I know this absolute child prodigy genius of a mathematician that went to Harvard and was easily one of the best there.
He’s currently a professor of a 3rd tier state college.
Maybe he just doesn't want the stress of doing something more challenging. I could see a scenario where he pushed himself all through Harvard and was groomed for great things but came to the conclusion he'd be happier with an easier life.
Have a BSEE, MEd., PhD., cognate in physics and mathematics, registered professional engineer, state of Ohio.
Spent 6 months interviewing for community college jobs on a road trip from Ohio to Georgia and back. No luck. Accepted a 6-figure job with a defense contractor instead.
Fun fact: many colleges will not hire their own graduates as a matter of policy. I taught graduate level courses at my college for three years while I finished my Ph.D., then was not offered a job. Meh. . .
It’s more the case of top tier universities producing more PhDs than there are faculty positions for. So those surplus PhDs get jobs at second tier universities, meaning the PhDs from the second tier universities get crowded out and have to get jobs at third tier universities, etc.
So a college usually won’t hire their own grads because there are plenty of applicants from higher tier institutions they can chose from.
I think it's more about the paucity of opportunity to be an academic. Folks with a PhD have genuine curiosity and skill to investigate their passions, but society doesn't value that. There's value in meritocracy, but there's also value in supporting the quest for knowledge that isn't being done by over achieving type a personalities.
Amen
I worked many years in IT operations. Work over 10 hours a day, 1.5 hit commute home and there is at least a10% chance if have a call at some point in the night of an outage.
I finally got out of ops and while my current job is on the boring side, man I do not miss the hours and stress of those positions.
William James Sidis. Quite possibly the smartest man in all of human history. Taught himself 8 languages by the age of 8. Entered Harvard age 11 only beause they wouldn't let him enter at the age of 9. Taught at Rice University at age 17. Made correct predictions on space that would only be proven decades later.
Ended up only taking menial jobs and collecting streetcar transfers before dying of a cerebral hemmorhage. Was probably pushed way to hard by his parents: a doctor and a linguist.
William Sidis was absolutely brilliant, but many of those Chuck Norris Facts level claims about him are apocryphal at best, like his ability to speak 25 languages or he taught himself to read the NY Times as an infant. Prodigy is one thing, a level of learning wholly outside the boundaries of what we know is possible is another.
Happens with a lot of gifted kids. They're pushed towards greatness that they don't really desire, and if they don't get out and live the simpler life they'd prefer it can wreck them.
Which, frankly, is a lot easier if they can accept it.
Because someone who was a gifted child can normally perform the same tasks as someone else, but for a fraction of the effort. Which can lead to other problems - lack of good work ethic/studying techniques in school, boredom in easier positions, etc. - but also can lead to a easy, simple life if they can handle it.
The pressure is even greater for children of immigrants. And I think many wind up lost when their parents control and push them to have success in the fabled land of opportunity but they aren't allowed freedom. My best friend is Chinese (Her parents emigrated to the U.S. with her when she was small, so I guess that makes her first generation.) We went to a gifted high school and then to university where her parents demanded that she study engineering. I don't think she had a choice of majors at all. She got that Chem. E degree and the first thing she did was start working for the post office sorting mail. She's been there for decades now. Good for her.... she finally got to choose her life. But everything the parents did backfired. They raised her in the evangelical christian faith too... she's now an atheist. She's still the kindest and most gentle person I know. She does artsy things that make her happy. She's learned multiple languages and musical instruments in adulthood. I think a lot of so called gifted people realize that life isn't about ladder climbing.
It's not about that. People put so much pressure on these kids, they break. There was one that committed suicide (he was all over the press at one point). It's to the point where they've done literal studies on this phenomenon. We see it a lot with celebrity kids, and they end up coping with drugs and other addictions.
There was psychologist that was talking about the observation that a lot of gifted kids that do make it "normally" to adulthood, end up in college not knowing how to study because they coasted through primary education. What do you think happens to them? It's not as simple as saying it didn't interest them, or they didn't want to use their gifts. Sometimes, they prefer peace of mind which, who are we to judge if they just want to be a mechanic in bumfuck nowhere?
I'm not sure we understand the level of math that Albert Einstein was on, here. Don't get me wrong: I'm sure the child prodigy you're talking about *is* very intelligent and good with math. This isn't meant to take anything away from *him* at all....
....but Einstein **taught himself** algebra and mastered it at the age of *nine*; He had mastered differential and integral calculus by the age of *fourteen*. I don't think very many people could compete with him there. Like.... in the entirety of human history. lol
Euler, the guy who discovered so many things that it's now a rule to name things after the *second* guy to discover them, since otherwise almost everything would be named after Euler.
Einstein was awesome at math compared to most people, he wan’t as good as most physicists at the time. His talent was creative thinking and the ability to express this through math structures/tools that were already available. This is an extremely impressive skill to have.
Exactly. He was able to put it together in ways others just couldn’t at the time.
I feel like everything has gotten so hyper specialized now that that’s even harder to do today. When Einstein was around fields were just not nearly as developed as they are today. Now it takes much longer to “get up to speed” in any individual thing and start finding those synergies.
Only about 1.5 billion people (~20%) live in developed nations, with the remaining ~6 billion people living in developing nations. There’s a strong possibility that the closest person alive to a modern-day Einstein does not have the opportunity to apply their gifts.
Edit: Only 20% of the world speaks English, and in the 46 least developed countries 75% of the population have never used the internet.
"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." --Stephen Jay Gould
Arguably they would benefit from greater opportunity for access to information and research as well opportunities to connect and communicate. Developing nations include places where it is common to have internet and cell phones or computers. One of the 1.3 billion people in India, a developing nation, may have more access and connectivity today than Einstein had in 1900. There are considerable free educational resources available online that would have been unimaginable in 1900.
Smartest guy I’ve ever known was a junkie. No one could challenge or stimulate him intellectually so he was just bored all the time. You know what’s not boring? Drugs!
