Interesting anecdote from from the biography of Stanisław Ulam, a close friend of von Neumann. Von Neumann was apparently fascinated by the history of the ancient Greece which he learned by reading Thucydides and Herodotus. Once he was talking with Stan about the Siege of Melos[1] and how violent the human nature can be when driven by pride and ambition set to pursue a certain goal. That were late 30s and catastrophes like Lidice[2] and countless others on the soil which today are Poland and Belarus were soon to happen.
The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann
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Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann
#142von Neumann, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Einstein, Rutherford, Turing, Teller, Szilard, Wigner, Meitner... the list goes on... -- how did that time produce so many people of colossal intellect? War certainly can't be the primary factor, given that many of them were brilliant/productive even before WWI
> how did that time produce so many people of colossal intellect?
We have since invented TV, computer games, quantitative finance and web frameworks. All these things cause massive brain drain.
Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann
#143In an answer to the question of why there is no evidence of intelligent life beyond earth despite the high probability of it existing, Szilárd responded: "They are already here among us – they just call themselves Hungarians." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists)
For a depressing analysis on where all the Hungarian geniuses came from and why they vanished: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-consid...
He mentions Curie as non-Ashkenazi, but even with her I don't know, she was born Polish with full name "Maria Salomea Skłodowska"(-Curie), her middle name "Salomea", given after her grandmother sounds to me like Jewish origin. I wonder how percentage of Nobel price winners/etc. would look like if you'd really dig deeper few generations or did genetic tests.
Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
4 on your list are Hungarian, and 3 of them went to the same high school: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasori_Gimn%C3%A1zium Hungary had a great education system at the time.
SSC had a great post on that: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-consid...
I read that post, "great" is an understatement. Thanks for sharing!
Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann
#145So, kind of like Walter Pitts but born with a silver spoon in his mouth rather than being abandoned to the streets of Chicago.
Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann
#146"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." - Edward Teller See [0] for a demonstration. I watched a documentary from the 80ies a long time ago. A mathematician (can't remember his name) who worked with von Neumann in Los Alamanos was interviewed. He described von…
I've taken a medication that occasionally makes me feel stupid. For a day I might be unable to continue reading a book without re-reading each sentence a few times. I might not be able to talk to people about a complicated or technical subject without stumbling over my words. I will find it difficult to think in the abstract terms, and when I listen to others who talk about abstract values and concepts I have to cont…
In many ways what you describe feels similar to having a high IQ and ADHD. Sometimes being able to dig deeper into a topic than most but sometimes entering a bit of a “mental fog” where you’re barely able to think at an average level. But instead of medication it can be “triggered” by sudden surprises (E.g. unexpected questions or situations can derail my mind for a few minutes) or environmental/nutrition changes, or even just pack of sleep.
Still it forces you to think at different levels of mental acumen and appreciate the differences people have in mental quickness. Though it’s also a challenge when people with constant “IQ” assume you don’t know a given topic if you’re in an off moment or day. Luckily the more experienced people seem to pick up on that. In the end communicating across different intellectual levels makes for a humbling challenge.
Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
people dont like being shown things that dispute their world view, especially on things which wield as much weight as intelligence, which is why i assume youve been downvoted. IQ may not be an exact metric of intelligence, but the correlations of IQ to success in the modern western world are too obvious to ignore, and indeed could be detrimental to ignore. Note, correlation does not equate causation, but suggests dee…
Such claim would have been relevant if each kid of an age class (or at least several thousands, in various countries) is asked to pass an IQ test. Assuming that IQ stays constant throughout the life. And there is still the definition of "success" to discuss. I'm pretty sure there is some bias in the selection. I've never knew someone who has effectively passed a real IQ test around me, and I guess it the same thing f…
> Such claim would have been relevant if each kid of an age class (or at least several thousands, in various countries) is asked to pass an IQ test. Assuming that IQ stays constant throughout the life.
The earliest comprehensive national survey I’m aware of is the Scottish 1932 one[1]. Most countries with conscription/the draft administer an IQ test like the ASVAB in the US. So in the Nordic countries you have going on a century of data covering basically the entire male population at 18.
IQ becomes more stable across life. The younger a child is the more likely it is that any given test is a bad estimate of their adult IQ, which will basically be stable taking into account age related cognitive decline[2].
[1] Population sex differences in IQ at age 11: The Scottish mental survey 1932
There is uncertainty whether the sexes differ with respect to their mean levels and variabilities in mental ability test scores. Here we describe the cognitive ability distribution in 80,000+ children—almost everyone born in Scotland in 1921—tested at age 11 in 1932. There were no significant mean differences in cognitive test scores between boys and girls, but there was a highly significant difference in their standard deviations (P[2] Intellectual Development from Early Childhood to Early Adulthood: The Impact of Early IQ Differences on Stability and Change over Time
Intellectual ability of about 200 individuals was first assessed between the ages of four to twelve years, and subsequently at the ages of 17 and 23. Stability of general intelligence was found to be moderately high for the entire study period. Stability was higher for shorter intervals between measurement points and increased with age. Subgroup analyses for initially high-, average-, and low-IQ children revealed that IQ stability over time was higher for the low-IQ than for the high-IQ children. Overall, participants with initially higher IQ scores maintained their advantage throughout the study until the period of early adulthood, and were more likely to attend higher educational tracks.
Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann
#148Awww, I was hoping they'd mention how Neumann was keen on launching a preemptive nuclear strike against the USSR.
Von Neumann was very smart, but I think he had poor judgement when it comes to politics. Perhaps not. I don't know tbh! When I learned about his political views many years ago it actually deeply changed strongly held opinions that I had about America. He was so smart, and I want so badly to follow in his footsteps, that I said to myself "If Von Neumann believed that only America can save the world from fascism, it is…
You recognize von Neumann's superior intellect, and yet, when it comes to his politics you find his views repulsive (your comment below) and believe that he was the one with poor judgment. Hmm! Perhaps you’re passing judgement selectively and approve only of what caters to your emotions. There's more to the world than what meets the eye, or the heart.
Unlike the commenter below, I believe political reasoning is amenable only to a small degree to first principles, for complex, non-linear systems exhibit emergent behaviors not present when investigating the parts. Instead of analytical reasoning, one ought to practice more holistic thinking.
Here's an intro video on complexity, in case you're ever interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-ladOjo1QA
Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann
#149Wouldn't einstein qualify as the most intelligent human ever lived?
Einstein‽ What about Archimedes?
Wish we had much of a clue -- we're lucky even as much of his own work survived as did. There seems to be a strong tendency to overestimate surviving authors and underestimate their civilization. (Saying this although he's a hero of mine.)
I guess Einstein was no von Neumann, but gosh what a beautiful mind -- even with so much I didn't understand in "Subtle is the Lord...", it's worth a read.
Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Einstein‽ What about Archimedes?
Wish we had much of a clue -- we're lucky even as much of his own work survived as did. There seems to be a strong tendency to overestimate surviving authors and underestimate their civilization. (Saying this although he's a hero of mine.) I guess Einstein was no von Neumann, but gosh what a beautiful mind -- even with so much I didn't understand in "Subtle is the Lord...", it's worth a read.
I should read it!
I guess it's possible that Archimedes invented the integral calculus a hundred generations before Newton and Leibniz because Syracuse was teeming with calculus-like ideas that didn't get written down, and things like the Antikythera Mechanism suggest that there were a lot of important intellectual achievements refined through broad communities of practice that didn't survive. But it seems just as likely to me that Archimedes was just that good.