29 ms·

There is no way that men like Da Vinci and Newton were easy to be around, they were so beyond the norm in intelligence that they probably came off as abrasive a

by iaw 9y ago

There is no way that men like Da Vinci and Newton were easy to be around, they were so beyond the norm in intelligence that they probably came off as abrasive and severely arrogant.

gizmodo59 9y ago
While I'm not sure about Da Vinci and Newton, Einstein was always humble
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  When you read about his relationship with his wife and children he was not exactly easy or nice.
  - on_and_off 9y ago
    While I admire him and read his writings with a lot of interest, I have got to admit : it sounds like he was a complete prick to absolutely all the women in his life.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    the intimacy of family relationships are a different matter altogether
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - dogruck 9y ago
    For much of history, men's relationships with wives and children was not held to the modern loving standards. Isn't this analogous to noting that "founding fathers owned slaves!"
    - maxxxxx 9y ago
      I don't think it was ever common that a husband would write to his wife a letter clearly laying out rules like in this letter: http://www.listsofnote.com/2012/04/einsteins-demands.html http://www.listsofnote.com/2012/04/einsteins-demands.html No trying to demonize him but this definitely a little unusual.
      - dogruck 9y ago
        I think by the standards of history, that letter would be deemed kind. Keep in mind that often times wives were essentially viewed as property, and subject to extreme (physical) abuse. And of course that hasn't stopped. I'm not supporting that behavior, of course.
        red75prime 9y ago
        > you will stop talking to me if I request it; I guess I can relate to what was happening there, and I can't dismiss the possibility of (extreme) psychological abuse from the other side.
      - pizza 9y ago
        Did she not write one for him?
- indubitable 9y ago
  Outright dismissing quantum mechanics because of a personal belief in an linearly causal universe is not really what one would call humble. He's full of rather snarky quotes to express such dismissal ranging from "God does not play dice with the universe." to describing quantum entanglement as "spooky action at a distance." Interestingly, the sarcasm of the latter has been lost in modern context and the former mostly used as an false indicator of religion from Einstein. I think Einstein's perceived humility was mostly a consequence of the fact that he was mostly right on everything he said, and people quickly acknowledged as much. Relativity overtook aether theory shockingly quickly for instance. There's the old quote that science progresses one funeral at a time. The meaning there being that people tend to obstinately hold onto past beliefs, so it is frequent that it takes the passing of one generation for progress to be effectively made by another. One of his only views that was not widely accepted was that of his view of quantum mechanics - and that's where his snidery started to emerge. But in other cases having your revolutionary ideas rapidly and universally adopted is going to make it rather easier to speak softly knowing your big stick is certainly up to task. And that's probably one too many quotes for a single post...
  - n4r9 9y ago
    You're being unfair to the poor guy. It's not as if those quotations are without context and basis. It's also not as if he doesn't have a whole raft of other recorded quotations which provide evidence for his humility. Consider, for example, > A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving... The dice quote makes more sense when you consider Einstein's personal philosophy, which had led him to discover relativity and aspects of QM. He strongly believed that once you uncover nature's secrets, not only do you understand the universe more, but you see why nothing else could possibly have been the case. Quantum mechanics as it was formulated/interpreted in his time violated this principle, thus he was motivated to look for the deeper secret. We're still arguing whether there's something deeper to this day. The particular type of model Einstein was exploring may have been dismissed, but you cannot fault his motivation - all physicists need one.
EGreg 9y ago
I think Newton was, especially to women. But Da Vinci strikes me as much more cordial and eager to fit into higher society, at least in his younger years.
- mbesto 9y ago
  Out curiosity - how do you (both you and GP) come up with your conclusions without ever having met any of these people personally? It's a bit like the portrayal of Steve Jobs. Sure, I can read testimonies about how he was an asshole - but how would I know for sure?
  - EGreg 9y ago
    Just triangulation and heuristics based on accounts of them and their own letters to others. Such as http://www.businessinsider.com/leonardo-da-vinci-cover-letter-from-1400s-2014-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/leonardo-da-vinci-cover-lette... Also Leonardo was a vegetarian, and that's another data point. It's all based on correlation basically.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    You can never know for sure but with enough data points you can draw some conclusions. For example, it seems Wozniak was/is a very nice guy where Jobs was a more difficult guy to say the least.
  - benbreen 9y ago
    I’ve read some of Newton’s letters while doing research at the Royal Society archives. He definitely comes off as severely deficient in social skills just from the random sampling I looked at - I think one was complaining about his land lady offering him food. Granted, it’s impossible to know many things “for sure” in history but “Newton had a difficult personality” is a pretty good bet, based on those letters and the bios I’ve read. Another fun fact from the letters - Newton invited the con artist George Psalmanazar over for lunch at some point circa 1703. Psalmanazar claimed to be a Taiwanese prince but had long blonde hair and a faint French accent. Unclear if Newton was taken in, but Halley was able to stump him with an astronomy-based question. Sounds like something from the Baroque Cycle but it all really happened.
numismatex 9y ago
Gotta love the modern stereotypes downplaying intelligence and pretty much put most intelligent people into that box unless they have celebrity or a large amount of money, and often even then.
fao_ 9y ago
I have grown up surrounded by two people with extraordinarily high IQs, and they were normal people. They have more curiosity than normal people, and they have lots of interests that span many, many subjects, but for all intents and purposes they are normal in manner and demeanor. This fashion for conflating intelligence (of all kinds) and egotism is utterly beyond me.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- navigator01 9y ago
  Agreed. If you're really smart and a prick, well, then you're just a really smart prick. Intelligence and emotional mastery are divorced from one another.
  - erasmuse 9y ago
    Intelligence and creativity are also divorced from one another. Unlike Newton, da Vinci, Einstein, most intelligent people aren't creative in the cultural sense. Their creativity is rather directed towards fitting in more effectively and being more social than the norm. Which in extreme cases looks like multiple personality disorder, i.e. changing one's responses according to context, the opposite of integrity, including the intellectual integrity required to create new stuff.
    - fao_ 9y ago
      > most intelligent people aren't creative in the cultural sense I would beg to differ. Most of the people I know of high intelligence seem to be a jack-of-all-trades, with almost all of them having, if not a heavy love of language, a decent dollop of it. Ultimately, there is art and creativity in everything, you just need to know where to find it. The type of creativity that creates a stunning artistic composition is the same sort of creativity that creates a masterful Rube-Goldberg system, and the same sort of creativity that creates complex formulas to describe and generalize real life occurrences. Your brain knows the constraints, sub-patterns, and has an array of tools that allow it to intuitively define the form, and you go through processes to fit it.

