Jim Simons: Life Lessons from the
‘World’s Smartest Billionaire'

Arthur C. Clarke:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Brian Keating:
Welcome everybody to this episode of the Into the Impossible podcast, a production of the Arthur C Clarke Center For Human Imagination at UC San Diego. I am your fearful host, Brian Keating, codirector of the Arthur Clarke Center For Human Imagination, a professor of physics at UC San Diego. And, today’s a very special day because, I don’t often get to interview people that have known me since before I was born and, people who have played such a huge role in my life in particular, but in literally, you know, millions of people around the world’s lives, and that’s, none other than Jim Simons, doctor Jim Simons, who’s joining us from New York, where he has, been sheltering, I presume, for quite some time. Jim, welcome to the Into the Impossible podcast.

Jim Simons:
Well, thanks. Glad to be here. Glad to be here.

Brian Keating:
So this podcast is really a discussion of ideas with great intellectuals and thinkers, and I always like to get to know people a little bit better. Usually, I I ask questions about their books or or so forth. But what I wanted to start off with you is to kind of ask you if, you know, somebody, an alien abducted you and could speak English to you, and asked you, who are you? How would you answer that question? What defines Jim Simons

Jim Simons:
to you? Who am I, and what how do I define myself?

Brian Keating:
Yeah. Science, philanthropist, mhmm.

Jim Simons:
Well, I’ve been theory things. I’ve been a mathematician. I have, run, an investment fund and, now a, a foundation, a foundation that focuses on basic science of all strikes. So I’ve done 3 theory things in my life aside from, you know, having a couple of children, etcetera. And, well, that’s that’s been my life. Someone wrote a book about me, this past theory, and I didn’t want him to do it, but it didn’t come out too badly. So, you know, you can learn about me somewhat in that book.

Brian Keating:
Yeah. We had Greg, Greg Zuckerman. He was a guest on the podcast, a few months back. So, yes, we we we did talk about that book And, you know but I’ve always encouraged you to write a book, and, theory interested to to know what’s One

Jim Simons:
of these one of these days, I’ll do it. One of these days, I’ll do it. My daughter keeps urging me to to do so. I’m gonna retire soon from the foundation and then have more time to, write my memoirs or something like that. But, I don’t know what else I can tell you to describe myself. I think I, I’m imaginative. I think I have a lot of imagination. And, I’ve had my share of good ideas, some bad ones sometimes, of course.

Jim Simons:
In fact, when you’re doing science, you’ll be able to probably have 5 bad ideas for every good one. But, my friend, Lenny Baum, said, he said, bad ideas is good. Good ideas is better. No ideas is terrible. And, when you’re doing science, you have a lot of bad ideas. Ideas. But, you know, but you get some good ones if you’re a good scientist, and now those carry the day.

Brian Keating:
Oh, that’s great. And I I like to think about you, yes, as a as a ponderer, as an intellectual. And I I, you know, I guess, I I foremost think of you as a scientist because even in philanthropy, and even in, your role as a department chair and and your roles throughout, throughout the, you know, the the financial world, you have always adopted, it seems to me, a scientist mentality where you approach theory. Just as you said, I could replace what you said ideas with experiments. And you do many, many experiments, thought experiments, and some C succeed, and some are actual experiments in real life. I’m not just talking about the Simons Observatory, but I’m talking about, running, you know, running projects. And part of what I want to talk to you about today is this notion of of leadership in these different communities and these different hats that you’ve worn. And whether or not you think there’s some translation or some, skill set that you had uniquely, that made you a good leader of these industries or or professions, because people are lucky enough to have one career, let alone 3.

Brian Keating:
And I wonder, you know, were you just born with it? Was there something that was instilled to in you by your parents or your upbringing, your relatively modest upbringing in outside of Boston? Is there anything that instilled that, or is it just your nature that you were kinda born this way?

Jim Simons:
Well, we’re talking about leadership. Well, I have a lot of imagination, so I’ve come up with some ideas, that have, that have worked. But my idea of leadership of an organization is to hire the very best people you possibly can. And I have a good taste in people. Mhmm. And then let them carry the ball. And Mhmm. When I became chair of, the Stony Brook math department, I reached out for the best person I could possibly find, and he was your father.

Jim Simons:
Mhmm. And, I knew if your dad would come on board, it would open up the floodgates of, people saying, oh, well, this department, can really go somewhere. So, I spent a lot of time courting your father. And, finally, he said yes. And then I was able to quickly hire 3 or 4 other outstanding people. And, and we did that over the next couple of years. I hired 10 people the 1st year, 10 the second, and I think maybe 10 people the 3rd year. And by then, we’ve built up an outstanding department.

Brian Keating:
That’s, kind of a well, certainly, it’s very touching for you to speak about my father, James Axe, in that way. And and I know that, you know, you had always been described to me by my mother and, and even by my dad as having this preternatural ability to recognize talent and to but not only to, like, be the the chess player needs to know not only the names of the pieces and to that it’s better to have a lot of, you know, queens, than a lot of pawns, but but actually how to implement them, how to recruit them into action, and get them to do, you know, some of the work that that is needed to be done for success on a project. You once told me that you read a fiction book called The Captain or something like that that was very influential on you as a leader. Can you remind me the name of book? Because I I have not been able to find it yet.

Jim Simons:
Yeah. I can’t remember that name of it either, but it was when I was about to become chair of Stony Brook math department. I was 30 years old. And, and I found this book, I think it might have been called Captain, about a young fellow in the Navy who, became captain of a of a boat at quite a young age and had to learn how to be a commander. And, and one of the things he learned is don’t dawdle too much about making a decision. Make a decision. It may be wrong, but it’s better to make a decision than just dawdle and dawdle and make no decision. Mhmm.

Jim Simons:
And that seemed like an important lesson to me. Mhmm. And I’ve always been reasonably decisive. Mhmm. I consult with other people and so on as one should, but I don’t, you know, just go back and forth and back and forth for a long time. I make the decision. Mhmm. Sometimes it’s wrong, but most of the time, my decisions have been have been good.

Brian Keating:
Another lesson I learned from you a little while ago was, you know, when people have something really, important to them, say, in a department, when you were chair at Stony Brook, you would, let them debate it. Maybe it wasn’t at the top number 1 or 2 priority in your mind, but you could tell it was important to them, and you’d let them discuss it. And, and instead of weighing in on every single decision, that you’d let people to whom it made the most, you know, impact on make those decisions. And then when you would sit those out or, you know, kind of just share the meeting, so to speak. And then by the you know, for the for the meetings that had something of great importance to you personally, then you would weigh in and you’d have more gravitas. Is that something that you learned on the job, or had had how did you, you know, come to that realization that that was an effective management technique?

Jim Simons:
Well, you did describe that exactly as it was. So here’s how it was.

Brian Keating:
Yeah.

Jim Simons:
I learned quickly that when you have a department meeting, there are a lot of opinions. People like to argue, go back and forth on this and that. And, and so I I determined that, okay, people like to debate. Fine. I’m gonna let them debate. But if it’s something important, I’ll make the decision in the first place, announce that we’re going to do this or we’re gonna do that. And, as the you know, maybe the first item on the gender of the experiment. And then I was very happy to let everyone, debate other other things that were were coming up, which I didn’t think was so important.

