Caltech students in Hawking's lecture

tech_fan
Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:36:57 +0000

There’s kind of an amusing point related to what UCLAri said. The bigger a prof is, the more likely it tends to be that he or she insists on a first-name basis. Basically, if you have a Nobel, everyone knows you do, and they’re not going to think less of you by calling you Bob. On the other hand, people who are insecure tend to cling to the titles. So that’s another reason why titles are not in common use at Caltech – not that many insecure people get to be professors here.