Looking at the comments, there is someone saying it is his father, thus not Bill Clinton.
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John Von Neumann had alien level intellect
- Thread starter shockthrill
- Start date
Looking at the comments, there is someone saying it is his father, thus not Bill Clinton.
I don't know about that example specifically, but I have read that the curriculum given to middle class students in Shakespeare's day (so, late-sixteenth century) would've given students about the same rhetorical training and familiarity with Latin (and to a lesser extent Greek) that a classics major would have with a university education today.
It had long been a commonplace that Shakespeare was largely ignorant of Latin and especially Greek, and it wasn't until the publication of Baldwin's William Shakespere's Small Latine & Lesse Greeke in 1944 that it was conclusively debunked. Today you can read books that discuss his use of Ovid (including stories that weren't translated until well after his death), his use of a whole range of classics, or his application of particular techniques of the Roman rhetorical tradition to particular characters, where their failure or success in properly using these techniques contributes to their characterization and tips off the discerning audience.
shockthrill
Banned
thats interesting, I didn't know about that
CosmicGroinPull
Member
The only great scientist I know of is Minovsky.
Totally agree. That's why I find Archimedes or Euclid so impressive. They had nothing to work with and yet came up with extremely impressive mathematics and solutions to real world problems.
My personal favorite as an engineer has always been Pierre-Simon Laplace:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
Seems very personable. Way to buck the stereotype, Neumann!
shockthrill
Banned
Laplace is great
Gauss was probably the best mathematician ever based on accomplishments
Archimedes was insanely good
Sure but most of you westerners are clueless about south east asian geniuses like Satyen Bose and Ramanujan:
And frankly, that's embarrassing.
Ramanujan has a well made and well acted British movie about him.
themagicalkitsune
Member
Gödel and Grothendieck were better
Edit: of course, if we're talking about a combo of best and most influential mathematician of all time, that would likely be Riemann. Even Gauss was impressed by him. Shame about his integral though
Edit: of course, if we're talking about a combo of best and most influential mathematician of all time, that would likely be Riemann. Even Gauss was impressed by him. Shame about his integral though
You misunderstand what I'm saying.
When I say "standards have generally rise over time", it's less a statement on their actual intelligence and more a statement on what it takes to receive that level of recognition.
Apologies for any confusion that may have caused.
shockthrill
Banned
Riemann was great, sad he died young like many others (Galois, Abel, Ramanujan)
shockthrill
Banned
we are a hierarchical species, we naturally rank things
This thread isn't that bad, I was just saying.... Now the sports threads OMG they are so bad.
We are also a rational species, or at least we would like to think so, and this means ranking random people with different levels of expertise in different eras is actually mostly impossible and useless.
I'm also not sure what a hierarchical species is.... I mean that's kind of an opinion.
shockthrill
Banned
It's imprecise
although alot of ranking is subjective, you can still make solid, rational conclusions
not many mathematicians of the 20th century can really compare to what Grothendieck did for example...same with physicists and Einstein
Hmmm, IDK, that is very highly up for debate what you just said.
Physics has many different disciplines, and right now people specialize more than anything. And what happens in the future when Einstein's stuff has a high probability to be overturned. Then people will reevaluate a lot of the things he has done.
Same thing with math. It ridiculous to assign one person a role of GOAT. It's impossible. There are too many disciplines within the overarching subject.
Neumann was certainly on a short list of about ten people though.
shockthrill
Banned
String Theory is the future to overturn both QM and General Relativity
That is far from certain. Very far.
milanbaros
Member?
Statistically there are probably quite a few of them alive right now.
Ether_Snake
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Why wouldn't we know about them?
milanbaros
Member?
I exepect it takes a lot more to stand out from the crowd now. How many mathematicians and physicists are there today compared to 90 years ago? How much greater specialisation do you require to be pushing the edge of your field than 90 years ago?
All Possible Ways
Member
Just to make sure people know he was human, here's some less flattering anecdotes
On another note,
Even if a more complete theory is found, Einstein will always be among the best, just like relativity and quantum mechanics do not invalidate Newton's genius.
It must be remembered that Newtonian mechanics remains correct and useful in its domain of applicability, at speeds small compared to the speed of light and for macroscopic objects. This will never change.
What these people did, pratically nobody else could ever do, and will forever stand as some of humanity's greatest intellectual achievements.
On another note,
Even if a more complete theory is found, Einstein will always be among the best, just like relativity and quantum mechanics do not invalidate Newton's genius.
It must be remembered that Newtonian mechanics remains correct and useful in its domain of applicability, at speeds small compared to the speed of light and for macroscopic objects. This will never change.
What these people did, pratically nobody else could ever do, and will forever stand as some of humanity's greatest intellectual achievements.
Ooga Booga
Member
I am an algebraist so I actually use results of people like Grothendieck and Hilbert, while I'm quite familiar with the work of most of the other mathematicians mentioned in the thread. Both had amazing contributions for sure.
I can definitely appreciate the mathematical prowess of Von Neumann as well as his extremely wide range. The latter is what I find mostly commendable: people seem to think that mathematics are quite similar all across the board, but I would say that specific mathematical fields need different ways of thinking to excel to. Of course basic premises are the same, but you need a different type of intuition to work with Geometry than what you need to work with Stochastic Calculus. That's one reason why it is so rare to find universal mathematicians (the other reason for today is that specialization is much more extreme).
With that in mind I would say that the guy with the best ideas (not necessarily "most intelligent") in the field was probably Riemann or Archimedes. Riemann has papers that gave birth to whole branches of mathematics and his ideas, when you understand them, are amazingly beautiful and simple yet ingenious.