Jim Simons:
So, okay, fine. Argue this way, that way, we we come to a conclusion. But if it was really important, I would just announce it myself. And no one objected. So that was, the way I ran department meetings.

Brian Keating:
Interesting. When when you, you know, had, the opportunity to play a role in these different 3 different fields, you know, philanthropy, finance, and academia. Do you feel that there are commonalities? Maybe, the point I’m getting at mostly is I think there’s not we never C training. Here’s how you should be a department chair. You know, there there doesn’t seem to be a lot of, you know, mentorship or guidance. It’s kinda like sink or swim. You’re thrown into this job, and you either perform or you don’t. And even when you perform, you might be victim of the Peter principle.

Brian Keating:
You know, you rise to the level of your incompetence as as it said. But, you know, do you do you think that that’s something that’s missing in academia at least, intelligence, maybe even in philanthropy? How do we cultivate the next generation of leaders?

Jim Simons:
Well, that’s a good question. It’s it’s interesting in math experiment, unless there’s a lot of money available and you bang really build up the department, substantially. Most people don’t necessarily want the job as department chair. It’s often saying, okay, it’s my turn. I’ll do it for 3 years or for 4 theory. But, I don’t really you know, I wanna do research, teaching. I’m not so interested in administration. Now, in other fields, that’s not the case.

Brian Keating:
Mhmm.

Jim Simons:
In, in biology or or or medical school, the the chair of the department, that’s really, an a not only an important thing, but a sought after thing.

Brian Keating:
Yes.

Jim Simons:
So, when I was interviewing for chair of the math experiment, the with the provost, he said something very funny. He said, well, doctor Science, you’re the first person I’ve interviewed for this job who actually wants it. And I said, no, I I I want it. So, they hired me. So, I don’t know if there’s, if I think people who, rise up in academia get the experience they see, you know, what other people are doing and what mistakes they may have made or whatever and try to learn. And I think that’s the way people rise up in any organization. So

Brian Keating:
Do you do you see it as a I mean, not

Jim Simons:
Secret to it.

Brian Keating:
Right. Yeah. I mean, I just can’t imagine somebody being offered, you know, CEO or managing director of Renaissance Technologies. I I’m not sure. I gotta think about it. Why do you think it is that people you know, it’s almost like a you know, the the the booby prize in academia. If you’re if you’re selected for department chair, it’s like, congratulations, question mark, or my condolences. But but it really should be you know, if somebody offered somebody the the CEO of Apple, I I don’t think theory would say, oh, I really gotta think about this.

Brian Keating:
I gotta talk to my Yeah. You know, my my spouse.

Jim Simons:
Well, I mean, it’s it it it’s a different deal. It takes you being a department chair, at least in, in mathematics and and perhaps physics or astronomy is, it takes you away from your research. Mhmm. And your research is the thing most people wanna do the most. Yeah. So they feel, okay, I have to do some administration. It’s my turn. Mhmm.

Jim Simons:
I’ll I’ll do the best I can, but, I’ll be glad when it’s over. So whereas, you know, running a computers is a whole is a whole different deal. Mhmm. That’s something that some people are good at and really wanna do that and lead the company and make a lot of money. Mhmm. So, but academic departments, don’t make a lot of money. Yeah. So, that’s the way I see it.

Brian Keating:
Last year, we were together for the total solar eclipse in Chile, and I asked you, you know, if you could arrange a dinner party for a famous, single person from history, you know, a 100 years or more ago, who would it be? And you basically instantaneously said Abraham Lincoln. And I wonder, what does he mean to you, and and are there lessons in his leadership style that that speak to you so loudly that he would be the historical figure that you’d most like to sit down with for, for for a meal?

Jim Simons:
Yeah. Well, I only really have one hero in my life, and it and it’s Abraham Lincoln. There’s a many people I admire and so on, but as a hero, it’s Abraham Lincoln. And he had the following qualities. He had very, very good social skills. People liked to be around him. He told a lot of jokes and so on. He was very smart.

Jim Simons:
He was very smart. In his, middle before he became president, he decided to study Euclidean geometry and understand, that much mathematics, just on his own because he he was just curious. And, he was a very, very smart guy. Good social skills, wonderful social skills, and determination. He had determination. He there were so many times during the civil war where he could have just said, the hell with it. Let’s just have 2 countries. So many people are being killed, in this terrible war.

Jim Simons:
But he had a vision of America, and he stuck to that vision. And and, just wouldn’t give up. And over time, he was right, and that held the country together. We won the civil war. I say, we won the civil war. The North That’s right. The North won the Civil War. And, and then, he got with great effort the amendment passed, which, abolished slavery in the United States.

Jim Simons:
Yes. And that was very difficult to get past. But he knew we had to had to get it passed before the war was over. And theory were a lot of southern southerners now back in Congress, and it would it would, it wouldn’t get passed. And he said to his his guys, he said, This is very important. I want you to go out and do everything you bang, twist every arm, give people this or that if they if they feel they need it. I’m the president of the United States. Imbued with great power.

Jim Simons:
Use that power and get this, amendment passed.

Brian Keating:
Mhmm.

Jim Simons:
And it worked. Yeah. So, I think he was just just a great man in every respect.

Brian Keating:
If I’m not mistaken, the poem, oh, captain, my captain, which has the title captain from your book that you mentioned earlier is written about Abraham Lincoln. Speaking of books and Abraham Lincoln, is there any book any book a biography of Lincoln that you recommend or a theory, about him by any author?

Jim Simons:
I’ve read, at least 4 biographies of Clarke. Which ones did you like? You know, I can’t remember, any of the names. I’m terrible at names. But There’s one

Brian Keating:
called Team of Rivals, that by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Jim Simons:
That’s well, that’s right.

Brian Keating:
That’s it.

Jim Simons:
Okay. Team of Rivals. That’s the most recent interesting, semi biography of him because it was about the other people on his cabinet. But but that was an example. These people had wanted to be president, at least a couple of them. And, and he said, look, you’re you’re the best guys around. Mhmm. I won you on my cabinet.

Jim Simons:
And they came. And at a certain point, not too late in the game, Stanson became the secretary of war, they called the secretary of war, replacing a proof a poor choice that he had made for that position. So, that guy left in Stanson came in and got to know Lincoln. Now, he had met Lincoln years earlier. Lincoln was a railroad lawyer, and he did a very good job in the Midwest representing railroads. And, railroads were just coming into the United States, and there were, you know, legal issues and, Brian and so on. So, he was a very good, railroad lawyer. But there was a big case with a big railroad, and and it was gonna be held in Cincinnati.

Jim Simons:
He was put on it, but then the the railroad said, now we really need a big New York firm. I mean, we really need to put a lot of heft into this. So, they hired stanton and his firm. Lincoln lincoln was still on the job, but he just asked Aaron List and later said, you know, I learned a lot from him. But Stanton and his team, they they just thought this guy was a dope. You know, he just sat there. He didn’t say anything, whatever. And later, when he became in in Lincoln’s cabinet and understood who Lincoln was, he was quoted as Keating, none was so wrong than we in Cincinnati.

