What was Gates’ major before he dropped out of Harvard? Some google pages say math, others say philosophy. What’s the scoop?
Bill Gates dropped out of college towards the end of his sophomore year (Gates 14–18). He might not have been required to declare a major at that point in his college career.
At one point he considered majoring in economics (Gates 4). He changed his mind, but my reference doesn’t say what took its place.
However, not even a former mathematics major could be excused for this egregious error: “The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers” (Gates 265).
On the other hand, it’s unlikely that a philosophy major would have been given access to the college computer lab. Access to campus computer resources was not given out as casually in those days, but he could probably have made the case that his technological enthusiasm and above-average computer skills warranted at least some accomodation.
I have no definitive answer, I know. Just evidence that can be interpreted to defend either claim.
Works cited:
Gates, Bill. The Road Ahead. New York: Viking, 1995.
What’s erronious about stating that a method for easily factoring large prime numbers would be a mathematical breakthrough?
A prime number is one whose only factors are 1 and itself, so factoring one is trivial. Proving that a given number is prime is a bit trickier; that may have been what Gates was referring to.
More likely he was referring to the difficulty of factoring large numbers. Deciding whether a given number is prime, though tricky, can now be done reasonably efficiently.
Wait… I thought primes could be factored using non-integers…decimals, I mean, not irrationals? The big deal is that you can’t use integers to factor them, right?
Whether that’s true or not, integer factorization of primes is one of those problems that a lot of people would like to find a fast way to do.
Duh. :smack: I feel dumb. When reading the sentence I assumed he was talking about finding prime factors of large numbers, not factoring large prime numbers.
Nebbermind.
For the record - Bill Gates did not drop out of Harvard. He went to a great deal of trouble to go on leave so that he could, if necessary, go back. He could still go back.
http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches/2000/09-13malaysia.asp
See it in his own speech! Also covered in many books on the man.
He used to suppor the myth, but not since his first book.