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John Von Neumann had alien level intellect

We had plenty. Just on mathematics alone:

Andrew Wiles - Proved Fermat's Last Theorem that had stumped mathematicians for over 200 years.

Grigori Perelman - Proved the Poincare conjecture, one of seven of the Millennium Prize problems and so far, the only one to be solved.

Edward Witten - The only physicist to be awarded the Fields Medal for his breakthroughs in the structure of quantum fields

Shinichi Mochizuki - A mathematician who released four papers claiming to prove the abc conjecture. In order to do so, he invented new mathematics that was so abstract that most of the mathematical community cannot verify. Only four mathematicians have come out to say that his proof his correct.

....

Damn.
 
Shinichi Mochizuki - A mathematician who released four papers claiming to prove the abc conjecture. In order to do so, he invented new mathematics that was so abstract that most of the mathematical community cannot verify. Only four mathematicians have come out to say that his proof his correct.
I occasionally check out the progress Mochizuki's proof being verified, and it always seems to be making no progress because nobody knows what the fuck is even going on with it, lol.
 
I always check out the progress Mochizuki's proof being verified, and it always seems to be making no progress because nobody knows what the fuck is even going on with it, lol.

Yea, the problem stems from the translation issues. Even then, the ones who've studied the proof still can't understand it.
 
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OP was right!

But yeah, he's one of the less known geniuses. Really hard to evaluate them compared to each other.

It seems like Neumann had probably some of the best mental focus of a human ever.
 
speaking of Perelman whatever happened to him

he seemed to disappear after the Poincare Conjecture and faded into the shadows like Grothendeick
 
speaking of Perelman whatever happened to him

he seemed to disappear after the Poincare Conjecture and faded into the shadows like Grothendeick

He disappeared from public life because of this:

he considered the decision of the board of CMI and the award very unfair and that his contribution to solving the Poincaré conjecture was no greater than that of Richard S. Hamilton, the mathematician who pioneered the Ricci flow with the aim of attacking the conjecture.
 
speaking of Perelman whatever happened to him

he seemed to disappear after the Poincare Conjecture and faded into the shadows like Grothendeick

He was super introverted apparently, and wasn't feeling great with all the attention on him so he kind of stopped doing serious math, or at least stopped doing it in public. He wasn't at all famous before he completed the Poincare conjecture so it's not all that different.
 
He was super introverted apparently, and wasn't feeling great with all the attention on him so he kind of stopped doing serious math, or at least stopped doing it in public. He wasn't at all famous before he completed the Poincare conjecture so it's not all that different.

interesting, i read somewhere that he lives in Sweden now and working for some tech company now that i remember
 
Not as a rebuttal, more as a potential equal, might I suggest Srinivasa Ramanujan

Srinivasa_Ramanujan_-_OPC_-_1.jpg


No formal training, largely self taught, and died at the age of 32. yet in his short time he compiled thousands or theories and results - unfortunately because paper was scarce and he was such a genius, he would complete the proofs in his head and just write down the completed equations. To this day that are still proving many of the identities and equations he left in his notebooks.

John Littlewood once said of him, "Every positive integer is one of Ramanujan's personal friends.'
 
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If you don't know much about the history of mathematics, Johnny Von Neumann was an hungarian mathematician, an extremely brilliant polymath, one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. He is the founder of Game Theory and also was one of the first mathematicians to write a rigorous mathematical treatment of quantum mechanics, among many other accomplishments

I have trouble believing such a human being actually existed, I honestly do

here are some of the anecdotes people have said about him, usually from brilliant intellectuals

Hans Bethe: " "I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann's does not indicate a species superior to that of man".

Eugene Wigner , "one had the impression of a perfect instrument whose gears were machined to mesh accurately to a thousandth of an inch." and also said "only he was fully awake"

Paul Halmos " "von Neumann's speed was awe-inspiring"

Israel Halperin ""Keeping up with him was ... impossible. The feeling was you were on a tricycle chasing a racing car."

Edward Teller said "he could never keep up with him"

he also said ""von Neumann would carry on a conversation with my 3-year-old son, and the two of them would talk as equals, and I sometimes wondered if he used the same principle when he talked to the rest of us..

Lothar Wolfgang Nordheim " "fastest mind I ever met"

Jacob Bronowski ""He was the cleverest man I ever knew, without exception. He was a genius."