Jim Simons:
So but that’s what that’s what the trial was held. Right. And, so Stanton, told his his cabinet, you know, really was adored him or or maybe adored him. This is a strong word, but sounds too lovey dovey, but, admired him. And, he was just a great man. I could go on and on about this. But,

Brian Keating:
I’m sure I wanna touch upon what you mentioned before. And we had this conversation also in in the, you know, declaration of independence, Thomas Jefferson declares certain things as self evident. And Steven Shrogatz, who hosts the Quantum Magazine Joy of X podcast, for Quantum Magazine, which is, at least sponsored by the Simons Foundation. The, Stephen points out that that very phrase, you know, we hold these truths to be self evident, is really a reference to Euclidean geometry where Euclid would prove things in his elements, which is one of your favorite books, I know. And and he would say such and such is self evident. And I wonder if we could segue into a a little bit of a a discussion about why math appeals to you, and has from a young age. Because if I recall correctly, one of your first, you know, realizations and encounters with math was sort of a realization of what we call Zeno’s paradox. And I wonder, can you recount the story of when you basically at age, what, 4 or 5, really kind of rediscovered or discovered Zeno’s paradox for yourself? And what did that do igniting within you, perhaps, a love of mathematics?

Jim Simons:
Well, first, let’s let’s go back, to, Euclid. What he said was self evident were the axioms. The arrow is an axiom, that was the toughest one. Two points to describe a unique line and, and the intersection, principle. So those, he said, were self evident. But from then on, the terms that developed from these were not self experiment. They were all, well, some of them looked obvious, but nonetheless, they were all proved using these initial, quote, unquote, self evident, things. Mhmm.

Jim Simons:
Now, my discovery of Zeno’s paradox, was when I was a little boy, maybe 3 or 4, I was riding in the car with my father and he’s he he said he had to stop, to get gas. I said, well, why? Why do you do that? He said, I don’t wanna run out of gas, because, you know, the car won’t run. And I said, well, why don’t you just use half the amount that’s in the bang, and then use half of that, and then use half of that, etcetera, and you’ll never run out. You’ll never run out again. Now, it I didn’t take it further through and realized, yes, but you’ll never get anywhere either.

Brian Keating:
You’re also.

Jim Simons:
But, but I could see that, you know, you just keep cutting something down in half, and there’s still something left. So, that was something that I, also, when I was a little boy well, a lot of kids did this, I think, just kept doubling numbers. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16. I got up to a 1024, I suppose, before I got bored with it, but I I I I thought that was that was fun. But one thing, you know, I used to think a lot. Mhmm. I I would I would I would think a lot and sometimes talk to myself. And when I went to bed, I I often lay in bed thinking.

Jim Simons:
And for some reason or another, and I couldn’t have been more than 10, I’d heard the expression pass it on. And I know, you know, you know what that means, pass it on. But I lay in bed and said, well, how do you define that? If I say, so and so is, gonna be married, pass it on. Mhmm. You know, for an example. Well, how do you say, tell the next guy, and tell him to tell the next guy, and tell him to tell the next guy, etcetera.

Brian Keating:
Recursively. Yeah.

Jim Simons:
Yeah. It, it it I I needed to get a definition. And I tossed and turned for several days trying to get a definition of pass it on. Finally, one night, I I fell asleep Keating I had it. But when I woke up, I forgot what I had the night before. So I I finally just said, the hell with it. And, but but the little kid would think about the question of how you define something is, you know, is is unusual.

Brian Keating:
Yeah. That’s, that’s impressive for sure. And and do you feel that that, I always C with my little kids when they solve a puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle or a crossword puzzle like Marilyn, you know, must have instilled in me as a young person. And now my kids play cross do crossword puzzles on their iPhones and iPads. When they solve it, they almost wanna redo it because they get a little taste of excitement, that mirrors and mimics the excitement that they felt when they solved it the first time. And I wonder if that encounter, that math encounter that you, that you underwent at that young age, do do you think that was an incisive event that had an impact on your later development, you know, into becoming a mathematician, later on in life?

Jim Simons:
Well, I don’t know if that particular thing did I

Brian Keating:
Or that way of thinking, that that way of of curiosity that you have.

Jim Simons:
Yes. I think that’s that’s probably true. That was, something that I never forgot, actually. Mhmm. But mathematics was the only, subject that I liked, actually, in grammar school. And even in high school, I didn’t like science was not very well taught. Mhmm. And, I didn’t I I was a voracious reader, so I I love literature, but, I I didn’t write very well.

Jim Simons:
So but the subject that, that I love, was mathematics. And in those days when I was in high school, the AP, thing was just coming into play.

Brian Keating:
Right.

Jim Simons:
So, and a few high schools had been chosen to pioneer this thing. And my high school, Newton High School in Newton, Massachusetts, was one of them. So, I learned calculus in in high school, which today you know, 1st year calculus, which, today, the AP, courses take. It wasn’t called AP. It was called the, the something plan. But, whatever it was, Kenyan plan. It was called the Kenyan plan. I don’t know why.

Jim Simons:
Mhmm. But, so so I, took the, bang advanced course and then and then went to MIT. And I I learned later that the, I got my my, teacher, in the in the, 12th grade. He was one of the people who, designed the test and then, you know, consulted with others who passed the test and who didn’t. And he someone told me, he said, Simons has to pass the test. If if, if if he can’t that should be, a level. He should pass the test, so his score should be a passing score. And,

Brian Keating:
That was the standard.

Jim Simons:
Yeah. That would be the standard. Calibration. Yep. So, and, so I I, anyway, I went to college and, studied math. In my freshman year, I took a graduate course in the 2nd semester, and it said no, what do you call it? Audit? No. You didn’t have to have taken any other course.

Brian Keating:
Oh, no prerequisites?

Jim Simons:
No prerequisites. Yes. Yeah. No prerequisites. So I said, okay, to myself, I’m gonna take this course. And it was on abstract algebra, group theory and some vector spaces and so on. And I was very puzzled by this course. I passed it, but I really didn’t understand what it was all about.

Jim Simons:
Mhmm. But that summer, I got a book on algebra. And within a couple of weeks, I realized, oh, that’s what it’s all about. I just had this this, over the summer, this, vision or or whatever,

Brian Keating:
Epiphany, almost.

Jim Simons:
Epiphany Mhmm. That, this is what this is all about. And from then on, the next 2 years, I took the most advanced algebra classes. And, in my 3rd year, it was with a guy named Iwasawa, and it was topics science algebra, it was called. And I think I was the only person in the class. It was a it was a graduate class, and I was in my 3rd year. And, I think I was the only one who solved all the problems, and that was the homework. So so I was good at algebra, but my I was also introduced to differential geometry in that same, year.

Jim Simons:
And, I loved it. I just loved it. And, felt that, I would do very well with that, which which I did. When I learned Stokes’ theorem, that I thought that was the most beautiful theorem I ever saw, Stokes’ theory. It generalizes the fundamental theorem of calculus. It it, you know, it just, with the Virgin’s theory, so on, all wrapped up in Stokes’ theorem and this notion of differential forms. Yes. You know what a differential form is?

Brian Keating:
Yeah. Of Clarke. We’re gonna talk about that next. Yeah. Go ahead. Okay. Wanna describe it for my listeners, though? The differential form and and why it’s so beautiful, as you say.

