hell (whom I mistakenly took the class 
TWICE from, dumb move there) as well as integral calculus, I found myself 
in way over my head.  I had talent for computing (evidenced by the amount 
of time I spent working in the computer lab on the networking systems), 
so switched over to that, but I wasn't as motivated (I don't think, 
anyways) because the classes weren't teaching me what I wanted to learn 
about.

Jim

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