William James Sidis's mother, Sarah (Mandelbaum) Sidis, was a medical doctor who graduated from Boston University School of Medicine in 1897. Sarah and her family immigrated to the United States. in the late 1880s, escaping the pogroms in Russia. Sarah married psychiatrist and psychologist Boris Sidis in 1894.
Sounds like she lead a pretty interesting life as well.
I think the closest thing back then was a fax, which could transmit monochromatic documents. Halftone (grayscale) fax was invented by Arthur Korn in 1902, enabling newspapers to send/receive photographs via telephone. That used mechanical parts, electronic ADCs were developed in the 1920s.
As for the newest word in the acronym: The word bit only appeared in 1946, the word bite (machine word) probably shortly after, spelled with a Y since 1956.
He was a socialist and was arrested during a May day protest. He was tried and convicted of sedition. The media attention and the fact that America was in the middle of the Red Scare made sure that he didn't get a fair trial. His parents made a deal to have him serve the sentence suspended and also be confined to a sanatorium for a year. This really changed his world view and he became very distrustful of media attention and central authority. Before these events he wasn't really bothered by the attention and he liked having public intellectual discourse.
Ah so he didn't just decide he didn't like public attention, he went to a socialist rally and went to prison for sedition as a result, THEN realised maybe he was better off out of the public eye, where his politics was less likely to kill him...
He was smart but emotionally he was a kid. He was prodigiously intelligent for his age but emotionally he was developing at the normal pace for a kid. He was an 11 years old kid surrounded by 18 year olds and older. The university faculty even pushed back against him being admitted so young but his father pushed for it until they admitted him.
Ah, that sucks to hear. I'm absolutely with the university on this. Not because he doesn't deserve a mental challenge, but because he deserves to be a silly kid.
I was basically shoved through graduation by the time I was 15. I had teachers and administators trying to graduate me when I was 13. I refused. I'm glad I did now. My reaction was that I wasn't ready to be responsible for bills and food. I should have been far more worried about dealing with other people. I can tell you first hand that 18-23 year olds don't appreciate having someone several years younger than them in their classes.
No reliable record exists of Sidis ever taking a standardized IQ test. The frequently cited claim that he scored between 250–300 on an IQ test stems from a single, uncorroborated account by psychologist Abraham Sperling in his 1946 (2 years after Sidis' death) book Psychology for the Millions.
The concept of IQ as measured by modern tests did not exist during Sidis's childhood
i mean, iq is a normal distribution. it caps at 200. 160 represents the 99.996th percentile, and above that the error bars are so large that the result is uneless.
It's not capped, really. But the claimed 250 IQ would be 10 standard deviations from the mean, so he'd be the most intelligent person in a population of ~10^24^ people.
~10^11^ humans have ever lived on earth.
No, but without people to compare against, there is a limit to how high the scale can stay accurate. This is different from it actually having a cap, though.
they usually cap at 150. but yeah it's not a hard cap, it's an asymptotic curve. statistically the chance of getting 201 or higher is the same as getting -1 or lower.
I was going to mention the same thing. Even the "smartest man alive" would be in those useless upper bounds.
To explain that upper bounds issue to others, imagine being the top score on a leaderboard. Some of that's going to be random chance and other factors, even if most of the time you score in the top 1% of scores consistently.
Also obsessed with tranfer tickets, would chase them down in the street, wrote a whole book about collecting them and would bore the fuck out of anyone who would listen about them.
i am in no way “smart” and all that but i have subjects i love to learn about. mostly philosophy and “thought about thought.”
one of the things that depresses me is how I kind of wish to be stranded on an island with unlimited free time to read and think. like if i were to die and end up in some sort of afterlife, i would miss most the lost time i had to simply learn stuff.
52 Comments
drolex@sopuli.xyz · 280 pts · 70d
That guy's name?
33 KB JPG
Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works · 72 pts · 70d
His mother wasn't creative
Penguin_1024@piefed.zip · 54 pts · 70d
He was born in 1898. The idea of digitizing information didn't really exist, much less the jpeg standard. I'say his mother was very creative.
velma@sh.itjust.works · 20 pts · 70d
Sounds like she lead a pretty interesting life as well.
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org · 8 pts · 70d
I think the closest thing back then was a fax, which could transmit monochromatic documents. Halftone (grayscale) fax was invented by Arthur Korn in 1902, enabling newspapers to send/receive photographs via telephone. That used mechanical parts, electronic ADCs were developed in the 1920s.
As for the newest word in the acronym: The word bit only appeared in 1946, the word bite (machine word) probably shortly after, spelled with a Y since 1956.
DickFiasco@sh.itjust.works · 35 pts · 70d
He's Bobby Tables' great uncle.
Kirp123@lemmy.world · 244 pts · 70d
He was a socialist and was arrested during a May day protest. He was tried and convicted of sedition. The media attention and the fact that America was in the middle of the Red Scare made sure that he didn't get a fair trial. His parents made a deal to have him serve the sentence suspended and also be confined to a sanatorium for a year. This really changed his world view and he became very distrustful of media attention and central authority. Before these events he wasn't really bothered by the attention and he liked having public intellectual discourse.
SupraMario@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 70d
Answered my own question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org · 29 pts · 70d
Smartest guy is socialist. Government happens and he becomes an anarchist. Ergo I am a very smart boy cause I skipped step 1 and 2.
Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 67d
I'm not seeing "anarchist" anywhere
MintyFresh@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 51d
Probably not smart enough...
AzuraTheSpellkissed@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 104 pts · 70d
FYI William James Sidis (Wikipedia)
entheo_a1@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 133 pts · 70d
Ah so he didn't just decide he didn't like public attention, he went to a socialist rally and went to prison for sedition as a result, THEN realised maybe he was better off out of the public eye, where his politics was less likely to kill him...
FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 37 pts · 70d
Also I’d bet going through college at such a young age wasn’t exactly conducive to decent mental health.
Dude was probably burned the fuck out at a very young age.
Kirp123@lemmy.world · 32 pts · 70d
He was smart but emotionally he was a kid. He was prodigiously intelligent for his age but emotionally he was developing at the normal pace for a kid. He was an 11 years old kid surrounded by 18 year olds and older. The university faculty even pushed back against him being admitted so young but his father pushed for it until they admitted him.
LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works · 16 pts · 70d
Ah, that sucks to hear. I'm absolutely with the university on this. Not because he doesn't deserve a mental challenge, but because he deserves to be a silly kid.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 70d
I was basically shoved through graduation by the time I was 15. I had teachers and administators trying to graduate me when I was 13. I refused. I'm glad I did now. My reaction was that I wasn't ready to be responsible for bills and food. I should have been far more worried about dealing with other people. I can tell you first hand that 18-23 year olds don't appreciate having someone several years younger than them in their classes.
mech@feddit.org · 94 pts · 70d
Wikipedia
lime@feddit.nu · 45 pts · 70d
i mean, iq is a normal distribution. it caps at 200. 160 represents the 99.996th percentile, and above that the error bars are so large that the result is uneless.
mech@feddit.org · 54 pts · 70d
It's not capped, really. But the claimed 250 IQ would be 10 standard deviations from the mean, so he'd be the most intelligent person in a population of ~10^24^ people.
~10^11^ humans have ever lived on earth.
bampop@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 70d
The most likely explanation is that he was from outer space
Poem_for_your_sprog@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 70d
Smells like von neumann
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 70d
It's capped in practical terms by the highest score a test can be given. Unless getting a perfect just means you have another harder round.
bort@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 70d
so what you are saying is that it has a cap, which is based on the number of people he is compared against?
Feathercrown@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 70d
No, but without people to compare against, there is a limit to how high the scale can stay accurate. This is different from it actually having a cap, though.
naught101@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 70d
After 30 years on the internet, this might be the absolute nerdiest conversation I have ever seen. I'm impressed.
Feathercrown@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 70d
I'm honored
Telemachus93@slrpnk.net · 13 pts · 70d
Strictly speaking, a normal distribution doesn't cap, neither at 0 nor at 200. Maybe the scores achievable by standardized tests do, of course.
lime@feddit.nu · 9 pts · 70d
they usually cap at 150. but yeah it's not a hard cap, it's an asymptotic curve. statistically the chance of getting 201 or higher is the same as getting -1 or lower.
NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 70d
That’s just how clever he was, silly.
taiyang@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 70d
I was going to mention the same thing. Even the "smartest man alive" would be in those useless upper bounds.
To explain that upper bounds issue to others, imagine being the top score on a leaderboard. Some of that's going to be random chance and other factors, even if most of the time you score in the top 1% of scores consistently.
IratePirate@feddit.org · 8 pts · 70d
Yuppp, this smelled like bullshit from miles away. Thanks for corroborating!
Summzashi@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 70d
IQ is pseudo science nonsense anyway.
MutantTailThing@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 70d
Show me a guy who just jacks off at home all day and I’ll show you a guy who’s not causing any trouble.
bampop@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 70d
Depends on whose home it is
GraniteM@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 70d
Diogenes has entered the chat
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 70d
Diogenes refused to stay at home.
zedgeist@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 70d
Home is where the hog is
idiomaddict@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 70d
Very dependent on what they’re jacking off to, unfortunately.
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 4 pts · 70d
Yo.
GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 70d
Your Carlin gets a Carlin:
Show me a tropical fruit, and I'll show you a cock sucker from Guatemala.
petersr@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 70d
Sounds like those guys could be friends.
agent_nycto@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 70d
Also obsessed with tranfer tickets, would chase them down in the street, wrote a whole book about collecting them and would bore the fuck out of anyone who would listen about them.
Stern@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 70d
"Autism didn't exist when I was a kid"
Them as a kid
ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 70d
"Ambition" is often just a "bell curve meme" situation, lol.
IDew@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 70d
He understood that money and fame don't really make you happy
rumba@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 70d
While true, a severe lack of money can really make you unhappy.
flandish@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 70d
i am in no way “smart” and all that but i have subjects i love to learn about. mostly philosophy and “thought about thought.”
one of the things that depresses me is how I kind of wish to be stranded on an island with unlimited free time to read and think. like if i were to die and end up in some sort of afterlife, i would miss most the lost time i had to simply learn stuff.
sometimes that spirals me. sigh.
Tja@programming.dev · 2 pts · 70d
Why do you need an island for that? You can read and think wherever you are.
flandish@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 70d
i know. it’s a me problem. for sure.
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org · 6 pts · 70d
William James Sidis
Fancy_Gecko@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 70d