George Polya " "Johnny was the only student I was ever afraid of. If in the course of a lecture I stated an unsolved problem, the chances were he'd come to me at the end of the lecture with the complete solution scribbled on a slip of paper."

Jean Diudonne " "may have been the last representative of a once-flourishing and numerous group, the great mathematicians who were equally at home in pure and applied mathematics and who throughout their careers maintained a steady production in both directions"

Peter Lax
"most scintillating intellect of this century"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

Sure but most of you westerners are clueless about south east asian geniuses like Satyen Bose and Ramanujan:

aug_00_bose_70s.jpg


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And frankly, that's embarrassing.
 
The thing about Ramanujan, was that, because of the obvious circumstance of his birth, lacked a solid formal education which resulted in some massive gaps in his mathematical knowledge

but he was a once in a lifetime brilliant mathematician, in terms of talent I would put him on the same pedestal as Gauss and Euler

the problem is that many of his results, often by his own genius methods, were results that were already known at the time. He never really had the "epoch shifting" results that Hilbert or Grothendieck had that really changed the course of math

but he is one of the Gods of Olympus with Johnny, Newton, Gauss, Euler etc.
 
well, Von Neumann had a deep hatred for Communism and the Soviet Union

(which is understandable since they treated his home country, Hungary like crap)

Most of the time when you see this kind of hatred it's because people were part of a wealthy privileged family, and it is not a surprise that John had the same background.

He was salty, not caring about Hungary's fate lol (unless the other can be proven)
 
Most of the time you see this kind of hatred it's because people were part of a wealthy privilleged family, and it is not surprise that John had the same background.

He was salty, not caring about Hungary's fate lol (unless the other can be proven)

well I wouldn't really say that the Soviet Union was an altruistic force, to rich families or even poor families who they claimed they championed

it's all about power at the end of the day
 
Impressive anecdotes. Dude sounded crazy smart. Wonder if we'll ever get a mind as incredible as his in our time.....time will tell.
I think that pure math geniuses translate a lot easier since math is math, but you get polyglots and crack musicians who can instantly play the piano or compose. I think that is equally impressive. That kind of genius isn't as useful per se but humans are very interesting when you have a huge sample size. Unlike the West where geniuses are found kind of organically like through a university or contests - China has been systematically looking for the telltale signs of these prodigies for years in every field. I'm sure they've found a couple with such a huge sample size.
 
Most of the time when you see this kind of hatred it's because people were part of a wealthy privileged family, and it is not a surprise that John had the same background.

He was salty, not caring about Hungary's fate lol (unless the other can be proven)

Well it's not too far fetched. People who have actually lived under communist regimes don't seem to care for it.
 
Not as a rebuttal, more as a potential equal, might I suggest Srinivasa Ramanujan

Srinivasa_Ramanujan_-_OPC_-_1.jpg


No formal training, largely self taught, and died at the age of 32. yet in his short time he compiled thousands or theories and results - unfortunately because paper was scarce and he was such a genius, he would complete the proofs in his head and just write down the completed equations. To this day that are still proving many of the identities and equations he left in his notebooks.

John Littlewood once said of him, "Every positive integer is one of Ramanujan's personal friends.'
There's a movie about him, The Man Who Knew Infinity, with Dev Patel.
 
I dunno. If you look at the history of physics in the early 20th century, there are a lot of geniuses to contributed to its development.

Paul Dirac, for instance. Anyone remember him? Yet he was far more important than Von Neumann
 
The Ancients weren't aliens, they were humans (a different generation of humans). That's why I didn't bring them up.

No they were aliens that evolved completely on their own accord. Humans were the "second evolution" of their form.
 
Realistically we probably have several already. Standards generally rise over time.
Not exactly. You're mixing up individual intellect and capability with society's broad ability to grow through generational communication and collected history. Just because society has advanced more thanks to our collective history, doesn't mean that individuals themselves are "smarter" than previous generations. At least not on this short of a timescale.
 
I dunno. If you look at the history of physics in the early 20th century, there are a lot of geniuses to contributed to its development.

