What is it about the education of the Jewish people that has allowed them to produce such remarkable Mathematicians? [closed]

Question

There are far too many mathematicians for me to name here, you only need to wiki a mathematician of note to find out he is Jewish. Are they taught to think logically and analytically from a young age? What are the possible explanations for this? Have their been any studies on this? Might there be any aspects of Jewish culture or pedagogy that would give rise to their success in mathematics?

P. S. If someone could edit the tags that would be appreciated, as I'm not entirely sure they're the correct ones.

Answer 1

This question seems like a big opportunity for casual social science conjecturing which may or may not be productive. I hope I can clarify a couple of things in my response.

According to your supporting statement, your question is "what are the possible explanations for why so many mathematicians you look up on Wikipedia are Jewish?" For the purposes of this answer I'm going to assume we are talking about one monolithic group with genetics and culture in common so that I can speak hypothetically (while acknowledging that others have challenges to that aspect of the question, and that they are at least worth thinking about).

One explanation could be that the group is actually better at math. To just ask why this group is better at math, however, would be to assume they are better at math (so I won't do that). It is not actually demonstrated by the wiki search mentioned. If there is more support for this sort of explanation--for instance, a difference in the comparison of means as part of some quantitative study--we could search for an explanation of why those means are different, and look to culture, perhaps. But we are not actually at that point, unless someone provides such evidence.

Another explanation we could conjecture about is that there might be similar means in the Jewish population and other populations, but there might be a greater variance in the data. Meaning that good Jewish mathematicians become more accomplished and thus are among the most famous mathematicians. And, if the means are similar, there would be similarly exceptional low achievers in the same population (or more slightly less accomplished mathematics users-- depending on the shape of the curve). We would look for a different sort of explanation if this is the quantitative difference we noticed in comparison of Jewish and other groups.

There could be cultural reasons that some accomplished Jewish mathematicians are better supported for some reason. Or that they have happened to be in groups at opportune places or times (enough to make really important contributions, but not in great enough numbers to change the mean over a reasonable sample of Jewish people). Yes, smart people "math better" but they do it even betterer in groups.

Conjectures are great starting points for research questions. But outside of using them for that purpose (to propose research) or having actual research and discussing how to extend from that research, I think we enter a realm of imagination rather than scientific enlightenment. One benefit of good social science is that assumptions must be made explicit. In casual conjecturing you will see assumptions pop up like dandelions and participants trample over them toward a possible explanation that catches their eye. I think I would be a lousy research assistant if I didn't point out that outside of scientific research, we often see a compelling conclusion driving whatever justification can connect things. And this is (at the very least) unfair to the groups of people subjected to our conjectures. Discretion and caution are called for. Even if we think we're saying something positive.

Answer 2

If you're looking up German mathematicians of note of the 1870s to the 1930s, there are some historical reasons for a high fraction of Jews:

1) German academic anti-Semitism may have pushed Jews away from higher-prestige fields like experimental physics. So Jews with physical and mathematical interests may have focused on their mathematical interests or opportunities as a result. (See Jungnickel and McCormmach, Intellectual Mastery of Nature, pp. 286-287: "Among academic fields in Germany, theoretical physics had an unusually high proportion of Jews, who found more opportunity there than in the more desirable field of experimental physics".)

2) Felix Klein believed that Jewish mathematicians tended to have particular habits of thought, and promoted those habits of thought as part of a diverse approach to mathematics. He had enough influence over hiring in German math departments for these views to have an effect. (See David Rowe, "'Jewish mathematics' at Gottingen in the era of Felix Klein".)

3) The German mathematical emigration of the 1930's may have led to German Jewish mathematicians becoming better-known that their non-Jewish counterparts. (See Sanford Segal on Mathematicians Under the Nazis, or his entry on Helmut Hasse in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography.) The Jews who emigrated to the U.S. may have became more integrated into the US-centric mathematical world of the later 20th century than the non-Jews who did not.

Whatever our beliefs about the value of Jews in various fields of math or physics, similar beliefs among various Germans had theirs, and that was enough to cause historical effects.

Answer 3

My answer is just my educated guess and so it is probably flawed. But I think besides mathematicians, you could also include writers or other scientists, think Freud or Oppenheimer for example. Steven Gubkin in his comments already pointed the major points. I just wanted to add the practice of Judaism is centered on reading and studying the Torah but since the Torah is not clear cut with regard many aspects (oral law) - a great part of studying centers on reading the debates amongst the old rabbis of the Talmud. That is: most of the religious law emerged as result of debates using logical arguments on what is the correct interpretation of some text. The analysis and dissection of the text, creates a culture that gives incentives to debates and arguments based on logic. This culture goes beyond the religious practitioners. Freud, again as an example, was somewhat anti-religious: after his wedding, he forbade his wife to light candles on Friday evenings. Perhaps you could ask the question at Mi Yodeya at Stack Exchange.

Answer 4

This is a really nice question. Although it is discussed by OP, Steven Gubkin and Sergio Parreiras implicitly, I would like to emphasize on cultural root of this phenomena again.

Religion is the most important part of Jewish culture. Some mysterious parts of this special religious culture are Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah which play a vital role in old tradition of Jewish mathematics. In fact one can see numbers all around Torah. A famous example is Book of Numbers which is full of strange numbers.

As a consequence of this Jewish philosophical idea that God created world in the language of numbers (maths) and then coded its secrets somewhere in the Torah, one may think about discovering these secrets using numbers (maths). This idea in Jewish culture gives a divine importance to maths. In this point of view mathematics is a tool to unfold all secrets of the universe and those who believe in this idea analyze every phenomena mathematically to find the signs.

In order to find more on this topic see Pi movie and my question in movies.stackexchange.com