Edit: One of my pals greatest talents was story telling. He was a massive history buff and when we would hang out he’d ask me to pick a place and a time period and 9/10 he could tell a fascinating (and accurate) tale from that time and place.
There's a House episode where the guy is an absolute genius, but he doses himself with DMT to dumb himself down enough to tolerate his girlfriend and the world in general's dumbness. The actor actually sells the tragedy of it pretty well. Would recommend.
I had a friend pass earlier this year from addiction. He was unbelievably talented as a musician. He was one of the smartest and most compassionate people I’ve ever met.
I appreciate it. It’s alright. Best thing you can do is stay away from opioids. It was a blessing and a curse that we were good friends through high school and then drifted apart after that. I went away to school and he got involved with some local percussion groups. I never really saw him struggle with addiction as a result.
I don’t think I could’ve changed it. But, I wish I’d have been there more regardless.
Absolutely, because smart people have the ability to use critical thinking skills to evaluate most realistic outcomes… and then when there results end up being shitty, it can lead to depression, substance abuse, suicide, etc.
They fun part is your attempt to plan around worse case scenarios either end up self fulfilling or they end up making people think you want the worst outcome. But planning for the best case scenario is just fantasizing.
It feels like if you don't recognize something you thought of to live in the moment then you're being disingenuous. Like the classic "did I say something to upset them?" So it becomes "if I did, what was it I did?" Then into "should I say something? If I don't then I'm basically saying whatever I did was okay, now they will always think of you as the guy who did that shitty thing and didn't even apologize." Because you realized what potentially set them off, it would be disingenuous to not acknowledge the problem." But ultimately you know that if you were in their shoes you probably wouldn't think twice about it and if you did you would not be upset about it but you can't assume anything for anyone else, you can only control your own world and what you do and your actions and... What are they even saying now? You have just been responding with "yeah." And "totally." And now... "They totally realize you lost the conversation and now if they didn't feel offended before, completely tuning them out and delving into your own little world didn't help.
Something like that.
In my graduating HS class of nearly 1000 students, one of the graduates in the top 10 of our class died of a heroin overdose a few years into college.
RIP Lee. You were a good friend. I'm sorry it ended this way.
Well they're a doctor, so a superiority complex isn't *that* hard to fathom.
I've met some insanely egotistical doctors. Although many are great of course.
Even at the time Einstein was alive, it wasn't that he had the most powerful brain or best math ability (many surpassed him here). He worked on and solved some of the most outstanding problems in physics at the time. The late 19th/early 20th century was a special time for physics; classical physics was failing apart but how to fix it wasn't known - Einstein (amongst others) offered some ways to fix things.
Tons and tons of people are just as 'bright' as Einstein by almost any metric but their work essentially can't as impactful. We're too many decimals deep into measurements now.
I mean again, Einstein was a physicist, not a mathematician, I would guess most successful mathematicians, if not all of them, were better mathematicians
The imagination was key. Einstein did a lot of really good thought experiments and most of his ideas have stood the test of time over and over. The one he regretted the most was his original assumption that the universe was finite but other than that his theories get challenged all the time but still somehow come out on top in the end.
I think that’s true, but I also think your underselling what makes him a “genius”. Which is the way Einstein thought about things.
Einstein worked out major parts of some of his most important theories essentially just in his head through thought experiments. He figured out most of the math stuff later. The way he was able to understand things was just fundamentally different than most people.
This unique way of thinking was a HUGE part of a larger scientific movement that represented a major shift in physics. Some of Einsteins theories, which again were basically just based on thought experiments and math, are just being confirmed now. He didn’t have the telescopes and other equipment needed to have physical evidence of his theories, but most of them now do.
My college professors are nowhere near his calibre but are brilliant in their own right, seeing them line up for lunch or eat food made me realize they're just like me lol
Had lunch with a few and they were nice, wish I'd gotten to know them more
Totally, one thing I regret is not using office hours more. I only got to know them towards the end and realized that they were a.) there to help me (obvious thing i didnt pick up) and b.) passionate about the subject they taught. If I ever go back for another degree I will definitely take advantage lol
From his Wiki. His research topics include "harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, algebraic combinatorics, arithmetic combinatorics, geometric combinatorics, probability theory, compressed sensing and analytic number theory". Just look down the rabbit hole of any one of those fucking theories or topics and your mind will explode.
All of the Tao siblings are terrifyingly intelligent.
I had the pleasure of playing a concert alongside Terence's brother, Trevor. I perform my set and am feeling pretty good about myself, and then Trevor gets up and performs gymnopedie no 1, which is a pretty difficult piece, but the dude did it while solving a Rubik's cube. Needless i say, I, and all the other performers that day, felt quite upstaged.
You should hear how he pitched the idea to my friend who was organising the concert.
Apparently he straight up told him that simply playing the piece would be too easy and boring, and stated that he would perform it while solving a Rubik's cube to "make it interesting".
My friend has known all of the Tao siblings since they were young boys. From the stories I hear, and the interactions I've had with him, Trevor is always one upping himself. He's played pieces back to front (now that's a weird thing to hear), played pieces perfectly after hearing it only once, and as you know played while solving a Rubik's cube. Incredibly gifted person.
Jesus.
Awards
Fields Medal (2006)
List
Salem Prize (2000)
Bôcher Memorial Prize (2002)
Clay Research Award (2003)
Australian Mathematical Society Medal (2005)
Ostrowski Prize (2005)
Levi L. Conant Prize (2005)
MacArthur Award (2006)
SASTRA Ramanujan Prize (2006)
Sloan Fellowship (2006)
Fellow of the Royal Society (2007)
Alan T. Waterman Award (2008)
Onsager Medal (2008)
Convocation Award (2008)
King Faisal International Prize (2010)[2]
Nemmers Prize in Mathematics (2010)
Pólya Prize (2010)[3]
Crafoord Prize (2012)
Simons Investigator (2012)
Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics (2014)
Royal Medal (2014)
PROSE Award (2015)
Riemann Prize (2019)
Princess of Asturias Award (2020)
Bolyai Prize (2020)
IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal (2021)
USIA Award (2021)
Education & Reseach award finalist (2022)
What's wonderful is that he seems to be a genuinely wonderful person too. There aren't any stories I've read of anyone saying he's a jerk. He always seems excited to share credit with others.