Jim Simons:
Yeah. Why don’t you? Yeah.

Brian Keating:
Well, I

Jim Simons:
like it how you describe it.

Brian Keating:
So we we talk about the the, you know, kind of relationship. It’s almost, you know, mirroring, I believe, what Hilbert said, you know, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in,

Brian Keating:
No. That was that that was Wigner.

Brian Keating:
Oh, Wigner. Sorry. Wigner. It’s almost there’s a second order unreasonable, effectiveness of geometry and physics. And, we talk about our our connection between geometric forms and, and their utility in geometry, general relativity, and, more recently in in in terms of of quantum field theory and understanding the properties of, of, you know, at the the, the behavior particles in these abstract spaces. And, lately, there’s been a lot of, controversy. There’s a young well, I shouldn’t say young. He’s a couple theory older than me, and I’m not young.

Brian Keating:
But there’s a man by the name of Eric Weinstein, who I believe you know. And he’s he’s trying to develop what he calls a, a, really a geometric theory of all of physics. And it’s very controversial, but effectively finding the analogs of particles that we call fermions in an abstract 14 dimensional geometric space. And these connections, one forms, two forms, metric connections, these are vital attributes of, of this model that he’s constructed. And it’s and some of it’s in analogy with, with work that’s that’s already been done. And what what he what Eric this Eric Weinstein has done is he’s made a digital version of your of the famous Simon Center, for Geometry and Physics has what’s called the iconic wall of mathematics and physics. And on this on this huge wall, 465 square foot wall, are the basic and I’m gonna have a link, and I’ll show images in the video of this conversation. You have, the metric equate you have Einstein equations, which are, you know, two forms, geometric objects and differential geometry.

Brian Keating:
And some claim that this is the pinnacle, not only of math and physics, but really of civilization. That the that the equations on your wall represent the pinnacle of what we’ve been able to achieve as a species. And you said something interesting a few minutes ago. You said, when you understood Stokes’ theorem, it it was beautiful to you. And I wanna connect that to the Simon Center, the wall. Do you think of math as beautiful in the science, that art is beautiful? I mean, we often hear this debate, you know, is mathematics discovered or invented? I don’t think people would say, Michelangelo discovered, you know, the David inside of a block of marble, even though he would say stuff like that. But, he actually created it. But mathematics and what’s chiseled into your wall in the Science Center, do you feel that that’s, you know, discovered or or really is it invented by the human mind? And then the the follow-up question after you answer that will be, is it beautiful? Is it does it rank amongst alongside great music, great artwork? And if so, why? So first, is mathematics discovered or invented the way art or, you know, inventions are are found?

Jim Simons:
Yeah. That’s a, standard question. Yeah. And, it’s it’s both.

Brian Keating:
How’s that?

Jim Simons:
Every every true theorem is out there. The number of true theorems is, I believe, infinite. And the number of definitions that one can make is infinite. Mhmm. So all these things are out there. But on the other hand, you don’t know this. There’s no book of all these things because there’s an infinite number of of possible theorems and definitions. The key is in doing mathematics to, let’s say, find a good definition, a definition that will get you somewhere, a definition that, would unify, perhaps other things and so on.

Jim Simons:
So, that’s a creative act. So, it’s a creative act to find something interesting in an infinite field, and in in an infinite collection of, of things. So it’s out there, but you have to find it and have good taste, in in in finding something that will really go somewhere.

Brian Keating:
So it’s guided by wisdom as well as knowledge. I I think that’s that’s interesting. And then the question the follow-up question, is, is math a form of art? Does it have commonalities? Is it different than music or art? Does it move you? I’ve always been curious. Does it do you feel does it invoke any emotions when you look at the wall, not just for its artistic beauty, which it is, but when you see the Aharon of Foam effect or you see, you know, the the the Dirac equation or or just a pure mathematical relationship, Stokes Stokes’ theory, when you see these, does it evoke an emotion inside of Jim Simons?

Jim Simons:
Well, I mean, I’ve seen these things so often. It’s it’s hard to, keep getting emotional about it.

Brian Keating:
I know. But yeah. But the the notion of is math evocative to you? Are you an emotional person, first of all? And then, you know, does math evoke great beauty the way that great art or music does in some people?

Jim Simons:
Well, math certainly evokes beauty. It’s it’s when someone does something good or whatever, it’s it’s it’s very often it’s characterized, oh, that’s a beautiful film. And for that, that’s a beautiful result. The word beauty is it permeates mathematics. So, I think there’s an aesthetic to it. That that’s why we use that word. And of course, Arthur, regular artists can be beautiful, and poems can be beautiful, and, all those things. But mathematics definitely is characterized by beauty.

Brian Keating:
Excellent. So the next question I have is just kind of a yes or no question. Don’t feel obliged to elaborate too much. There’s a there’s an often said, you know, Kennard or or what have you quipped that mathematicians peak at age 30. That’s the age that you started the math department at Stony Brook. Do you find any credence in that? My father didn’t think it was true, but what what’s your opinion about this notion that, oh, mathematicians do their best work by age 30?

Jim Simons:
Mathematicians can do a lot of good work by age 30, but they can do a lot of good work, at age 50 or 60. I’ve reached a point, 82, where I really can’t do math anymore. But I could up to my early seventies. So, I got some good results actually, when I went back to mathematics, for 1. So, I think, yes, young people, can do terrific things, but the older people can do good stuff too. Mhmm. So I I don’t think it’s, everyone every mathematician did his best work when he was under 30. That’s probably not the case.

Jim Simons:
Alright.

Brian Keating:
Okay. Now we’re gonna transition a little bit into a later career, which was, involving in the financial world, but we’re gonna connect it to a famous geometer, of of, in physics, and that’s Albert Einstein. So our segue between geometry and finance will be none other than Albert Einstein, who once said that compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe. Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn’t, pays it. Do you agree with that?

Jim Simons:
I’m I’ve never heard that quote.

Brian Keating:
You’ve never heard that. Okay. I’ll send you I’ll send you an email with a quote. Yeah. So once again, compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it, and he who doesn’t, pays it. What what is your notion of the what’s the most powerful force in the world according to Jim Simons?

Jim Simons:
Well, the most powerful force in the world, according to me, is some physical force. I don’t know which which one to pick. But, but, this, of course, is is finance bang not, and not physics. So, gee, I’ve been pretty successful in in finance. Yeah.

Brian Keating:
You’ve had some success, I would say. Yeah.

Jim Simons:
I’ve had some success. Today, actually, I I lost some money.

Brian Keating:
Oh, no.

Jim Simons:
Not a huge brains, but I

Brian Keating:
I’m here for you, Jim, if you if you need anything.

Jim Simons:
I was I thought it was a loser today.

Brian Keating:
I’m sorry.

Jim Simons:
But, yeah. A couple

Brian Keating:
Actually, how do you how do you how do you think of yourself? So, this seg segues into something that I think will be of great interest, not because your of your total amassed, amassed wealth or Keating, but how do you think of of money? What is money to you? Is it is it a tool? Is it is it a vice? Some people see money in a very negative way nowadays. How do you view money, and and, what is its purpose as far as you’re concerned?