As for Archimedes, the guy was using Riemann integrals on a time when 0 was not a number.
I can definitely appreciate the mathematical prowess of Von Neumann as well as his extremely wide range. The latter is what I find mostly commendable: people seem to think that mathematics are quite similar all across the board, but I would say that specific mathematical fields need different ways of thinking to excel to. Of course basic premises are the same, but you need a different type of intuition to work with Geometry than what you need to work with Stochastic Calculus. That's one reason why it is so rare to find universal mathematicians (the other reason for today is that specialization is much more extreme).
With that in mind I would say that the guy with the best ideas (not necessarily "most intelligent") in the field was probably Riemann or Archimedes. Riemann has papers that gave birth to whole branches of mathematics and his ideas, when you understand them, are amazingly beautiful and simple yet ingenious.
As for Archimedes, the guy was using Riemann integrals on a time when 0 was not a number.
shockthrill
Banned
and wasn't Archimedes messing around with calculus before Newton/Leibniz?
Ooga Booga
Member
His techniques were a method of limits, yes. Although I don't remember if it was he who developed them first. It must be said that the concept of infinity was very important in ancient Greek Philosophy, and it basically was not accepted at all in mathematics. Many times they would use these approximations to find the answer to some problem (some area or volume) and then, with the answer known, they would try to actually prove it using standard geometrical methods.
Ether_Snake
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We would know of what they have accomplished.
It's like saying "There must be someone faster than X athlete out there!", well, no, not until they actually train and compete and beat their record.
We'll just enslave them and take their lands.
Pure maths is insane to me, the fact that some people can be geniuses in such a thing is beautiful.
themagicalkitsune
Member
I mean, if you look into younger people, Peter Scholze is already a name to be remembered for generations to come in the math community, and he finished high school like 12 years ago. There are many young bright minds, but their 'fame' is usually localized within their field.
Ooga Booga
Member
One of today's most "genius" (for lack of better term) mathematician is Terence Tao. I highly recommend his blog as well: https://terrytao.wordpress.com. Although obviously most of the entries are research-level stuff, he has some more general posts about mathematics and mathematicians, as well as some entry-level posts. I find that he writes extremely clearly and makes you think that you understand everything (you probably don't).
Orbis Tabula
Member
Sure but most of you westerners are clueless about south east asian geniuses like Satyen Bose and Ramanujan:
And frankly, that's embarrassing.
Your point isn't completely wrong, but when I was in school, there wasn't a math student who didn't know Ramanujan.
shockthrill
Banned
Ed Witten is another living legend
he kickstarted the "Second Superstring Revolution" with M-Theory
is the only physicist to win the field's medal, and he is generally considered by many in the field to be the worlds greatest living physicist
Stephen Hawking?
shockthrill
Banned
Peter Scholze is guaranteed a fields medal in 2018 by far
There's probably plenty of them working for the government in secrecy. Top men.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
There was something about standing on the shoulders of giants..
While I understand OP's fascination with history of great mathematicians, proclaiming one or another as the greatest sounds a bit, well, artificial to me.
While I understand OP's fascination with history of great mathematicians, proclaiming one or another as the greatest sounds a bit, well, artificial to me.
milanbaros
Member?
That doesn't really work though. I was answering to the point on whether there is a mind out there like his, not whether someone will accomplish as much in the field of mathematics. Someone could have a greater intellect than he did and have achieved nothing.
shockthrill
Banned
ehhh
Musk is a clever businessman, and he does have a knowledge of the technical aspects,but he isn't someone I would consider a genius on the level of the many people mentioned here
Thank you very much for posting this. I'm not a mathematicians, but this is close enough to what I do that I can even understand the research stuff. It's fascinating!
Edit: beaten
Strange coincidence I started reading Prisoner's Dilemma from William Poundstone last week... Loving the mix of biographical/historical and technical info about John Neumann work on Game Theory. Also I must recommend Dan Carlin's Hardcore History episode The Destroyer of Worlds not limited to Truman/Neumann but also about the start of the atomic era, game theory, and what it entailed in terms of geopolitic dynamics evolution and to some extent the human species evolution. Can't recommend it enough.
shockthrill
Banned
The Computer and the Brain is another great work from Johnny, although it was left unfinished, when he was diagnosed
That's the only thing of his that I've read!
And probably the only thing I am capable of reading ....
shockthrill
Banned
Johnny is proof in my opinion that the whole Nature vs. Nurture debate around intelligence is misguided. It's obviously both (but probably more complex than this dichotomy)
Most Intelligence gained is probably through hard work and environmental factors
but the best of the best are born with a rare intuition thats hard to describe, something that you can't teach to someone no matter how much they study
I can study chess my whole life, I will never be as good as Magnus Carlsen
same with mathematics, i could study my whole life and I feel like I wouldn't be anywhere near as good to shine Johnny's shoes
Most Intelligence gained is probably through hard work and environmental factors
but the best of the best are born with a rare intuition thats hard to describe, something that you can't teach to someone no matter how much they study
I can study chess my whole life, I will never be as good as Magnus Carlsen
same with mathematics, i could study my whole life and I feel like I wouldn't be anywhere near as good to shine Johnny's shoes
shockthrill
Banned
what Teller says about Von Neumann is heart pounding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh31I1F2vds
you can feel the emotion he has talking about him
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh31I1F2vds
you can feel the emotion he has talking about him
mentallyinept
Banned
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Uh, Gauss?
shockthrill
Banned
I meant specifically 20th century
oh you mean Gauss as an applied mathematician, hmmm I didn't know that, i thought he was more pure
maybe your right...i would put Johnny as the best of last century