by iaw 9y ago

There is no way that men like Da Vinci and Newton were easy to be around, they were so beyond the norm in intelligence that they probably came off as abrasive and severely arrogant.

gizmodo59 9y ago

While I'm not sure about Da Vinci and Newton, Einstein was always humble

maxxxxx 9y ago
When you read about his relationship with his wife and children he was not exactly easy or nice.
- on_and_off 9y ago
  While I admire him and read his writings with a lot of interest, I have got to admit : it sounds like he was a complete prick to absolutely all the women in his life.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  the intimacy of family relationships are a different matter altogether
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- dogruck 9y ago
  For much of history, men's relationships with wives and children was not held to the modern loving standards. Isn't this analogous to noting that "founding fathers owned slaves!"
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    I don't think it was ever common that a husband would write to his wife a letter clearly laying out rules like in this letter: http://www.listsofnote.com/2012/04/einsteins-demands.html http://www.listsofnote.com/2012/04/einsteins-demands.html No trying to demonize him but this definitely a little unusual.
    - dogruck 9y ago
      I think by the standards of history, that letter would be deemed kind. Keep in mind that often times wives were essentially viewed as property, and subject to extreme (physical) abuse. And of course that hasn't stopped. I'm not supporting that behavior, of course.
      - red75prime 9y ago
        > you will stop talking to me if I request it; I guess I can relate to what was happening there, and I can't dismiss the possibility of (extreme) psychological abuse from the other side.
    - pizza 9y ago
      Did she not write one for him?
indubitable 9y ago
Outright dismissing quantum mechanics because of a personal belief in an linearly causal universe is not really what one would call humble. He's full of rather snarky quotes to express such dismissal ranging from "God does not play dice with the universe." to describing quantum entanglement as "spooky action at a distance." Interestingly, the sarcasm of the latter has been lost in modern context and the former mostly used as an false indicator of religion from Einstein. I think Einstein's perceived humility was mostly a consequence of the fact that he was mostly right on everything he said, and people quickly acknowledged as much. Relativity overtook aether theory shockingly quickly for instance. There's the old quote that science progresses one funeral at a time. The meaning there being that people tend to obstinately hold onto past beliefs, so it is frequent that it takes the passing of one generation for progress to be effectively made by another. One of his only views that was not widely accepted was that of his view of quantum mechanics - and that's where his snidery started to emerge. But in other cases having your revolutionary ideas rapidly and universally adopted is going to make it rather easier to speak softly knowing your big stick is certainly up to task. And that's probably one too many quotes for a single post...
- n4r9 9y ago
  You're being unfair to the poor guy. It's not as if those quotations are without context and basis. It's also not as if he doesn't have a whole raft of other recorded quotations which provide evidence for his humility. Consider, for example, > A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving... The dice quote makes more sense when you consider Einstein's personal philosophy, which had led him to discover relativity and aspects of QM. He strongly believed that once you uncover nature's secrets, not only do you understand the universe more, but you see why nothing else could possibly have been the case. Quantum mechanics as it was formulated/interpreted in his time violated this principle, thus he was motivated to look for the deeper secret. We're still arguing whether there's something deeper to this day. The particular type of model Einstein was exploring may have been dismissed, but you cannot fault his motivation - all physicists need one.