Jim Simons:
Well, most of the money that I’ve earned is now on our foundations.

Brian Keating:
Mhmm.

Jim Simons:
So I think I have only 10 or 15% of the money, that I’ve earned that’s not in the foundations. But that’s plenty. Mhmm. Plenty for me. Look, I enjoy being wealthy. I enjoy having my boat and my airplane. Mhmm. And, 2 houses, one thing or another.

Jim Simons:
Mhmm. There’s no question that I enjoy that. But I also enjoy, the foundation and doing really interesting things with the money, as we’re doing with your telescope project. Yeah. That’s very satisfying. So I think I like all aspects of money.

Brian Keating:
So, yes. Yeah. Certainly, yeah. It’s, they say, god bless the child who has his or her own. The, a question came in from a friend of mine who is, in in the financial, industry, so to speak. And, this person wanted to know, about kind of the the philosophy by which you run your life. I guess I guess I would say first question was, do you have a set of routines or habits, that that shape your daily, activities? Do you have, you know, space in your calendar for just pondering things? How do you organize your daily schedule in terms of your habits and and tactics?

Jim Simons:
When I was 70, I’m a smoker, as you might have noticed. Yes. And at 70, I thought, well, maybe I should give up smoking. Now, Marilyn suggested, well, what? Maybe you should take up exercise because that might help, take your mind off smoking. So I did that. I got 2 brains. And every morning, I’d set my alarm for 6 o’clock And 6:30, I was one of with 1 of the 2 trainers. Wow.

Jim Simons:
Now after a couple of months, I went back to smoking. I couldn’t stand not smoking, but I loved doing exercise.

Brian Keating:
Oh, wow.

Jim Simons:
So I do that every single morning. Well, 5 days a week.

Brian Keating:
Yes. Wow.

Jim Simons:
And I, I do a I walk very fast, and then I do push ups and sit ups and all that kind of stuff. Mhmm. So that’s a regular part of my routine every morning for an hour. Uh-huh. And yeah. And the and the rest is totally disorganized. No. It’s, you know, I I have, regular meetings with, the different people I supervise at the foundation.

Jim Simons:
Sometimes it’s a weekly meeting or a monthly meeting, but, I I, that’s the way I I run things. But mostly, of course, as I told you, when you hire wonderful people, you let them, you know, do that thing and don’t stand Yeah. Stay on top of the wall.

Brian Keating:
Let me know if you can find someone to work out for me that will actually do the exercise for Let me know if you can find someone to do that. One of my listeners, a friend of mine who hosts the podcast himself, James Altucher, wants to know, the proprietary algorithms of the of the medallion. No. He’s, he wants to know, has it become harder for you, given the rise in quantitative hedge funds, quant funds, and the thousands of PhDs trying to create new algorithms, has that made it harder to create alpha? So, can you say what alpha means in the context of hedge funds, for people that aren’t familiar, and then answer that particular question?

Jim Simons:
Well, when you say alpha, first, you have to understand beta. Mhmm. And and beta is the, the stock market as a whole. Let’s say, the s and p average. So you could just, invest in that, and you would be a 100% beta. All your return would be would come from the, let’s say, the Science P, the Standard and Poor’s average. Alpha is, a source of, earnings that is orthogonal to that. It’s orthogonal to that.

Jim Simons:
And, so that’s alpha. Now, some, our medallion fund is, I think 90% alpha or 95% alpha. It really doesn’t, matter where the stock market is going, for the medallion fund. We have, now the medallion fund is only open to employees of the of the company, of Renaissance Mhmm. And me, of course, as a founder and shareholder. So and and we have some publicly available funds, which do have some beta. They’re not a 100% alpha.

Brian Keating:
Mhmm.

Jim Simons:
And but, of course, they don’t do as well as Medallion, but, but they do, quite well till today. Today, they had a bad day.

Brian Keating:
Oh, I’m sorry. Again, I’m always here if you need, if you need a cup of sugar. I’m I’m here, Jack.

Jim Simons:
Okay. Alright.

Brian Keating:
So in in that space, the question is, I’ve heard it described that these supercomputers and and computers in general are, of course, increasing exponentially, Example of power computing power over time, and cost is coming down. And yet the supercomputers themselves are suffering from the fact that there’s more subscriptions. There’s more people that wanna use the computer now than in the earlier days. So it’s sort of offsetting the exponential gains and processing power. And I guess James Altsch’s question here is, has the just a net quantity of hedge funds and quant PhDs

Jim Simons:
Yes. I understand. And I did I yeah. I didn’t answer that question.

Brian Keating:
Yeah.

Jim Simons:
So I think the question is, do we have competition and how much competition, has competition hurt us at all? Because there are more and more quantitative funds up to a point. I I think most funds are not quantitative funds, but there’s certainly an increasing number of funds that are, well, quantitative. And, our secret is just to stay ahead of everybody. Mhmm. To hire the best possible people. And the research goes on all the time, all the time. Or doing research trying to find new predictive signals. Mhmm.

Jim Simons:
New predictive signals, for example. That’s a big example. So a signal as well, you know what a signal is. It tells you what’s a predictive signal is a signal that tells you what’s gonna what’s gonna happen.

Brian Keating:
Yeah. There’s some probability of right.

Jim Simons:
With some with with a a greater than probability greater than a half. Mhmm. And the more of these signals that you have and independent, they’re not correlated with each other. If they’re highly correlated, it’s it’s really just one signal.

Brian Keating:
Mhmm.

Jim Simons:
But the more you have, the better. And, we have, I won’t even say the number, and I’m not sure what it is, but it’s a very large number of predictive signals.

Brian Keating:
Mhmm.

Jim Simons:
And they keep, being developed. And sometimes, these signals lose their power.

Brian Keating:
Yes. And,

Jim Simons:
you have to discard them. Other people have caught on or whatever. In the earliest days of my trading, I traded computers. Mhmm. And commodities had a tendency to trend. Mhmm. A pretty strong tendency to trend. So that was a good way to make money.

Jim Simons:
You would just say, well, it was up last week. It’s likely to be up next week or so on. But people gradually caught on to trending. Mhmm. So after, several years or maybe 10 years after I started in the business, it The trending in commodities had, completely disappeared. The stocks never trended particularly, so there was no real trending in stocks. But commodities, there was. And so so that’s an example of a of a signal, that just disappeared.

Brian Keating:
So that’s And

Jim Simons:
so other people are we don’t we’re the keep discovering new signals. Other people, might find some of those as well, And that might, the effect of that might be that the signal kind of goes away because too many people are using it. Mhmm. But, so we have awfully smart people, and they keep coming up with new signals. So that’s and we’ve stayed, you know, we’ve stayed with ahead.

Brian Keating:
Yeah. So the last, section of the conversation I want to talk to you about as befits the Father’s Day, podcast episode, that I hope this will become, really revolves around, you know, the aspects of mentorship and fatherhood. And the first question I have is, what what was Jim Simons like as a PhD thesis adviser? You you mentioned that you didn’t have a great deal of students, in your Clarke. But what was your style as a mentor, to PhD students?

