I think Cambridge was much stronger than Oxford in STEM and philosophy until after WW2. Schrödinger was briefly at Oxford but they objected to his desire to live with both his wife and mistress. Outside of STEM, there was Tolkien, CS Lewis, and TE Lawrence.
Yes, I know less about Ramsey’s life, but he was an incredible talent and interacted with Wittgenstein and Keynes. Paul Dirac and Ronald Fisher also spent part of their careers at Cambridge in this period but I know less about their lives. (There’s also G. H. Hardy).
Bentham was nonzero discount apparently (fn6). (He used 5% but only as an example.)
Mill thought about personal time preference (and was extremely annoyed by people’s discount there). Can’t see anything about social rate of discounting.
Interesting list. There was also Frank Ramsey.
Who does Oxford have… Julian Huxley?
I think Cambridge was much stronger than Oxford in STEM and philosophy until after WW2. Schrödinger was briefly at Oxford but they objected to his desire to live with both his wife and mistress. Outside of STEM, there was Tolkien, CS Lewis, and TE Lawrence.
Julian and Aldous Huxley were at Oxford and mixed with Haldane and Needham for sure. Haldane was an undergrad at Oxford and his dad a professor.
Yes, I know less about Ramsey’s life, but he was an incredible talent and interacted with Wittgenstein and Keynes. Paul Dirac and Ronald Fisher also spent part of their careers at Cambridge in this period but I know less about their lives. (There’s also G. H. Hardy).
He convinced Keynes that Bayesianism was correct!
Do you have a citation or excerpt on this?
See here.
I think Ramsey is also the first (quantitative) longtermist ever (zero discount rate).
I didn’t follow the links, but how did Bentham and Mill think about future utility?
Bentham was nonzero discount apparently (fn6). (He used 5% but only as an example.)
Mill thought about personal time preference (and was extremely annoyed by people’s discount there). Can’t see anything about social rate of discounting.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ramsey/#Life
Paragraphs 2 and 3 of the ‘Life and works’ section