The Outliers Quiz

SOCI 1001

What is the Roseto Mystery?

How the people from Roseto, Pennsylvania died only of old age, and pretty much nothing else when they moved to America, when everyone else was dying of heart disease

• influenced by their community structure

Bruhn and Wolf

investigated Roseto Mystery

The Matthew Effect

Those who are successful are more likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success

The phenomenon with Canadian hockey

most pro level players have early birthdays because of the cutoff date of January 1st

• biggest kids did better in sports, therefore got more opportunities

Roger Barnsley

coined the phenomenon of relative age

Robert Merton

coined the Matthew Effect

What other sport is similar to Canadian hockey in cutoff date style?

Baseball (but not American football or basketball) and European soccer

What did Kelly Bedard and Elizabeth Dhuey do?

Looked at relationship between scores on the TIMSS (math and science tests) and found that oldest children score 4-12% better than younger children

youngest children underrepresented by 11.6% in college

10,000 Rule

Someone must practice or do a skill for 10,000 hours to truly get good at it

Bill Joy

• programmed at University of Michigan Computer Center because it was open 24/7 and free

• managed to rewrite UNIX

• cofounded Sun Microsystems

K. Anders Ericsson

Berlin’s elite Academy of Music

• three groups of violinists

• top group practiced 10,000 hours

• 8,000 hours = good

• 4,000 hours = music teachers

once a musician can get into music school —> hard work determines outcome

Michael Howe in Genius explained on Mozart, and Harold Schonberg

Mozart may have been a “prodigy” but his greatest works didn’t come about until age 21, or until he had 10,000 hours under his belt

What happened in the 1960s that allowed for more efficient programming?

Computers were finally powerful enough to handle more than one “appointment”

The Beatles

went through the “Hamburg Crucible” and practiced 10,000 hours

• played 8 hours a night, 7 days a week

• 270 nights in just over a year and a half

Bill Gates

• Lakeside school (1968) had a computer club which he spent a lot of time at

• then a classmate’s mom gave him access to Computer Center Corporation (C-Cubed)

• Then went to University of Washington to practice

Why are 20% of the 75 richest people all Americans born within 9 years of each other?

1860s and 1870s there was a great economic boom in America

• born in the 1830s was the perfect time

Best year to be born to take advatnage of the computer age?

1954 or 1955

Christopher Langan

• a genius who grew up poor and never got a full education

• IQ 195 (showed up on show 1 vs 100 and calculated his drop out at $250,000)

• had to drop out of reed and Montana State University

Lewis Terman

started the Termites after meeting Henry Cowell (a “diamond in the rough”)