Jim Simons:
Well, typically, with a PhD student, you have to help them find the problem in mathematics that you think that, was worth working on and so on. And then you you’d meet with them every week or something like that and see how see how he’s getting along. My first student, it was different. My first student was, when I was, let’s see, I was about 26. And I was working actually at the Institute For Defense Analyses as a coal cracker. I did that for 4 years. Yep. And, and he had just he had taken a course for me at Harvard.

Jim Simons:
He was, I think, 2 years behind me. And then he went to Princeton, and he wanted to do a differential geometry, but there was no one in Princeton at that time who was especially, good at it. The faculty didn’t have that much. So he asked if, you know, I I could be his he could be my student, and I gave him some papers to read and so on. And then one day, he came in and he said, I’ve proved such and such. He said, you proved such and such. That’s fantastic. And, it was.

Jim Simons:
It would he he got a great result. It that result never occurred to me. And, but he, so he was my best student by far. He’s won the Bevlin prize. He’s had a great career. His name is Jeff. Jeff Cheater. Jeff Cheater.

Jim Simons:
Jeff Cheater.

Brian Keating:
Okay.

Jim Simons:
And so he was far and away my best student. Others the others that I had I had another pretty good one named John Nelson. Mhmm. But, the rest were not especially good, and, it was it was not so easy. But as I said, I only had maybe 6, 2, or 7.

Brian Keating:
And then on the other side, you know, for somebody who’s seeking out a mentor or an adviser, did you have anyone we’re we’ll talk about your father in just a second, but did you have anybody who was a mentor in the academic world, in the financial world, or were you just really self taught?

Jim Simons:
Well, I certainly had some mentors, Izz Singer Mhmm. Of, Atia Singer index fame, was, a a a good person for me, and, this was at MIT, and so was his his buddy, Warren Ambrose. He was an older guy, but a house did geometry. Those two people were very influential on me. And, it’s kind of funny because we used to go to a a delicatessen late at night when I was a student. And, one day, I saw Ambrose and Singer come in late at night, and they were obviously doing mathematics. And I saw this, on a number of occasions, and I thought, boy, that’s that’s the greatest job in the world where you could just hang out on a bang out on a dollar contest and do mathematics at midnight. So, so those two people influenced me.

Jim Simons:
When I got to Berkeley so I spent 1 year as a graduate student at MIT. I graduated in 3 years. I spent 1 year as a graduate student. I worked with Singer. Mhmm. But he suggested I go to Berkeley and work with Churn, who was just coming to, to Berkeley. Yeah. And, so, okay, I got a nice fellowship.

Jim Simons:
I went to Berkeley. But regrettably, Churn was Keating his 1st year at Berkeley by taking a sabbatical, so he wasn’t there. So I found someone else to work with, a guy named Constant, and he influenced me quite a lot. I like the way he did theory. And, there’s a there were various ways of of doing geometry. Brian there was a a statement science saying geometry is a subject that’s in Brian under changes of notation. Those are 3 completely different notational things, and turn, like, moving frames, whatever whatever that was. I I explained a little bit vector bundles and moving frames.

Jim Simons:
The the original thing was, Christoffel symbols or something. And, but covariant differentiation was the way, this guy, Costant, approached it, and that’s the way I’ve always approached it since. Interesting. And, and Kostin was, he was a good guy. I came to him one day and said, I have an idea. And I showed him the idea, and he said, oh, that’s that could be related to this outstanding problem. And he told me the problem. But he said, but don’t try that because it’s too hard.

Jim Simons:
Bang tried it. Burrell tried it. So that, of course, got me going. Yeah. And, I solved that problem. And, and, well, Kosta was was pleased and and surprised. Yeah. But, so Do you think So he he info he influenced me.

Brian Keating:
Do you think if, Churn had been had been present at Berkeley that, perhaps your career might have taken a different turn, just thinking serendipitously, looking back with the benefit of hindsight?

Jim Simons:
You know, I’ve thought about that. I don’t know if I’d have done as good a thesis if I’d worked on the churn. Yeah. Or it it could have been better. But I was very happy with, with the way it worked out. Yeah. And I got the no churn in my 2nd year there at Berkeley, and it was my last year. It was funny, I was giving a seminar in the beginning of my 2nd theory, and this tall Chinese guy walks in.

Jim Simons:
And I said to the guy next to me, who’s that? He said, that’s Churn. I said, churn. I had no idea he was Chinese. If his name was Chen or Chan, I would’ve known. I figured he was some Polish guy who changed his name from Chernowski to Chernobyl. But he and I Yes,

Brian Keating:
maybe he did.

Jim Simons:
He and I, got to be friends, Of course, he was 25 years or 30 years older than I am. Yeah. He was. But, we became friends, and, and he followed my work. And I did some very good work in what’s called minimal varieties. A minimal variety is something that minimizes surface area or a higher dimensional area, with respect to its boundary. You know, like a Mhmm. If you put a a wireframe into a soap suds, a surface will form on that wireframe.

Jim Simons:
And if it’s twisted or something, it might look curious, but it has the least area of any other surface with that same boundary. That’s called a minimal surface. And that was a very interesting field, and I worked in that for, for 5 years and, produced a really good result, a really good result. It’s had, it still got citations after 50 years. Wow. And and it still got citations. I I follow the growth in citation.

Brian Keating:
Your h index is

Jim Simons:
Average. Yeah. Yeah. So so and churn, he he really ate that up. He he was, he he wrote a whole set of notes on it. I thought, wait a minute. Is he just copying my work? But, no, it was just just a shove it. So I I didn’t think he was still Right.

Jim Simons:
It’s really my work. And then he and he and I, of course, worked together, and got these Theory Simons, things.

Brian Keating:
Right. Yeah. I just I’ve thought about that in your career, you know, just just in the context of, you know, my adviser probably will never respect me the same way that he would or, you know, if if I came to them as a fully developed scientist or whatever that brains, just because they’ve seen me, You know, my adviser, Peter Timby, has seen me at my most ignorant, and, therefore, I I always feel like, there’s no way he could ever fully respect me the way somebody might meet me, after becoming more developed. So who knows? Maybe, you know, churn Science might not have occurred if he hadn’t taken that sabbatical, And then the world would look, very different, at least,

Jim Simons:
the That’s entirely possible. Yeah. So Mhmm. Alright. Go ahead. Yeah.

Brian Keating:
So I was just gonna segue a little bit into, a different type of mentorship, which is father child, mentorship. So the first question I wanna ask you, is there anything about your father, any the the lesson or character trait that he instilled with you? I I always think of our parents’ job is to place a little voice recording in the back of our heads that will play at some time in the future when we when we’re not around maybe. Is there any are there any lessons that your father taught you that you find yourself saying or or thinking even, many years later?

Jim Simons:
Yeah. My father and mother were very different. Mhmm. I was an only child. Mhmm. My mother, after I was born, she had some, miscarriages, and then, she had to have a what’s called a hysterectomy. Mhmm. Whether the uterus is removed, so she couldn’t have any more children.

Jim Simons:
So, I was her project. She didn’t work, of course, in those days. The the the mothers didn’t didn’t work. I I was her project, and she really was tough on me, that I did my homework and so on. And, and I often did didn’t do my homework. So she she she was, she considered me her project. My father, on the other hand, just simply loved me for for, for who I was, whoever I was, his son. He called me son.

