The World's Smartest Person

[insurgent]

Oh my, oh my...

Here is a partial list of William James Sidis' extraordinary capabilities and accomplishments:

Given IQ is a purely anthropocentric means of assessing intelligence, Sidis' IQ is crudely estimated at 250-300.
Infant Billy listened to Greek myths read to him by Sarah as bedtime stories.
Started feeding himself with a spoon at eight months (after two months of trial and error).
Cajoled by Boris, Billy learned to pronounce alphabetic syllables from blocks hanging in his crib.
At six months, Billy said, "Door." A couple months later he told Mom he liked things, doors and people, that move.
At seven months he pointed to Earth's moon and called it, "moon." He wanted a 'moon' of his own.
Mastered higher mathematics and planetary revolutions by age 11.
Learned to spell efficiently by one year old.
Started reading The New York Times at 18 months.
Started typing at three. Used his high chair to reach a typewriter. First composed letter was an order for toys from Macy's.
Read Caesar's Gallic Wars, in Latin (self-taught), as a birthday present to his Father in Billy's fourth year.
Learned Greek alphabet and read Homer in Greek in his fourth year.
Learned Aristotelian logic in his sixth year.
At six, Billy learned Russian, French, German, and Hebrew, and soon after, Turkish and Armenian.
Calculated mentally a day any date in history would fall at age six. Absolutely fascinated by calendars.
Learned Gray's Anatomy at six. Could pass a student medical examination.
Billy started grammar school at six, in 3 days 3rd grade, graduated grammar school in 7 months.
At age 8, Billy surpassed his father (a genius) in mathematics.
Corrected E. V. Huntington's mathematics text galleys at age of eight.
Total recall of everything he read.
Wrote four books between ages of four and eight. Two on anatomy and astronomy, lost.
Passed Harvard Medical School anatomy exam at age seven.
Passed MIT entrance exam at age eight.
Intellect surpassed best secondary school teachers.
At age 10, in one evening, corrected Harvard logic professor Josiah Royce's book manuscript: citing, "wrong paragraphs."
Attempted to enroll in Harvard at nine.
In 1909, became youngest student to ever enroll at Harvard at age 11.
In 1910, at age 11, lectured Harvard Mathematical Club on 'Four-Dimensional Bodies.'
Billy graduated from Harvard, cum laude, on June 24, 1914, at age 16.
Billy entered Harvard Law School in 1916.
Billy could learn a whole language in one day!
Billy knew all the languages (approximately 200) of the world, and could translate among them instantly!

Here is a partial list of William James Sidis' idiosyncratic and acultural behaviors:

Utter disregard of sports and physical activities — learned from his father.
Utter disregard of things monetary — learned from his father.
Utter disregard for academia, academicians, academic bureaucracy and their 'titles.'
Collected street car transfers. Knew most details of most routes in USA.
Rabid atheist by age six. (His father, Boris, was too, but intensely studied great religious works.)
His only fear was dogs.
Learned to hate mathematics in grammar school; later at 7.5 years he started a life long love of math.
Avid interest in politics.
Dressed in Russian peasant clothes as a minor.
On hearing a Bible read aloud, declared he didn't believe in that and didn't want to hear it.
In school, only worked problems to which he didn't know answers.
After 3 months in high school, parents withdrew him; teachers were relieved.
Thinking was his chosen refuge from media antagonists.
Essence of Billy Sidis: On page 106, of The Prodigy, Amy Wallace quotes Billy on his view of the perfect life, "I want to live the perfect life. The only way to live the perfect life is to live it in seclusion. I have always hated crowds." These sentences, in your reviewer's opinion, are an excellent micro-biography of mankind's finest known intellect.
Celibate: Vowed never to marry. (One of his 154 rules for life.) "Women do not appeal to me." See Pirsig's comments on this below — Pirsig on Sidis' celibacy
Considered traditional classrooms, 'stifling.'
Billy was a pacifist, anti-war, conscientious objector. (See our research link at top of page.)
He was a reformed communist/socialist — eventually found both intellectually disgusting.
Paradoxes were his logical specialty.

