25 Years Ago in The Actuarial Review

by Walter C. Wright

A brief article, in its entirety:

"Bet You Didn't Know

That the youngest actuarial student passed Part I at the age of 14…with a score of 10. The young man, now 15, is Carl Woll, son of Carol and Richard Woll, F.C.A.S. (Utica Mutual). He has been accepted at the University of Rochester as a Wilson Scholar majoring in mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Apparently he is not taking any chances and is covering all the bases.

It has not been possible to confirm his level of interest in the actuarial discipline (beyond Part I, that is), but the decision is still to be made. His father is expected to counsel him well in this regard."

We don't know what Richard told his son, but after Carl graduated from the University of Rochester, with his triple major, he took an engineering job with United Technologies Corporation. During the course of his career he obtained a masters degree in computer science and a masters rating in chess, as well as a wife (Ph.D. in chemistry) and three children. He recently plunged full time into a Ph.D. program in physics at the University of Washington. Congratulations, Carl, on your accomplishments.

The following, from an article by Chuck McClenahan, may be of interest to all of us old-timers who took part in the technologic leap to pocket calculators:

"I have, in my department, a rotary calculator. This calculator is every bit as accurate as it was when it came off the assembly line in the early `60's. If I manage to push the right combination of the hundred-plus buttons and wait for a short time, I am rewarded with an answer which is correct to the sixteenth place. All in all, this calculator is an amazing machine. Yet, none of my actuarial students will use the damn thing.

`It's too slow,' they say, or `it's obsolete.' They all want new, fast electronic calculators with increased capabilities to match their own. And, as much as I might miss that big old rotary (a twin of the one on which I calculated my first loss ratio) my desk too sports a pocket-sized electronic. This is as it should be. Providing actuaries with up-to-date equipment increases their value. God bless you, Texas Instruments."

(This editor used to enjoy dividing by zero on the mechanical calculator used by branch office underwriting staff, and letting the machine whirl away.)