Jim Simons:
He he never called me Jim. He called me and, and he was just a lovely man and, he was just a lovely man. And the only thing he he, taught me and, was he was a salesman. He was a salesman for 20th Century Fox, in fact. In those days, you’d go around to movie theaters to try to sell them the latest 20th Century Fox movie, you know, or rented to them. So that was so he was a salesman. And he would say to me, salesmanship is very important. He would frequently say that, and I I didn’t you know, I was only a kid who owns salesmanship.

Jim Simons:
But it turns out, salesmanship is very important. And, you know, it’s, it’s good to be able to sell something. And, even in even in science, you do some work and you want other people to, appreciate it and use it. And, so you you’re, you know, you’re kind of selling. And, but my father was just a very, very peaceable man, and I loved being with him. We will go to be together on Saturday. That was our day. Or Sunday, I don’t know, one of the 2 weekend days.

Jim Simons:
That was our day together. And, he took me to different places and, just I so I I really loved my father. Unfortunately, he got Alzheimer’s at the age of about in his mid seventies, and, he went downhill rapidly. So that was unfortunate. No. I did love my mother. Don’t get me wrong. But, she was a tough customer.

Brian Keating:
Yeah. I always, you know, say it’s it’s it’s the toughest job, and and we have so much riding on it. It’s it’s one thing, you know, when one of our, you know, kids was born, I didn’t know what what to do, and and we were both actually, it was our first child, Isaac, when he was born. And, I just looked, and I was in a stupor. And I said, get the instruction manual. You know, there’s just no there’s no there’s no instruction, and it’s the hardest possible job there is. And and I wonder, you know, how how, you know, it changes a person, and and it makes some people more mature, some people less mature. But but in a sense, you can’t be as selfish as you were if you’re a good dad.

Brian Keating:
I don’t think you can be as selfish as you were. It might have been even when you selected your your spouse, you know, your your partner. You can select a partner based on their looks or their money or or whatever. And in other words, you can do it to fulfill a need or a selfishness, that you may have. But having a child, it’s it’s completely the opposite. I mean, there’s no way they’re they’re gonna give you anything except for a lot of sleepless nights and then missed opportunities and so forth, at least for the 1st few years. My father used to say, I take an interest in a child when he learns geometry. You know, so so, hopefully, you know, we I he he got some satisfaction of my nephews who who did know geometry at a very young age before he passed away.

Brian Keating:
I wanna talk a little bit about legacy C and maybe first what what becoming a father meant to you and and how what it what it taught you, when you had, when you became a father, you know, for the first time? And and how how did it affect you? Did you did you have to make compromises in your work? And, how how did things change for you?

Jim Simons:
How did things change for me? Well, I loved being a father. I was a very young father. I was 22 when, in those days, that was not so young. But, today, 22 is pretty young to be a father. Yeah. And, my wife was, 19 when she became a mother. I loved it. I loved being with my kids.

Jim Simons:
And, so we we would we would help. I have all kinds of adventures. And, so I I just really enjoyed being a father.

Brian Keating:
Yeah. And and you obviously had a big role in my early life when my father would go in on a Saturday. You know, my parents were divorced, so he would bring me and my older brother Keating to the, Stony Brook math experiment. And he would always say something like and I don’t know why he kept working on me, but he’d say, come on, boys. We’re going to see we’re going to the amusement park with uncle Jim. And we get there, and he would you know, he’d put us in his office on one of the swivel chairs and just that’s the amusement park. And then he and you would go off and do some work on a chalkboard. I thought this is a pretty bum rap for, you know, for an amusement, amusement park.

Brian Keating:
But anyway, you guys had a lot of fun, almost, almost like brothers themselves, as I imagine.

Jim Simons:
Yeah. We did we we did have a lot of fun. Well, we were in graduate school together. Yeah. We were we we both finished in 3 theory. And, he went to Cornell, and I went to, m I I he went to Cornell and I went to MIT. And, we stayed friends, You know, stayed friends.

Brian Keating:
Yeah. And, and then, of course, yeah, I wouldn’t have been born at, Stony Brook if, if you hadn’t been able to recruit him using all these tools and tactics that my mom talks about. It’s subtle, gentle manipulation, sending beach sand to Ithaca in the middle of a frozen winter to get, my mom’s interest.

Jim Simons:
I I did something like so I got him out on the beach.

Brian Keating:
Yeah.

Jim Simons:
He liked he liked the water. Yes. And, you know, he had a a small boat.

Brian Keating:
Yep.

Jim Simons:
And, he he really liked the water. Yeah. He was he was a good swimmer as well.

Brian Keating:
Yeah. He was very athletic. Loved to play tennis and games and and stuff. And, yeah. I have very fond memories of of that, time in my young life. It’s, you know, it certainly is a challenge growing up with parents that are divorced, but but I think, you know, for that time theory, it’s very common back then. I wonder thinking a little bit more now about, about your children and kind of just greater lessons. You once told me that you want, you wanna live to be old enough to see your great grandkids because you remember your great grandparents.

Brian Keating:
So that would be essentially 8 generations, if I’m doing the math. That’ll be connected with Jim Simons in the middle. So great grandparents all the way to great grandchildren. And that made me think of what you want to, leave, not as your material will, that’s not important to me in this conversation, but what’s known in Hebrew as in zavaah. It means ethical will. And it’s sort of like what, Al, Alfred, theory, what, what Alfred Nobel did with his Nobel Prize. He gave money away, of course, but he also had a mission that the Nobel Prizes be used to better mankind. And I wonder and that’s sort of an ethical will as well.

Brian Keating:
It’s not just the material riches that he had accumulated. He had no children, no spouse, but he, wanted to give away money to make a world a better place. But in your context, we know what you’re doing in the foundation and philanthropy around the world, but I’m more I’m concerned and questioning now, what would you like to leave as your ethical will? What values, what wisdom, would you leave for your great grandchildren, great children? You know, in other words, the generation you’re not gonna meet, the 9th generation, so to speak, your your your great grandkids, children. What values or even humanity as a whole do you want people to to know? Well,

Jim Simons:
I guess I have to you know, I don’t go around thinking about that question. I don’t lecture my children. I didn’t lecture them. But, I wanted to be a good example to them. And of course, I wanted them to love me. As you know, I’ve lost 2 children, which is a terrible thing. But, the children that I have, I just I just hope they they will remember me as a person who accomplished a lot of things and was a good was a good father. I, you know, one counts up sometimes what has he accomplished or what have I accomplished.

Jim Simons:
I I I think about that. And, well, I’m pretty pleased with what I’ve accomplished, in science bang philanthropy and, etcetera. I’m pretty pleased. Could be better. But, I think I I think, except for my smoking, make a pretty good example, to people. But I don’t dwell on that question. Okay. I, you know, will I go down in history or whatever? Although, I think with all the physics that Chern Simons has produced, I ought to get the Nobel prize.

Brian Keating:
Oh, we’re we’ll work on it for you. Yes. That that’ll be that’ll be a Well, that’s what

Jim Simons:
it’s true. I mean, it’s there’s there’s even churn Science gravity Yeah. As a possibility. I think there’s an upper bound on what it could be. But, this turns silent gravity. That was the most amazing thing, that happened, in in my life that this mathematics that we did, began to apply to physics. I didn’t know any physics to speak on, I mean, f equals m a or whatever. But, well, it does.

