I wanted to become a mathematician, physicist or astronomer. Philip Emeagwali More Quotes by Philip Emeagwali More Quotes From Philip Emeagwali The hardships that I encountered in the past will help me succeed in the future. Philip Emeagwali hard-work success past Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger. Philip Emeagwali stronger adversity people My focus is not on solving nature's deeper mysteries. It is on using nature's deeper mysteries to solve important societal problems. Philip Emeagwali mystery focus important It is smarter to borrow from nature than to reinvent the wheels. Philip Emeagwali smarter wheels It took me 1057 pages to describe the hundreds of mathematical equations, algorithms and programming techniques that I invented and used. Philip Emeagwali algorithms mathematical-equations technique Due to financial reasons, I dropped out of school after eight years of formal schooling. Philip Emeagwali eight years school Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger. Philip Emeagwali nelson stronger prison Because I believe that humans are computers, I conjectured that computers, like people, can have left- and right-handed versions. Philip Emeagwali computer believe people Nigeria is a West African nation of over 100 million energetic people. It is endowed with lots of natural resources but lacks human resources. Philip Emeagwali west natural people When I enrolled in college at age 19, I had a total of eight years of formal classroom education. As a result, I was not comfortable with formal lectures and receiving regular homework assignments. Philip Emeagwali eight college years The greater opportunity enabled me to make important discoveries and inventions. Philip Emeagwali important opportunity discovery I have expertise in five different fields which helps me to easily understand the analogy between my scientific problems and those occurring in nature. Philip Emeagwali analogies different fields The hardship of living in a refugee camp made me psychologically strong. Philip Emeagwali hardship strong made I preferred to study those subjects that were of interest to me. Philip Emeagwali subjects interest study Our lives sometimes depend on computers performing as predicted. Philip Emeagwali performing computer sometimes The Connection Machines owned by the United States government laboratories were made available to me because they were considered impossible to program and there was no great demand for them at that time. Philip Emeagwali connections united-states government Scientists try to discover or unravel the mysteries of nature. Some of the problems we are trying to solve have been solved in nature. Philip Emeagwali mystery problem trying I dropped out of high school four times between the ages of 12 to 17. Philip Emeagwali high-school age school Eighty percent of Americans with HIV do not know they are infected. Philip Emeagwali hiv percent knows The labs were happy that I was brave enough to attempt to program it and the $5 million computer was left entirely to my use. I was their human guinea pig. Philip Emeagwali use brave pigs
