I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate.  I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate—two to one.  It came out of a complicated equation!  Then I thought, “Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it’s two to one?”

Thanks for asking, this is a bit of a cool side project for me. The main thing that motivated me to start it was just a general feeling that I had more than I needed and that I should give back. I donate money through a charitable foundation (rather than just through personal checks) in the hope that it will inspire others to consider supporting causes that they believe in.

I'm making cheap electricity,

The Cumming fragrance line. the soap, Cumming in a bar (still available at alancumming.com) is my favorite ever pun on my name.

Well, when I was very young, maybe 12 years, I began to make investments.

The first thing to recommend is that they don’t work in some place that they don’t like, that they don’t do things that they don’t like. That they look for what they really want to do and what kind of thing they want to be involved in, or if they want to go it alone by themselves, to find that.

It's important to give a better country to your children, but it is more important to give better children to your country.

It takes a combination of ways to do these things, more than discipline. It’s a way of life. It’s like diet or gymnastics. You can know all the gymnastic things, all the exercises. You can know all the diets, but if you don’t do the diets, if you don’t do the exercise, it won’t work. It’s the same if you have some rules, but you don’t live them. It doesn’t work.

I buy companies for strategic reasons and operate them.

I buy companies for strategic reasons and operate them.