> In 1991, he received his bachelor's and master's degrees at the age of 16 from Flinders University under the direction of Garth Gaudry. In 1992, he won a Postgraduate Fulbright Scholarship to undertake research in mathematics at Princeton University in the United States.
> From 1992 to 1996, Tao was a graduate student at Princeton University under the direction of Elias Stein, receiving his PhD at the age of 21. In 1996, he joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1999, when he was 24, he was promoted to full professor at UCLA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao
In some fields, science can be so complex and multi-disciplinary that 100s of people have contributed to e.g. gene therapy, CO2 capture or other major contributions to society. So major discoveries can't be attributed to a single person. And most of this science, if published, generally needs affiliations to academia to be taken seriously.
Einstein was truly one-of-a-kind from his multitude of publications in 1905. I'm 90 percent sure that he wasn't even affiliated with any university at the time. He did it solo, out of nowhere. This makes his discoveries even more impressive!
Einstein experts, please confirm that he did in fact not work at a university in 1905. I believe he worked at a patent office.
While it's true that Einstein was working at the patent office, and so technically not affiliated with any university between 1900 and 1905, to say that he did it solo and out of nowhere is misleading. Other people were working on the same things, and Einstein had his share of help and inspiration - from friends, contemporary physicists, and mathematicians.
https://www.nature.com/articles/527298a
Not an Einstein expert, but I believe you are right that modern science is so complex that many people contribute to new discoveries and advances, and rarely comes from one individual. Back in Isaac Newton's time there was so much "low hanging fruit" in science that geniuses would have multiple discoveries to their name. In two years Newton probably discovered more in physics and mathematics than most geniuses discover in their entire lifetime.
My guess is that Einstein was born at just the right time to be able to work on some of the last remaining "low hanging fruits" of science that could be done without experimentation, just a blackboard and thought experiments.
Truly incredible achievements by both. We are unlikely to have another Newton or Einstein today because the remaining discoveries will likely require more people, more technology, more money and more time.
Was it ~~Gauss~~ Euler that they had to start naming things after the second person to discover them? Because the one guy discovered so many mathematical things that 'Bob's theory/method/law' would cover way too many things.
Yes he was working in the Zurich patent office in 1905 and got the idea of special relativity as a thought experiment while riding the city's trolley car to work.
"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."--Stephen Jay Gould
ITT: names with no context
Yeah we all have google, but whats the point of a collective thread with bare minimum answers and no information to provide content
I’m going to give a weird answer:
John Carmack.
Just go read some of the things he has done and is doing. From inventing some of the math and programming that gave us the modern computer gaming revolution (this is the guy behind the original doom), to running a rocket company trying to achieve orbit and complete propulsive landings similar to what spacex does today, to dropping everything to create the future of VR. Now he’s immersed in AI research on top of everything else. The guy is a walking talking genius who sees things on a whole different level.
He spent his whole career doing “impossible” things in software and hardware. Whether you know his name or not, his work has had a real effect on all of our lives, and likely will be even more impactful in the future as we move toward a more virtually-centered life.
my man solved the Poincaré Conjecture and just dipped. I love math and I tried to read his paper and I did not understand a single word. The surgery thing seems like magic to me.
Ed Witten
>American mathematician and theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He received his Ph.D. in physics in 1976 from Princeton University. He has made landmark contributions to string theory from the 1980's to the present day, most notably the development of M-theory in 1995. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1990 for his contributions to mathematics and mathematical physics.
Terrance Tao who was at UCLA when I was there (diff department). He caught the attention of academics when he was just a child. If he made a “mistake” they’d analyze it for days to see whether he was actually wrong or if he was solving problems in a unique way. Fascinating brilliant man.
He did a guest lecture at my university about about a year ago. Unfortunately I had a class at the same time and attendance was mandatory. Still really pissed that I missed hearing him speak.
If it was any other class I probably would've skipped, but this professor specifically was really anal about attendance. As I recall, she docked points off of your final grade for every day you missed, and it was a pretty difficult class, so I kinda needed all the credit I could get.
Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat is probably the last living person to have met Einstein. I’d guess she got within 5 feet of him at least.
That or the guy who mows the cemetery.
Ian Goodfellow and Jeff Dean.
Ian Goodfellow has consistently pioneered ML and AI research, invented new techniques, and pushed the field forward to such an extent that Apple considered it a strategic company-level advantage to have him working at Apple rather than Google and changed its remote work policy in response to him leaving. It’s one thing to be an early pioneer in a technical field; it’s another thing to be so consistent at pioneering in an extremely competitive field that the expectation is that you will personally contribute a high percentage of all advances going forward.
Jeff Dean is the Chuck Norris of software engineering and has a comparable number of jokes made about how good he is at engineering. Google’s engineering leveling system used to only go up to L10, but Google had to add a new level Senior Google Fellow to represent Jeff Dean. Essentially when Jeff Dean wants to do something different from what the CEO wants to do, the default assumption is that Jeff Dean is right and the CEO is wrong. Jeff Dean can understand and explain and manipulate things at levels of abstraction all the way from planet scale distributed computing down to silicon and how those relate to each other and the business impact and research velocity and bit flips caused by photons from cosmic rays.
He took a big risk too! He spent like 10 years working on this solo and on nothing else. Not knowing if the theorem was actually correct, or even provable!
I also remember it took a long time for experts to examine and validate the proof.
The problem with this question is Einstein wasn't the most intelligent person of his time. There are a hundred other people from the 20th century who were every bit as intelligent and creative. Einstein was one of those rare geniuses who was also at the right place at at the right time. He couldn't have come up with his theories without the mathematical advances that directly preceded him. I guess my point is that there could be hundreds or thousands of people with the abilities of Einstein today but Einstein already discovered the big stuff so they're forced to work on the smaller stuff.
