Topic
10 facts from 9 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
1869
In the first intercollegiate football game in 1869, Princeton and Rutgers fielded 25 players per side and the ball could not be carried or thrown.
“There were 25 players per team. So 50 people on the field, a round ball that could not be picked up and carried, couldn't be thrown.”
1951
In spring 1951 Jack Bogle submitted his Princeton senior thesis, titled The Economic Role of the Investment Company.
“So in the spring of 1951, Jack turns in his senior thesis to the economics department entitled The Economic Role of the Investment Company.”
1986
Jeff Bezos graduated from Princeton in 1986 and first worked at the startup Fitel before moving into finance.
“when Jeff graduates from college in 1986, he does not go into finance right away”
1998
As a Princeton student around 1998 or 1999, Tim Ferriss wrote a junior paper comparing REM sleep and LSD.
“One of my junior papers was focused on examining potential similarities between REM sleep and, uh, LSD, LSD 25”
Undated
Tim Ferriss says a library notice about a reserved book at Princeton's Firestone Library reached his mother and interrupted his suicide plan in college.
“I had tried to reserve a book at Firestone Library. This is at Princeton, which had something to do with suicide.”
Undated
Jeff Bezos switched from studying physics to computer science at Princeton after concluding he would be a mediocre theoretical physicist.
“I switched to computer science and um, and you know, that worked out really well for me.”
Undated
Santos says Princeton studies found double-digit performance gains on math or studying tests when the phone was in another room.
“a math test or a studying test with your phone there versus a phone in the other room, and you see like double digit increases in performance just to have your phone away.”
Undated
Michelle Obama says that at Princeton she realized wealth, legacy and athletic preferences also influence admissions.
“there's all kinds of affirmative action that I that never talk about. You know, there's wealth and legacy, uh, there there's athletic, uh, affirmative action.”
Undated
As a Princeton graduate student, Tao attended a talk by John Conway on 'extreme proofs', which treated the space of proofs as having optimal extremes.
“I remember one of the very first research talks I I went to was a talk by Conway on what he called extreme proof.”
Undated
David Rosenthal says he was a French literature major at Princeton whose senior thesis covered the history of Dom Pérignon and the marketing history of Shakespeare.
“I wrote my thesis on the history of Dom Perignon and the marketing history of Shakespeare.”
Episodes