Here is a partial list of William James Sidis' friends and relatives:

Father: Boris Sidis, born 1867, Berdichev, Russian Ukraine; genius, political activist, prolific author, victim/prisoner of Russian pogroms
Mother: Sarah Mandelbaum, born 2Oct1874, Stara Constantine, Ukraine; near-genius, industrious, omni-capable
Sister: Helena, born February 12, 1910
Nephew: William Fadiman, successful film producer and novelist.
Nephew: Clifton Fadiman, well-known author and celebrity.
Nephew: Jack Goldwyn, two years younger pal of Billy's, 2nd 'son' of Boris, frequent visitor to Portsmouth.
Nephew: Joe Mandell,
Nephew: Dr. Elliot Sagall whose early education Sarah Sidis obnoxiously attempted to influence.
Godfather: William James, famous philosopher of pragmatism
Friend: Teddy Roosevelt, then governor of New York
Friend: Josiah Royce, Boris' philosophy professor at Harvard
Friends: Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Strauss, owners of Macy's
Friends: Mr. and Mrs. H. Addington Bruce, once Bruce gave Billy a quarter for a treat — later Billy threw it away
Friend: James Gordon Bennett, Herald Tribune publisher, helped endow Boris a hospital
Friend: Dr. E. V. Huntington, Harvard mathematics professor.
Friend: George W. Evans, retired Harvard professor, pleaded Billy's case in Harvard Graduate Magazine.
Friend: Norbert Wiener, genius, fellow prodigy.
Friend: Dr. Herbert T. Kalmus, inventor of a Technicolor process, patient of Boris.

http://www.quantonics.com/The_Prodigy_Review.html

 

[CivCube]

What did he do with those gifts?

 

[Mise]

Yeah, well, he's dead now...
Me 1 - Billy 0

 

[insurgent]

What did he do with those gifts?

Don't know http://www.sidis.net/ - not much, apparently.

 

[betazed]

Interesting....

But is this story true?

I ask because I arbitrarily opened up a chapter from his writings and found this.

According to our theory of the reversibility of the universe, the second law of thermodynamics represents one of two opposite tendencies found in the universe in equal proportions. These tendencies we have named the positive and the negative tendency. The positive tendency is that which follows the second law of thermodynamics, while the negative tendency reverses it. The phenomena of the two tendencies correspond to each other to the smallest detail, each being the reverse of the other with respect to the time-element. Thus, a moving picture of the negative phenomena could be obtained by taking a moving picture of ordinary, that is, positive, phenomena, and running the reel backwards when the reel is being projected onto the screen.

The ordinary physical bodies obey the second law of thermodynamics, that is, they belong to the positive tendency; while living bodies, on the contrary, follow the negative tendency, and therefore reverse the second law of thermodynamics.

emphasis mine. source http://www.sidis.net/ANIM17.htm

That is obviously incorrect. A prodigy who did not know/understand the second law which was well established in his time? hmmmm....

 

[col]

Understanding physics is beyond the grasp of mere prodigy. He entered Law school. QED.

 

[Daniel Khan]

He eventually went insane because his father's methods of making him a supergenius left out several things necessary for child development. Playing, love, etc.

 

[betazed]

Understanding physics is beyond the grasp of mere prodigy. He entered Law school. QED.

True. To understand physics you need to be a special kind of lunatic. Simply being smart/genius is not enough.

But seriously....

IMHO, it seems this person had a prodigious memory, much like a computer. Never forgot anything he read so he learnt languages etc. easily. But remembering is different from understanding and insight. Two things extremely hard to test for in any standard IQ test.

 

[El Sop]

Interesting....

But is this story true?

I ask because I arbitrarily opened up a chapter from his writings and found this.



emphasis mine. source http://www.sidis.net/ANIM17.htm

That is obviously incorrect. A prodigy who did not know/understand the second law which was well established in his time? hmmmm....