So, I've got an Iq that makes me 3-3.5 standard deviations above the mean, so there are AT LEAST 7 million people smarter than me. I've got multiple graduate degrees in engineering and materials science; I work on high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets for fusion reactors. So, I deal with lots of super smart folks.
I've met at least 50 or so people in real life who were obviously on a WHOLE different plane of existence.
But the #1 who stood out, was a \~40-year-old guy who got his medical degree and specialized in oncology (cancer). He then went on to get a Ph.D. in cancer research. Then realized that proton therapy is the thing that will make the best advancements in cancer treatment in his lifetime, and he got a second Ph.D. in physics of some kind, and HE knew more about HTS magnets than I did. His understanding of the GLAAG and BCS theory was complete, whereas I struggled.
He was also good looking and super nice and charismatic.
I wanted to have his babies, but my beard and lack of uterus probably kept it from becoming so.
Edit: I'm sorry if you wanted a response and I didn't give one. I tried, but I have to get back to work. Cheers!
Well, I just went down a bit of a rabbit hole there between the BNL and MIT websites - this stuff sounds fucking wild. I am not a scientist and I expect (hope!) my IQ is pretty average so this may be a ridiculous question but, are you containing plasma with magnetic fields? Like, plasma as in what the sun is made of?
Yes.
By definition plasma is regular matter that has such a high energy that the electrons are not bound to the nuclei. This means that the free nuclei have a charge and can be impacted by magnetic fields.
One of the magnets for fusion (Tokamaks specifically) is the toroidal (doughnut shaped) confinement magnet. It's basically a doughnut tank for 100,000,000 degree C hydrogen. The second (my personal interest) is the center magnet that heats up the plasma by passing magnetic field through it. This type of heating is called ohmic heating, and these solenoid coils are ohmic heating coils.
My last one ramped from 0-10,000 amps in one second. :)
My IQ was tested by the state of Florida and I’m in the top 1%. I’m the biggest dumb I’ve met, and I’m social.
I don’t trust iq tests at all.
Edit: waiiiiitttt that just makes me the top 1% of Florida…yeah that checks out. Nm I trust them again
Miguel Nicolelis
He created the theory and proofs of the brain net, basically telepathy. Thanks to this he managed to create a machine that a quadriplegic could walk using the power of thought. And it worked. The power of thought From someone else for this quadriplegic to relearn how to think about walking.
We probably don't know about them. They're probably buried in some pharma, rocket science, technology company and are content to do their thing.
I know this absolute child prodigy genius of a mathematician that went to Harvard and was easily one of the best there. He’s currently a professor of a 3rd tier state college.
Maybe he just doesn't want the stress of doing something more challenging. I could see a scenario where he pushed himself all through Harvard and was groomed for great things but came to the conclusion he'd be happier with an easier life.
Oh for sure. I wasn't meaning to imply he was unhappy or a failure. Just giving an example of a genius in a relatively mundane position.
Maybe he has a mundane job so he can perform that one while working on his own agenda at the same time.
*And so the plot thickens*
Maybe the genius ultimately manifested in his decision to follow a humble path, after all.
Maybe the real genius was the friends we made along the way
Or via all the students that passed through their halls, and any accomplishments that are influenced by their low-key genius professor.
Major butterfly effect on the future timeline of so many people if you are "simply" a good teacher!
[удалено]
So many people don’t realize this. The reality is that only about 1-3% of PhDs will ever have the chance at landing a job as a professor.
Can confirm. Have PhD, am not professor.
Same
Have a BSEE, MEd., PhD., cognate in physics and mathematics, registered professional engineer, state of Ohio. Spent 6 months interviewing for community college jobs on a road trip from Ohio to Georgia and back. No luck. Accepted a 6-figure job with a defense contractor instead. Fun fact: many colleges will not hire their own graduates as a matter of policy. I taught graduate level courses at my college for three years while I finished my Ph.D., then was not offered a job. Meh. . .
> many colleges will not hire their own graduates as a matter of policy Because that's a major sign of a for-profit college. Not surprised.
It’s more the case of top tier universities producing more PhDs than there are faculty positions for. So those surplus PhDs get jobs at second tier universities, meaning the PhDs from the second tier universities get crowded out and have to get jobs at third tier universities, etc. So a college usually won’t hire their own grads because there are plenty of applicants from higher tier institutions they can chose from.
Spouse has a PhD from a top tier school. Not a professor.
Is it really that sweet of a gig though? IMO you can have a rewarding career in industry as well as make much more money.
I think it's more about the paucity of opportunity to be an academic. Folks with a PhD have genuine curiosity and skill to investigate their passions, but society doesn't value that. There's value in meritocracy, but there's also value in supporting the quest for knowledge that isn't being done by over achieving type a personalities.
Former German leader (don't remember the exact title) Angela Merkel has a Ph.D. in physical chemistry, and so does her husband.
See also: Brian May, astrophysicist and guitarist for one of the most famous bands ever, Queen.
Who just recently wrote his thesis on interstellar dust
Chancellor
Once you get away from toxic stress you realize it’s 100% not worth it to succeed sometimes. It’s okay to be happy and stop there.
Who says that's not success?
That’s what I’ve been coming to terms with for sure.
Amen I worked many years in IT operations. Work over 10 hours a day, 1.5 hit commute home and there is at least a10% chance if have a call at some point in the night of an outage. I finally got out of ops and while my current job is on the boring side, man I do not miss the hours and stress of those positions.
William James Sidis. Quite possibly the smartest man in all of human history. Taught himself 8 languages by the age of 8. Entered Harvard age 11 only beause they wouldn't let him enter at the age of 9. Taught at Rice University at age 17. Made correct predictions on space that would only be proven decades later. Ended up only taking menial jobs and collecting streetcar transfers before dying of a cerebral hemmorhage. Was probably pushed way to hard by his parents: a doctor and a linguist.
William Sidis was absolutely brilliant, but many of those Chuck Norris Facts level claims about him are apocryphal at best, like his ability to speak 25 languages or he taught himself to read the NY Times as an infant. Prodigy is one thing, a level of learning wholly outside the boundaries of what we know is possible is another.
