3 ms·

The vast majority of academics fail to achieve immortality through their publications though.

• deleted 5y ago
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• PaulHoule 5y ago
  It could be arguable that he did. He certainly did not become a household name like Stephen Hawking, Charlie Chaplin, etc. On the other hand before he died (unfortunately quite young) a group of his students and collaborators assembled for a festschrift conference and he told us that he felt he'd been successful. It's his motivation so he gets to decide. In my estimation most of the other professors in his department were similarly successful.
  • onecommentman 5y ago
    To be precise, the previous comment was about whether he achieved “immortality”, not a personal sense of satisfaction in his contributions. It is gratifying to know he achieved the deep peace of believing he had been “successful”, and by that I assume you mean he achieved the important personal objectives he had set for himself. In the formal sense, no one’s personal contributions ever confer immortality (heat death of the universe) and, paradoxically (as is true for all great truths), everyone’s contributions always confer immortality (albeit anonymously). Depending on how you looks at it. The way I look at it, it’s a silly metric the monkey mind makes up to distract the actual immortal soul from experiencing a full life.