Zurab, physics, and trading

The person who successfully proposed Gross and Wilczek before me and who has won the Nobel stock market

http://www.nobelpreisboerse.de/Rankings.aspx

is not Zurab Kakushadze. Kakushadze answered from his office of the Royal Bank of Canada in New York:

"I'm not in banking, I'm in trading, and I've been very successful. ... No, it wasn't me, my time's too valuable for that kind of activities."

Well, many people in physics leave science and join the financial markets, and they are often successful. However, it seems that Kakushadze is a bit different. He obviously thinks that he is very important, probably more important than when he was writing good papers in physics. We're free to disagree.

Well, let me say that I think that the achievements of the Zurab who won the stock market are more interesting and impressive than the success of one of tens of thousands of traders working for whatever banks they choose. It's fine to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars by permuting money and influencing other people's decisions - using the fact that a particle physicist most likely has more talent for complex financial decisions than an average former student of business - but it is not necessarily the most fascinating activity in life.




Bill Gates who was mentioned below is my hero not only because he earns 10,000 times more than Zurab Kakushadze and because he is famous, but especially because he created something that affected not just his bank account, but also the world. And that makes a difference.

And that's the memo.