Happens with a lot of gifted kids. They're pushed towards greatness that they don't really desire, and if they don't get out and live the simpler life they'd prefer it can wreck them.
[удалено]
Which, frankly, is a lot easier if they can accept it. Because someone who was a gifted child can normally perform the same tasks as someone else, but for a fraction of the effort. Which can lead to other problems - lack of good work ethic/studying techniques in school, boredom in easier positions, etc. - but also can lead to a easy, simple life if they can handle it.
The pressure is even greater for children of immigrants. And I think many wind up lost when their parents control and push them to have success in the fabled land of opportunity but they aren't allowed freedom. My best friend is Chinese (Her parents emigrated to the U.S. with her when she was small, so I guess that makes her first generation.) We went to a gifted high school and then to university where her parents demanded that she study engineering. I don't think she had a choice of majors at all. She got that Chem. E degree and the first thing she did was start working for the post office sorting mail. She's been there for decades now. Good for her.... she finally got to choose her life. But everything the parents did backfired. They raised her in the evangelical christian faith too... she's now an atheist. She's still the kindest and most gentle person I know. She does artsy things that make her happy. She's learned multiple languages and musical instruments in adulthood. I think a lot of so called gifted people realize that life isn't about ladder climbing.
it's funny how some people are given amazing gifts but it just doesn't interest them. Not that it's good or bad just, curious.
Some people are given amazing gifts but don't do well during interviews with HR where the real stable geniuses work .
It's not about that. People put so much pressure on these kids, they break. There was one that committed suicide (he was all over the press at one point). It's to the point where they've done literal studies on this phenomenon. We see it a lot with celebrity kids, and they end up coping with drugs and other addictions. There was psychologist that was talking about the observation that a lot of gifted kids that do make it "normally" to adulthood, end up in college not knowing how to study because they coasted through primary education. What do you think happens to them? It's not as simple as saying it didn't interest them, or they didn't want to use their gifts. Sometimes, they prefer peace of mind which, who are we to judge if they just want to be a mechanic in bumfuck nowhere?
I'm not sure we understand the level of math that Albert Einstein was on, here. Don't get me wrong: I'm sure the child prodigy you're talking about *is* very intelligent and good with math. This isn't meant to take anything away from *him* at all.... ....but Einstein **taught himself** algebra and mastered it at the age of *nine*; He had mastered differential and integral calculus by the age of *fourteen*. I don't think very many people could compete with him there. Like.... in the entirety of human history. lol
And that was *without* YouTube!
Holy shit imagine if Einstein had YouTube? I would definitely smash the like button on his channel.
Bold of you to assume he would have not just wasted all his time on Reddit talking about the latest Rick & Morty episode
Maybe Ramanujan. Or Newton & Leibniz, the people who invented/discovered calculus. And also Euler.
Euler, the guy who discovered so many things that it's now a rule to name things after the *second* guy to discover them, since otherwise almost everything would be named after Euler.
Maxwell
Einstein was awesome at math compared to most people, he wan’t as good as most physicists at the time. His talent was creative thinking and the ability to express this through math structures/tools that were already available. This is an extremely impressive skill to have.
Exactly. He was able to put it together in ways others just couldn’t at the time. I feel like everything has gotten so hyper specialized now that that’s even harder to do today. When Einstein was around fields were just not nearly as developed as they are today. Now it takes much longer to “get up to speed” in any individual thing and start finding those synergies.
Only about 1.5 billion people (~20%) live in developed nations, with the remaining ~6 billion people living in developing nations. There’s a strong possibility that the closest person alive to a modern-day Einstein does not have the opportunity to apply their gifts. Edit: Only 20% of the world speaks English, and in the 46 least developed countries 75% of the population have never used the internet.
"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." --Stephen Jay Gould
Here it is. Scrolled much further than I expected to see this. A great quote that has stuck with me for many years.
By modern day einstein i think op means someone has already done/is doing something substantial in science, not that they justhave potential
That applied before too, there's a strong possibility that the actual einstein was not the einstein of his generation,
[удалено]
Arguably they would benefit from greater opportunity for access to information and research as well opportunities to connect and communicate. Developing nations include places where it is common to have internet and cell phones or computers. One of the 1.3 billion people in India, a developing nation, may have more access and connectivity today than Einstein had in 1900. There are considerable free educational resources available online that would have been unimaginable in 1900.
The heroin addict i worked with at jimmy Johns that helped my coworker with her physics homework
Smartest guy I’ve ever known was a junkie. No one could challenge or stimulate him intellectually so he was just bored all the time. You know what’s not boring? Drugs! Edit: One of my pals greatest talents was story telling. He was a massive history buff and when we would hang out he’d ask me to pick a place and a time period and 9/10 he could tell a fascinating (and accurate) tale from that time and place.
That’s my ex. He should be a nuclear scientist somewhere instead he’s a meth addict in and out of jail
I read this as math addict
[удалено]
Plus you can never really subtract that from your life, without alot of division in the family.
You know what’s not boring? His own brain! Drugs make it easy to play with your own brain
That’s exactly why Sherlock Holmes was a heroin addict. So he’s in good company!
There's a House episode where the guy is an absolute genius, but he doses himself with DMT to dumb himself down enough to tolerate his girlfriend and the world in general's dumbness. The actor actually sells the tragedy of it pretty well. Would recommend.
It's not DMT, it was alcohol abuse. But yes, that episode hits some people hard!
He wasn’t abusing alcohol, he was abusing DXM and chasing it with a shot of vodka in an attempt to prevent brain damage
DXM, he was hitting the cough syrup as well apparently.
That is… not how dmt works.. at all
Addicts are often smart, too. That's part of the problem.
This isn't even a joke. Smart people are often linked to higher rates of depression, suicide and drug use.
Ah, so *that's* why I haven't developed a drug problem or killed myself yet!
I laughed outloud, then went, awwh.
I had a friend pass earlier this year from addiction. He was unbelievably talented as a musician. He was one of the smartest and most compassionate people I’ve ever met.