Paul Dirac, for instance. Anyone remember him? Yet he was far more important than Von Neumann

I don't know about that

Dirac has alot of influence, like anti-matter, and the dirac equation

but he worked in one field, while Von Neumann made amazing contributions in many fields
 
No they were aliens that evolved completely on their own accord. Humans were the "second evolution" of their form.

The Ancients weren't aliens, they were humans (a different generation of humans). That's why I didn't bring them up.

Ah ..thanks gents, I adore Stargate SG-1, but I forgot about the Ancients' backstory..

Under the aliens criteria .. I'd say Asgard then.
 
No they were aliens that evolved completely on their own accord. Humans were the "second evolution" of their form.

As long as we're talking about Stargate, I'm currently rewatching it now. The reason why I phrased that as such was because in one of the recent episodes (not sure which series) the Ancients referred to themselves as human. Maybe that was a mistake on the writer's part. I'm not sure.
 
Sure but most of you westerners are clueless about south east asian geniuses like Satyen Bose and Ramanujan:

aug_00_bose_70s.jpg


stamp.JPG


And frankly, that's embarrassing.
Uuuhhh Ramanujan gets name dropped in the movie "Good Will Hunting" about his intellectual prowess. How you like them apples?!
 
Another mathematician (also Hungarian funnily enough) that I recently learned about is Paul Erdős. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_ErdĹ‘s

Erdős published around 1,500 mathematical papers during his lifetime, a figure that remains unsurpassed.

Which gave way to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdős_number

Basically Six Degrees of Separation for mathematicians. He worked with so many professors from all over the world, who in turn taught students that published their own papers, etc. that an Erdős number is something you're almost likely to have if you publish anything mathematical.
 
Another mathematician (also Hungarian funnily enough) that I recently learned about is Paul Erdős. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_ErdĹ‘s



Which gave way to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdős_number

Basically Six Degrees of Separation for mathematicians. He worked with so many professors from all over the world, who in turn taught students that published their own papers, etc. that an Erdős number is something you're almost likely to have if you publish anything mathematical.

Erdos has so many great stories, his life is fascinating
 
Ah yes, the Aeneid: unanimously decided pinnacle of objectively determined human intellect. When did that panel meet again?

Please don't put words in my mouth. My point is that geniuses have existed for millennia. "Standards" of incredible intellect haven't skyrocketed in the last 90 years. What we do have are different methods of quantifying intelligence though, for better or worse.
 
Please don't put words in my mouth. My point is that geniuses have existed for millennia. "Standards" of incredible intellect haven't skyrocketed in the last 90 years. What we do have are different methods of quantifying intelligence though, for better or worse.

wasn't 8th grade education in the 19th century equivalent to like college courses now a days
 
Please don't put words in my mouth. My point is that geniuses have existed for millennia. "Standards" of incredible intellect haven't skyrocketed in the last 90 years. What we do have are different methods of quantifying intelligence though, for better or worse.

You presented your point with the intonation of complete dismissal of the other individual's point. Given the Aeneid was referenced, I would assume you possess the literary awareness to take ownership of your implications. Seems you have backtracked; one might suggest you add some nuance to soften the concrete certainty presented in your original statements if you are going to be so prickly when they are responded to with the appropriate level of snark.
 
You presented your point with the intonation of complete dismissal of the other individual's point. Given the Aeneid was referenced, I would assume you possess the literary awareness to take ownership of your implications. Seems you have backtracked; one might suggest you add some nuance to soften the concrete certainty presented in your original statements if you are going to be so prickly when they are responded to with the appropriate level of snark.

Fair enough, though I think you are going a bit far with "complete dismissal" and "appropriate level of snark," whatever the latter means. I don't think snark is constructive, though I am very snarky myself and so I can't really complain about it! I didn't intend to sound prickly, though clearly I have, and I apologize. I just feel that people are quick to make assumptions about the people of the past versus the present that don't do them justice.
 
I must add, being married to a Hungarian woman and therefore got interested in their history, that it is really uncanny the talent pool of geniuses that has come from Hungary the last 100-150 years.. Von Neumann was one of them..

Check out
Www.famoushungarians.com

(For such a small country, they have really packed a punch)
 
You know its a good night when you open someones wikipedia page and after 5 minutes you have 10 more tabs open (none of which you understand in the slightest)
 
BUT HEY THAT'S JUST A THEORY - A GAME THEORY. THANKS FOR WATCHING.
 
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