EGreg 9y ago

I think Newton was, especially to women. But Da Vinci strikes me as much more cordial and eager to fit into higher society, at least in his younger years.

mbesto 9y ago
Out curiosity - how do you (both you and GP) come up with your conclusions without ever having met any of these people personally? It's a bit like the portrayal of Steve Jobs. Sure, I can read testimonies about how he was an asshole - but how would I know for sure?
- EGreg 9y ago
  Just triangulation and heuristics based on accounts of them and their own letters to others. Such as http://www.businessinsider.com/leonardo-da-vinci-cover-letter-from-1400s-2014-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/leonardo-da-vinci-cover-lette... Also Leonardo was a vegetarian, and that's another data point. It's all based on correlation basically.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  You can never know for sure but with enough data points you can draw some conclusions. For example, it seems Wozniak was/is a very nice guy where Jobs was a more difficult guy to say the least.
- benbreen 9y ago
  I’ve read some of Newton’s letters while doing research at the Royal Society archives. He definitely comes off as severely deficient in social skills just from the random sampling I looked at - I think one was complaining about his land lady offering him food. Granted, it’s impossible to know many things “for sure” in history but “Newton had a difficult personality” is a pretty good bet, based on those letters and the bios I’ve read. Another fun fact from the letters - Newton invited the con artist George Psalmanazar over for lunch at some point circa 1703. Psalmanazar claimed to be a Taiwanese prince but had long blonde hair and a faint French accent. Unclear if Newton was taken in, but Halley was able to stump him with an astronomy-based question. Sounds like something from the Baroque Cycle but it all really happened.

numismatex 9y ago

Gotta love the modern stereotypes downplaying intelligence and pretty much put most intelligent people into that box unless they have celebrity or a large amount of money, and often even then.

fao_ 9y ago

I have grown up surrounded by two people with extraordinarily high IQs, and they were normal people. They have more curiosity than normal people, and they have lots of interests that span many, many subjects, but for all intents and purposes they are normal in manner and demeanor. This fashion for conflating intelligence (of all kinds) and egotism is utterly beyond me.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
navigator01 9y ago
Agreed. If you're really smart and a prick, well, then you're just a really smart prick. Intelligence and emotional mastery are divorced from one another.
- erasmuse 9y ago
  Intelligence and creativity are also divorced from one another. Unlike Newton, da Vinci, Einstein, most intelligent people aren't creative in the cultural sense. Their creativity is rather directed towards fitting in more effectively and being more social than the norm. Which in extreme cases looks like multiple personality disorder, i.e. changing one's responses according to context, the opposite of integrity, including the intellectual integrity required to create new stuff.
  - fao_ 9y ago
    > most intelligent people aren't creative in the cultural sense I would beg to differ. Most of the people I know of high intelligence seem to be a jack-of-all-trades, with almost all of them having, if not a heavy love of language, a decent dollop of it. Ultimately, there is art and creativity in everything, you just need to know where to find it. The type of creativity that creates a stunning artistic composition is the same sort of creativity that creates a masterful Rube-Goldberg system, and the same sort of creativity that creates complex formulas to describe and generalize real life occurrences. Your brain knows the constraints, sub-patterns, and has an array of tools that allow it to intuitively define the form, and you go through processes to fit it.