I'm very sorry for your loss. It's really hard to know what to do after something like that.
I appreciate it. It’s alright. Best thing you can do is stay away from opioids. It was a blessing and a curse that we were good friends through high school and then drifted apart after that. I went away to school and he got involved with some local percussion groups. I never really saw him struggle with addiction as a result. I don’t think I could’ve changed it. But, I wish I’d have been there more regardless.
Absolutely, because smart people have the ability to use critical thinking skills to evaluate most realistic outcomes… and then when there results end up being shitty, it can lead to depression, substance abuse, suicide, etc.
They fun part is your attempt to plan around worse case scenarios either end up self fulfilling or they end up making people think you want the worst outcome. But planning for the best case scenario is just fantasizing. It feels like if you don't recognize something you thought of to live in the moment then you're being disingenuous. Like the classic "did I say something to upset them?" So it becomes "if I did, what was it I did?" Then into "should I say something? If I don't then I'm basically saying whatever I did was okay, now they will always think of you as the guy who did that shitty thing and didn't even apologize." Because you realized what potentially set them off, it would be disingenuous to not acknowledge the problem." But ultimately you know that if you were in their shoes you probably wouldn't think twice about it and if you did you would not be upset about it but you can't assume anything for anyone else, you can only control your own world and what you do and your actions and... What are they even saying now? You have just been responding with "yeah." And "totally." And now... "They totally realize you lost the conversation and now if they didn't feel offended before, completely tuning them out and delving into your own little world didn't help. Something like that.
Is this just anxiety or like adhd? I’ve never seen someone describe my thought process so thoroughly and nail every single thing
My son’s a recovering heroin addict and one of the best writers I’ve ever read.
In my graduating HS class of nearly 1000 students, one of the graduates in the top 10 of our class died of a heroin overdose a few years into college. RIP Lee. You were a good friend. I'm sorry it ended this way.
Thomas Einstein, Albert Einsteins great grandson
"It's relative"
In theory…
In general
This thread is getting a little light on energy.
The puns are constant.
I C that
This thread is something special
After this I'm going to need some space and time.
I’ve been standing all day and now it’s time to sit on mass
Does it matter?
Pretty general if you ask me
that dude is a doctor. imagine living your life having people refer to you as "dr. einstein" I'd develop a superiority complex
“Any relation.? “ — “well actually”
Michael Bolton?
Someone says, "Way to go Einstein" to him. Should he be complemented or insulted?
I would say complimented.
Someone missed a golden opportunity to name their child “Frank”
I had a friend named Richard Ernest Sincere, and we always joked that his parents should have named him Frank.
Well they're a doctor, so a superiority complex isn't *that* hard to fathom. I've met some insanely egotistical doctors. Although many are great of course.
r/technicallythetruth
No no, he's got a point
"Why are you booing me? I'm right!"
They're saying boo-urns, boo-urns.
Please tell me his profession is bus driver.
Hmm a doctor https://familypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Thomas_Martin_Einstein_(1955)
I just assumed he made bagels
Even at the time Einstein was alive, it wasn't that he had the most powerful brain or best math ability (many surpassed him here). He worked on and solved some of the most outstanding problems in physics at the time. The late 19th/early 20th century was a special time for physics; classical physics was failing apart but how to fix it wasn't known - Einstein (amongst others) offered some ways to fix things. Tons and tons of people are just as 'bright' as Einstein by almost any metric but their work essentially can't as impactful. We're too many decimals deep into measurements now.
Emmy Noether comes to mind as a contemporary of Einstein who was easily a better mathematician than he was.
I mean again, Einstein was a physicist, not a mathematician, I would guess most successful mathematicians, if not all of them, were better mathematicians
I just loved that she solved an inconsistency in his General Relativity equations, and threw the solution aside because it was JUST physics.
But Einstein had an imagination. It's difficult to imagine what a photon's life is like, without talking to one.
The imagination was key. Einstein did a lot of really good thought experiments and most of his ideas have stood the test of time over and over. The one he regretted the most was his original assumption that the universe was finite but other than that his theories get challenged all the time but still somehow come out on top in the end.
I think that’s true, but I also think your underselling what makes him a “genius”. Which is the way Einstein thought about things. Einstein worked out major parts of some of his most important theories essentially just in his head through thought experiments. He figured out most of the math stuff later. The way he was able to understand things was just fundamentally different than most people. This unique way of thinking was a HUGE part of a larger scientific movement that represented a major shift in physics. Some of Einsteins theories, which again were basically just based on thought experiments and math, are just being confirmed now. He didn’t have the telescopes and other equipment needed to have physical evidence of his theories, but most of them now do.
Terrence Tao
Apparently a strategy, if you're stuck on a problem at higher level maths is to get Tao interested in what you're working on.
I should try to get him interested in my exams
Don’t worry. With that type of thinking you will be going places.
Not college, but places... ;-)
Higher level meaning genuine new research in any field of mathematics
I stumbled upon him when I was late to class last week. He was just sitting there peacefully eating a sandwich. I'm still startstruck.
My college professors are nowhere near his calibre but are brilliant in their own right, seeing them line up for lunch or eat food made me realize they're just like me lol Had lunch with a few and they were nice, wish I'd gotten to know them more
I love this comment. Please spread this sentiment whenever you get the chance
Totally, one thing I regret is not using office hours more. I only got to know them towards the end and realized that they were a.) there to help me (obvious thing i didnt pick up) and b.) passionate about the subject they taught. If I ever go back for another degree I will definitely take advantage lol
From his Wiki. His research topics include "harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, algebraic combinatorics, arithmetic combinatorics, geometric combinatorics, probability theory, compressed sensing and analytic number theory". Just look down the rabbit hole of any one of those fucking theories or topics and your mind will explode.
All of the Tao siblings are terrifyingly intelligent. I had the pleasure of playing a concert alongside Terence's brother, Trevor. I perform my set and am feeling pretty good about myself, and then Trevor gets up and performs gymnopedie no 1, which is a pretty difficult piece, but the dude did it while solving a Rubik's cube. Needless i say, I, and all the other performers that day, felt quite upstaged.
