In my experience many mathematicians enjoy things like juggling, change ringing etc. make of it what you will I guess.
Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)
21–30 of 61 posts
Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)
#22Kind of off-topic, but one thing that really confuses me about Shannon's biography is the following: according to the authors of "A Mind at Play", Shannon was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1983 [0], and the illness progressed "very quickly". They continue: > In too-brief moments, the family was given a flash of the Claude they knew. [His daughter] Peggy remembered that she “actually had a conversation with hi…
I wonder, is it possible that the symptoms of Alzheimer’s could be partially masked by being good-natured and very intelligent? Like maybe Alzheimer’s would sort of… drop him into conversations without context, but then he’d work out the context and try to give advice anyway?
Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)
#23Our 3.5 friend was named after him.
I honestly thought this was a new Claude model before clicking the link.
Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s close though. Iq sd is 15. 200 is about 6.7 sd above mean. Odds of being 6.5 standard deviations away is 1 in 12 billion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68%E2%80%9395%E2%80%9399.7_rul...
Sure, but we can’t say someone has a 1-in-12B intelligence when we only have 8B (or whatever) people. We can only go as high as 1-in-
we can compare their intelligence to those who have previously lived?
A quick googling gives estimates of ~117B humans have ever been born.
So if you were the cleverest person on the planet, ever, you'd have 1-in-117B intelligence?
Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s close though. Iq sd is 15. 200 is about 6.7 sd above mean. Odds of being 6.5 standard deviations away is 1 in 12 billion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68%E2%80%9395%E2%80%9399.7_rul...
Sure, but we can’t say someone has a 1-in-12B intelligence when we only have 8B (or whatever) people. We can only go as high as 1-in-
Matter of perspective; one in the 100~150 billion sapiens (or more) that have gone before and the rates go up. It's also possible rates are underestimated, as we have only tested a relatively small sample compared to N=all
Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)
#26From what I read in The Dream Machine , Shannon sounded like a super cool guy. I love the fact that he talked down the overhype of his own field: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41972922
I'm still reading it, but apparently he stopped talking to his own mother forever after she refused to give him a cookie intended for guests.
Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but we can’t say someone has a 1-in-12B intelligence when we only have 8B (or whatever) people. We can only go as high as 1-in-
we can compare their intelligence to those who have previously lived? A quick googling gives estimates of ~117B humans have ever been born. So if you were the cleverest person on the planet, ever, you'd have 1-in-117B intelligence?
I was thinking along similar lines, bit it becomes a theoretical question when you cannot test/evaluate/interact with subjects anymore.
Also, I'm wondering whether a difference of 1 IQ point is even noticeable, and if not, what's the smallest noticeable increment or faction of a unit.
Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)
#28Quote from Wikipedia: "The Claude E. Shannon Award was established in his honor; he was also its first recipient, in 1973."
That must be a bit awkward to receive a prize named after yourself.
- Turing never won the Turing Award.
- Knuth did, but he never won a Knuth award.
- Dijkstra "kind of" won the Dijkstra Prize: he won the PODC Influential Paper Award, which was renamed after Dijkstra's death to Dijkstra Prize his honour (making the process not awkward).
Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but we can’t say someone has a 1-in-12B intelligence when we only have 8B (or whatever) people. We can only go as high as 1-in-
Matter of perspective; one in the 100~150 billion sapiens (or more) that have gone before and the rates go up. It's also possible rates are underestimated, as we have only tested a relatively small sample compared to N=all
If we test every living human, we can figure out who is the very smartest one. That person has a 1-in- intelligence, from which we can calculate their IQ. That IQ is nowhere near 200.
It would be handy to have standardized test answers from every human ever, but sadly most are dead as you point out.
Re: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius and juggler (2017)
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
we can compare their intelligence to those who have previously lived? A quick googling gives estimates of ~117B humans have ever been born. So if you were the cleverest person on the planet, ever, you'd have 1-in-117B intelligence?
I was thinking along similar lines, bit it becomes a theoretical question when you cannot test/evaluate/interact with subjects anymore. Also, I'm wondering whether a difference of 1 IQ point is even noticeable, and if not, what's the smallest noticeable increment or faction of a unit.
A difference in 1 IQ point in the 100-101 range might be a difference in absolute problem-solving ability of x units, while than the difference between 170-171 is y units.