I don't think that you can draw that conclusion from jumping into chapter 17 and take a quote like that. I haven't read it all either, but what I make from it reading the first few chapters is, that he understands the 2nd law well, starts philosophise with reversing time, mix in psychology and then arrive to whatever conclusions. Maybe something for a rainy sunday afternoon .

 

[CruddyLeper]

Billy could learn a whole language in one day!

Which suggests that somebody else could teach a language per day...

...no, sorry. Don't believe that one. Reading and writing, perhaps. But speech and correct pronounciation take time.

 

[betazed]

I don't think that you can draw that conclusion from jumping into chapter 17 and take a quote like that. I haven't read it all either, but what I make from it reading the first few chapters is, that he understands the 2nd law well, starts philosophise with reversing time, mix in psychology and then arrive to whatever conclusions. Maybe something for a rainy sunday afternoon .

Of course, I have not read all the chapters, but I am pretty sure that he does not understand the 2nd law. Because he repeatedly mentions that life "reverses" 2nd law. I quote again from another chaper

Life is a reversal of the second law of thermodynamics. Or, to put it in other terms, since we have seen that mechanical efficiency under positive tendency is less than 100%, under neutral tendency just 100%, and under the negative tendency more than 100%, we may define: Life consists of bodies with a mechanical efficiency of over 100%.

source : http://www.sidis.net/ANIM7.htm

Now, I am not sure exactly what he means by reversal but the above statement is entirely incorrect. Life is not even close to 100% efficient in thermodynamic terms and does not even reach close to the theoritical maximum efficiency of a system that is extracting work from heat/energy transfer { 1 - t1/t2 if you know what I mean }.

I do not see how one can understand the 2nd law and make the above statements.

 

[Plotinus]

He sounds a damnably annoying character. But even I know that living things don't transgress any laws of thermodynamics.

 

[Mise]

Which suggests that somebody else could teach a language per day...

...no, sorry. Don't believe that one. Reading and writing, perhaps. But speech and correct pronounciation take time.

Most languages derived from a similar origin are syntatically similar. It wouldn't surprise me if Billy somehow learned the basic template for all languages of similar origin and then populated his brain with vocabulary.

 

[El Sop]

I do not see how one can understand the 2nd law and make the above statements.

I regret to inform you that this probably implies your IQ is not up to the 250-300 mark . Seriously, I can't follow it all either, but I do think that it deserves closer reading, before we can draw any conclusions.

 

[thestonesfan]

I thought this thread was going to about the guy whose won about 350 consecutive times on Jeopardy.

 

[BassDude726]

Interesting anecdote here...

When I was very young, no more than 6 or 7, I knew a kid who was literally a supergenius, his IQ was estimated at over 200. He was doing programming for Microsoft at age 10 (keep in mind this was in the late 80s). I remember very distinctly that he was screwed up in later life, mostly his teen years, because his parents pushed him so hard when he was younger. He never had a real childhood and that's what messed him up. That's probably why this guy turned out insane.

 

[Syterion]

I thought this thread was going to about the guy whose won about 350 consecutive times on Jeopardy.

Now that's an accomplishment!

BTW, let's start bidding for when Perfection sees this thread and is surprised when it isn't about him.

 

[North King]

I am fairly certain he did not learn all the languages of the world, given that there are about 3,000.

 

[Little Raven]

It's not at all clear if Sidis was in fact a super-genius, or merely a gifted child twisted by a bizarre experiment in child-raising conducted by his parents. I mean, for all his gifts, the guy accomplished virtually nothing. There's a reason nobody reads about him...he didn't do anything. Feynman cracked open quantumelectrodynamics. Hawkings changed the way we think about space-time. Gauss mapped out new fields of mathematics. Sidis? Memorized train schedules.

 

[Mise]

I am fairly certain he did not learn all the languages of the world, given that there are about 3,000.

"Over 200" apparently. But I'm sure he is capable of learning 3,000 if he wanted to.