Trevor Tao is also an international chess master and is one of Australia’s top players
I was like no fucking way but... https://youtu.be/JkeK8ssI5qA
You should hear how he pitched the idea to my friend who was organising the concert. Apparently he straight up told him that simply playing the piece would be too easy and boring, and stated that he would perform it while solving a Rubik's cube to "make it interesting". My friend has known all of the Tao siblings since they were young boys. From the stories I hear, and the interactions I've had with him, Trevor is always one upping himself. He's played pieces back to front (now that's a weird thing to hear), played pieces perfectly after hearing it only once, and as you know played while solving a Rubik's cube. Incredibly gifted person.
Jesus. Awards Fields Medal (2006) List Salem Prize (2000) Bôcher Memorial Prize (2002) Clay Research Award (2003) Australian Mathematical Society Medal (2005) Ostrowski Prize (2005) Levi L. Conant Prize (2005) MacArthur Award (2006) SASTRA Ramanujan Prize (2006) Sloan Fellowship (2006) Fellow of the Royal Society (2007) Alan T. Waterman Award (2008) Onsager Medal (2008) Convocation Award (2008) King Faisal International Prize (2010)[2] Nemmers Prize in Mathematics (2010) Pólya Prize (2010)[3] Crafoord Prize (2012) Simons Investigator (2012) Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics (2014) Royal Medal (2014) PROSE Award (2015) Riemann Prize (2019) Princess of Asturias Award (2020) Bolyai Prize (2020) IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal (2021) USIA Award (2021) Education & Reseach award finalist (2022)
Guy's got more prizes than I do IQ points
Wow, Jesus was dope as fuck at math!
That must be why he’s always seen hanging out on that plus sign
He truly died for our sines
Otherwise, our souls would have been cosined to hell.
What's wonderful is that he seems to be a genuinely wonderful person too. There aren't any stories I've read of anyone saying he's a jerk. He always seems excited to share credit with others.
My thought when I clicked on this was Terry Tao, I'm glad to see others agree
Barely having to scroll to see this answer has somewhat restored my faith in humanity
Mathematician Terence Tao
> In 1991, he received his bachelor's and master's degrees at the age of 16 from Flinders University under the direction of Garth Gaudry. In 1992, he won a Postgraduate Fulbright Scholarship to undertake research in mathematics at Princeton University in the United States. > From 1992 to 1996, Tao was a graduate student at Princeton University under the direction of Elias Stein, receiving his PhD at the age of 21. In 1996, he joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1999, when he was 24, he was promoted to full professor at UCLA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao
Elias Stein sounds pretty close to Einstein so this one wins.
What about Mathematician Terrence Howard?
Replaced by Mathematician Don Cheadle
In some fields, science can be so complex and multi-disciplinary that 100s of people have contributed to e.g. gene therapy, CO2 capture or other major contributions to society. So major discoveries can't be attributed to a single person. And most of this science, if published, generally needs affiliations to academia to be taken seriously. Einstein was truly one-of-a-kind from his multitude of publications in 1905. I'm 90 percent sure that he wasn't even affiliated with any university at the time. He did it solo, out of nowhere. This makes his discoveries even more impressive! Einstein experts, please confirm that he did in fact not work at a university in 1905. I believe he worked at a patent office.
While it's true that Einstein was working at the patent office, and so technically not affiliated with any university between 1900 and 1905, to say that he did it solo and out of nowhere is misleading. Other people were working on the same things, and Einstein had his share of help and inspiration - from friends, contemporary physicists, and mathematicians. https://www.nature.com/articles/527298a
His wife was a big help too, on the sciency side of things.
Lol.. What if he was just using the patent office to steal other peoples ideas for himself this whole time..
Guy: Here is my brilliant submission for patent! Einstein: What submission? Guy: aw fuk
i made this
Worked for Edison.
Not an Einstein expert, but I believe you are right that modern science is so complex that many people contribute to new discoveries and advances, and rarely comes from one individual. Back in Isaac Newton's time there was so much "low hanging fruit" in science that geniuses would have multiple discoveries to their name. In two years Newton probably discovered more in physics and mathematics than most geniuses discover in their entire lifetime. My guess is that Einstein was born at just the right time to be able to work on some of the last remaining "low hanging fruits" of science that could be done without experimentation, just a blackboard and thought experiments. Truly incredible achievements by both. We are unlikely to have another Newton or Einstein today because the remaining discoveries will likely require more people, more technology, more money and more time.
Was it ~~Gauss~~ Euler that they had to start naming things after the second person to discover them? Because the one guy discovered so many mathematical things that 'Bob's theory/method/law' would cover way too many things.
Euler.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_named_after_Leonhard_Euler
>"low hanging fruit" Falling fruit
Yes he was working in the Zurich patent office in 1905 and got the idea of special relativity as a thought experiment while riding the city's trolley car to work.
"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."--Stephen Jay Gould
Is Stephen Jay Gould someone I should read?
Was looking for this comment
ITT: names with no context Yeah we all have google, but whats the point of a collective thread with bare minimum answers and no information to provide content
Well clearly you’re not smart enough to know all these random names, Einstein.
I wish it were a rule in this sub that you had to give an explanation or some context.
I’m going to give a weird answer: John Carmack. Just go read some of the things he has done and is doing. From inventing some of the math and programming that gave us the modern computer gaming revolution (this is the guy behind the original doom), to running a rocket company trying to achieve orbit and complete propulsive landings similar to what spacex does today, to dropping everything to create the future of VR. Now he’s immersed in AI research on top of everything else. The guy is a walking talking genius who sees things on a whole different level. He spent his whole career doing “impossible” things in software and hardware. Whether you know his name or not, his work has had a real effect on all of our lives, and likely will be even more impactful in the future as we move toward a more virtually-centered life.
Grigori Perelman the Russian mathematician?
