Well everyone in my family and extended family are proud of Angus Gruen, my nephew who left Paris (thus avoiding dinner with his uncle and a burn under the seine in the Troppo Mercedes Sports 350 SE), turned up jetlagged and sick at Monash Uni to participate in the Physics Olympiad. It involved a gruelling schedule in which the whole of first year uni physics was downloaded into his and others’ brain over the course of two weeks. Yes, just two weeks folks. I think there are about twenty people in the country who make it to the Olympiad and you have to get into the top eight to represent Australia at the next stage. And . . . Angus has just been informed that he did!
And if you listen to this podcast you’ll discover that he gives a good account of himself in an interview – not an easy thing to do. It’s very hard to avoid ums and ahs especially without practice. So congratulations Angus. We couldn’t be prouder of you.
Does this mean the next generation of the Gruen clan may avoid becoming economists? Are you managing to breed it out?
Physicists usually return to the great mother stream – that’s not just true of some of the journeymen of economics – like Paul Samuelson, but also of some of the greats – like David Gruen.
and of Noah Smith, and at least one scion of an Australian economics great whom I have met.
I’ve wondered why there’s as many physicist economists as engineer economists (Phillips, Walras, Jevons etc.). For some reason I expected more of the latter.
Yes it’s interesting isn’t it that it’s physicists, not engineers who head into economics. Economics is not really an engineering discipline. I expect it might be a lot less dysfunctional if it were. Engineering is not given to lionising theory over application. After all, you’ve got to ‘ship’ to quote Steve Jobs, and people can tell if your bridges are not on budget or on time or if they fall down.
In fact the thing is physics is theory heavy but those theories are falsifiable. And engineering is application heavy with ‘falsification’ looming large via the metrics outlined above. Which leaves economics which is theory heavy and largely unfalsifiable with the notable exception of propositions which are commonsensically true in any event – like that in most markets increasing price reduces demand.
Oh my God. I am looking at a young David Gruen. Congrats Uncle Nick!