Jim Simons:
But, so I didn’t know much physics. And it’s just astounding in how many areas of physics this this has come to, to be used. So, that’s a real surprise. Right?

Brian Keating:
What what was that moment of discovery or invention like for you? I mean, was it slow in realization? Did you realize what you had come upon, or was it collaborative and therefore a little bit more paced slowly?

Jim Simons:
Well, at first, I was pleased with the math. I I had started it. I had, gotten some results in 3 dimensions, which was theory nice. And, and then I showed it to churn, and he said, oh, we can do this in all dimensions. We can’t. Yes. I think we could. So we did.

Jim Simons:
And, so that was, that was that, and I was very happy with that. And then Jeff Cheater and I worked together to invent something called differential characters, and, that’s been useful. But I think just in mathematics, I don’t think differential characters have been useful in physics. But but Witten, I think, was maybe the first one to start to start using term assignments. And and but then some Russians who were condensed matter physics also Clarke to me, oh, we we were using it before, before what so, okay. Well, that’s great. But it’s, it’s it’s just it’s one of those things that you never know where basic science will go. Mhmm.

Jim Simons:
You just never know.

Brian Keating:
Yes.

Jim Simons:
And, my favorite story is about II Arabia. You know, II Arabia.

Brian Keating:
Of course. Yeah. And Omar. Yes.

Jim Simons:
So he, discovered nuclear magnetic resonance. It was a phenomenon. He won the Nobel Prize. Then several years later, 2 guys realized you could use it to analyze materials. They won the Nobel Prize. And then some years later after that, 2 guys, one of them was Stony Brook realized you can make pictures. They didn’t wanna call it nuclear magnetic resonance because nuclear frightens people, so they called it magnetic resonance imaging MRI.

Brian Keating:
Publicity. Yeah.

Jim Simons:
It’s all over the place. Yeah. So the story there is a story, and I don’t know if it’s right or wrong about Riggi, that in his old age, he he had some problem with his shoulder. So, he had to go and defend and get an MRI. The idea that it was he who was was the father of these zillions of machines, which are all over the all over the place. So you never know.

Brian Keating:
Yeah. I I always think about that story in context with Alfred Nobel himself, who suffered from angina, you know, heart condition, and was later prescribed nitroglycerin nitroglycerin to as an ailment. And that was, of course, a key component in his most famous invention of all time, which was dynamite. And he used to remark on the irony, the great irony that he was treated with this, and they called it they used to call it, you know, some healing potion or something like that or trinitrin or something. And for the exact same reasons that they changed MMR to MRI was for publicity because seeing nitroglycerin scared off the public into thinking it was dangerous rather than therapeutic. So those 2 are connected in more ways than 1. Last, 2 questions. Yeah.

Brian Keating:
Yeah. The last 2 questions I have, so one is about, the great distant future, where none of us will be around. And I wonder if you remember the movie 2,001, a Space Odyssey, Arthur c Clarke, based on his book 2,001, where these, there are these monoliths. There are these structures that appear in the, African savannah, and then there’s one on the moon. And it turns out these are objects placed by alien civilizations deep in the ancient past as sort of messages or warnings or, we’re not really sure what they were. They’re kind of ominous, but also maybe cautionary. If you you have an asteroid named after you, you’re one of the, few people I can say have an asteroid. Although, your lovely wife, Marilyn, also has an asteroid named

Jim Simons:
after her. I know.

Brian Keating:
So your ass It’s

Jim Simons:
it’s a smaller one.

Brian Keating:
Yeah. Yours yours is bigger. That’s true. Yeah. But hers is faster. Hers moves really briskly. Hers moves is, yeah, delicately and and, and swiftly about the cosmos. On your asteroid 6618 Jim Simons, if you were to put a monolith and it had to it was gonna last for a 1000000000 years, what message or maybe an equation, or what would you put on it, to signify perhaps the achievements of mankind? Or or would you put a warning on it to, you know, to a future civilization? What would you put on a monolith to last for a 1000000000 year time capsule on asteroid 6618?

Jim Simons:
Well, here’s what I worry about in the future. So if you ask someone, what do you think the probability would be of a of a nuclear holocaust, in the next year. And he would probably say, oh, that’s very rare. Well, give me a number. Someone said, well, 1 in a 1000. 1 in a 1000. Okay. So that means if we go 500 years, there’s a probability greater than a half that we’ll have a nuclear holocaust and blow the whole thing up, and that’ll be the end of us.

Jim Simons:
So, I like to say that the most important science is political science. It teaches us how to live together. And I say, if we can’t learn to live together, we’re gonna die together. And I really believe that. We have to learn to live together. So, maybe that would be inscribed. Yes. Very interesting.

Jim Simons:
We could live together.

Brian Keating:
So the very last thing, that I ask all my guests on the Into the Impossible podcast relates to the name of the podcast, Into the Impossible. I mentioned when I emailed you to request this, this interview that Arthur c Clarke had many laws. The first one was, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. His second law is for every expert, there’s an equal and opposite expert. There’s a 4th law, 5th law. But his 3rd law is the limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible. And my question for you is now we’re gonna go back in time. What would you tell a 20 year old, 30 year old Jim Simons? What advice to your former self would you give that maybe seemed impossible at the time, but then you did it? What advice would you give to your former self?

Jim Simons:
Boy. So I I I come out of nowhere and address Jim once let’s say, when he’s 20 or something

Brian Keating:
like that. Yes. You show up.

Jim Simons:
So I show up. I I address myself. Of course, he doesn’t know who I am. And what would I advise him?

Brian Keating:
Mhmm.

Jim Simons:
Well, I think it’s very important to work and enjoy your work. Mhmm. So I would advise him to find some work that he really enjoys and work very hard at it. That’s very, kind of trite advice, but I think it’s good advice for anybody who’s young. You wanna do something that find something that you really like or better still big above, and then put your heart and soul into it.

Brian Keating:
Thank you, Jim. This has been a wonderful, conversation. Happy Father’s Day, Jim. You’ve been a great, force in my life. We talked about the greatest force in the universe. You’ve you’ve you’re definitely in the top, very, very selective set in my life and in many people around the world. You’ve you’ve done so much for society, for basic knowledge and the pursuit of wisdom for autism, And now with the Flatiron Institute working so hard on issues of computational, import, I think that’s it’s just so commendable. Thank you so much, Jim, for sharing your time with me today in the podcast.

Jim Simons:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Jim Simons:
If you enjoyed this episode of Into the Impossible, please subscribe, comment, share, rate, and review. For a chance to win a free copy of our most recent guest newest book, send a screenshot of your review to infoimagine.ucsd.edu. We appreciate hearing from you and are always open to your suggestions for future episodes. For more information, go to imagination. Dot ucsd.edu. Find us on Twitter at Imagine UCSD. Watch us on YouTube. Listen on iTunes.

Jim Simons:
Into the impossible is a production of the Arthur C Clark Center For Human Imagination in the Division of Physical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. Eric Theory, director. Brian Keating, codirector. Patrick Coleman, associate director. Produced by Stuart Walco.