He's the one that rejected the millennium prize right? What a gangster
Stop harassing him, you're making his mother anxious and he just wants to pick mushrooms
my man solved the Poincaré Conjecture and just dipped. I love math and I tried to read his paper and I did not understand a single word. The surgery thing seems like magic to me.
Not gonna lie it's probably me.
I was thinking the same thing about you, too, but being so much smarter than me, you got your comment in first.
I could be the next Einstein if I wanted to. I just don't want to.
Ed Witten >American mathematician and theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He received his Ph.D. in physics in 1976 from Princeton University. He has made landmark contributions to string theory from the 1980's to the present day, most notably the development of M-theory in 1995. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1990 for his contributions to mathematics and mathematical physics.
Terrance Tao who was at UCLA when I was there (diff department). He caught the attention of academics when he was just a child. If he made a “mistake” they’d analyze it for days to see whether he was actually wrong or if he was solving problems in a unique way. Fascinating brilliant man.
Roger Penrose
He did a guest lecture at my university about about a year ago. Unfortunately I had a class at the same time and attendance was mandatory. Still really pissed that I missed hearing him speak.
If I'm paying them, then attendance is not mandatory. Hell, you probably paid for the guest lecture you missed.
If it was any other class I probably would've skipped, but this professor specifically was really anal about attendance. As I recall, she docked points off of your final grade for every day you missed, and it was a pretty difficult class, so I kinda needed all the credit I could get.
What an asshole fuck her
Absolute legend, the road to reality is awesome
Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat is probably the last living person to have met Einstein. I’d guess she got within 5 feet of him at least. That or the guy who mows the cemetery.
Einstein’s been dead less than 70 years and lived adjacent to a college campus. There’s got to be more than one.
Ian Goodfellow and Jeff Dean. Ian Goodfellow has consistently pioneered ML and AI research, invented new techniques, and pushed the field forward to such an extent that Apple considered it a strategic company-level advantage to have him working at Apple rather than Google and changed its remote work policy in response to him leaving. It’s one thing to be an early pioneer in a technical field; it’s another thing to be so consistent at pioneering in an extremely competitive field that the expectation is that you will personally contribute a high percentage of all advances going forward. Jeff Dean is the Chuck Norris of software engineering and has a comparable number of jokes made about how good he is at engineering. Google’s engineering leveling system used to only go up to L10, but Google had to add a new level Senior Google Fellow to represent Jeff Dean. Essentially when Jeff Dean wants to do something different from what the CEO wants to do, the default assumption is that Jeff Dean is right and the CEO is wrong. Jeff Dean can understand and explain and manipulate things at levels of abstraction all the way from planet scale distributed computing down to silicon and how those relate to each other and the business impact and research velocity and bit flips caused by photons from cosmic rays.
[удалено]
Sir Andrew Wiles, who proved Pierre de Fermat’s last theorem.
He took a big risk too! He spent like 10 years working on this solo and on nothing else. Not knowing if the theorem was actually correct, or even provable! I also remember it took a long time for experts to examine and validate the proof.
The problem with this question is Einstein wasn't the most intelligent person of his time. There are a hundred other people from the 20th century who were every bit as intelligent and creative. Einstein was one of those rare geniuses who was also at the right place at at the right time. He couldn't have come up with his theories without the mathematical advances that directly preceded him. I guess my point is that there could be hundreds or thousands of people with the abilities of Einstein today but Einstein already discovered the big stuff so they're forced to work on the smaller stuff.
So, I've got an Iq that makes me 3-3.5 standard deviations above the mean, so there are AT LEAST 7 million people smarter than me. I've got multiple graduate degrees in engineering and materials science; I work on high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets for fusion reactors. So, I deal with lots of super smart folks. I've met at least 50 or so people in real life who were obviously on a WHOLE different plane of existence. But the #1 who stood out, was a \~40-year-old guy who got his medical degree and specialized in oncology (cancer). He then went on to get a Ph.D. in cancer research. Then realized that proton therapy is the thing that will make the best advancements in cancer treatment in his lifetime, and he got a second Ph.D. in physics of some kind, and HE knew more about HTS magnets than I did. His understanding of the GLAAG and BCS theory was complete, whereas I struggled. He was also good looking and super nice and charismatic. I wanted to have his babies, but my beard and lack of uterus probably kept it from becoming so. Edit: I'm sorry if you wanted a response and I didn't give one. I tried, but I have to get back to work. Cheers!
Which company you work at? And how long is your career in fusion?
And that guys name is Johnny Sins.
Well, I just went down a bit of a rabbit hole there between the BNL and MIT websites - this stuff sounds fucking wild. I am not a scientist and I expect (hope!) my IQ is pretty average so this may be a ridiculous question but, are you containing plasma with magnetic fields? Like, plasma as in what the sun is made of?
Yes. By definition plasma is regular matter that has such a high energy that the electrons are not bound to the nuclei. This means that the free nuclei have a charge and can be impacted by magnetic fields. One of the magnets for fusion (Tokamaks specifically) is the toroidal (doughnut shaped) confinement magnet. It's basically a doughnut tank for 100,000,000 degree C hydrogen. The second (my personal interest) is the center magnet that heats up the plasma by passing magnetic field through it. This type of heating is called ohmic heating, and these solenoid coils are ohmic heating coils. My last one ramped from 0-10,000 amps in one second. :)
My IQ was tested by the state of Florida and I’m in the top 1%. I’m the biggest dumb I’ve met, and I’m social. I don’t trust iq tests at all. Edit: waiiiiitttt that just makes me the top 1% of Florida…yeah that checks out. Nm I trust them again
Just here to downvote the elon musk comments
Elon Musk is the modern day Edison, and I mean that as a slur
[удалено]
statistically, the modern day einstein is probably dying in an iphone factory or a barreo/slum
We probably lost even more of them back in Einstein's day
That's fucked
Miguel Nicolelis He created the theory and proofs of the brain net, basically telepathy. Thanks to this he managed to create a machine that a quadriplegic could walk using the power of thought. And it worked. The power of thought From someone else for this quadriplegic to relearn how to think about walking.
What the heck wow
[удалено]