École Polytechnique

I went to Paris to continue my studies.

In eighteen seventy-eight, I was received at the École Polytechnique, which in the usual order of things I left in eighteen eighty to enter as cadet of artillery the École d'Application of Fontainebleau, where I spent the regulation two years.

After graduating on the first of October, eighteen eighty-two, I was brevetted lieutenant in the Thirty-First Regiment of Artillery in the garrison at Limoges.

At the end of the year eighteen eighty three I was transferred to the horse batteries of the First Independent Cavalry Division at Paris.

And I spent a year in Paris in turbulent time in that city's history.

And I worked at École Polytechnique, which was a kind of cross between what in America would be West Point and MIT, I suppose.

A long history of training the technical elite in France.

And I studied with a great mathematician and my friends outside of there were fascinated by philosophy and literary theory and Foucault and Deleuze and It was a very turbulent, interesting period, and I found myself wanting to know about the foundational aspects of what relativity was and why it was such an upheaval for both physics and philosophy.

If you're, you know, if you're told, "Oh, you guys are just the same," and the only reason they throw you in jail in mass numbers is, is, is, is this racism, not, okay, well, you know, for reasons that are complicated and due to biology and absent fathers and this and then the other, you know, whatever.

If we had a, if we had a real academic establishment, right? You know, supposedly, uh, you know, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, École Polytechnique, University of Chicago, Caltech, right? It's the greatest collection of, of, you know, brains, uh, knowledge, you know, the great libraries, communications, all of that stuff.

If it was all, like the modern university system, basically they suck up everybody with an IQ above 130, and they shuffle them into these places.

If they were really honest, they'd, they'd ask these questions, and they, they'd come to some kind of conclusion of like, "Okay, well, this is why this happens." And yet it never does.

first language is French.

I studied in France at École Polytechnique, and I

studied physics there.

Can I explain that real quick, though, just for the audience that doesn't know about that school? It's the best school in France.

With Alsace taken by the German Empire, the Dreyfuses eventually settled in Paris, and Alfred decided to pursue a military career.

After graduating from the École Polytechnique, he became an artillery officer and made his way through the ranks, eventually serving in the General Staff Headquarters.

Initially, it was the Alsatian connection that made him a target of the investigation.

His original home was now part of Germany, after all.

If you're, you know, if you're told, "Oh, you guys are just the same, and the only reason they throw you in jail in mass numbers is, is, is, is this racism." Not, "Okay, well, you know, for reasons that are complicated and due to biology and absent fathers and this and then the other," you know, whatever.

If we had a, if we had a real academic establishment, right, you know, supposedly- Uh, you know, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, École Polytechnique, University of Chicago, Caltech, right? It's the greatest collection of, of, you know, brains, uh, knowledge, you know, the great libraries, communications, all of that stuff.

If it was all, like the modern university system, basically they suck up everybody with an IQ above 130, and they shuffle them into these places.

If they were really honest, they'd, they'd ask these questions, and they, they'd come to some kind of conclusion of like, "Okay, well, this is why this happens." And yet it never does.