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I read two Einstein's biographies and I have come to the conclusion that if he was born today he would probably be a college drop out. Some people say that geni

I read two Einstein's biographies and I have come to the conclusion that if he was born today he would probably be a college drop out. Some people say that geniuses always survives life hardships, but the fact that there are no new Einsteins (or Maxwells, Plancks...) seems to show this isn't true.

ceejayoz 13y ago
> Some people say that geniuses always survives life hardships, but the fact that there are no new Einsteins (or Maxwells, Plancks...) seems to show this isn't true. No new Einsteins, Maxwells, and Plancks? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Physics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Phys...
- fianchetto 13y ago
  A Nobel doth not a genius make.
  - samweinberg 13y ago
    But a Nobel is granted to a genius already made.
    - fianchetto 13y ago
      Not necessarily. Robert Lucas, for instance.
- gdsimoes 13y ago
  Every year someone will win the Nobel prize and that doesn't mean they are great like most of the early winners. And I'm not the only one who thinks like that. I remember Freeman Dyson saying something like that in article.
illuminate 13y ago
"I have come to the conclusion that if he was born today he would probably be a college drop out." And without mentors, his gift to the world then might have been squandered.
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
There was a Feynman, but not much since then.
saraid216 13y ago
Yeah. I've never heard of Feynman or Hawking or anyone either.
- eevilspock 13y ago
  I'm pretty sure both of them are anti-authoritarian.
thisrod 13y ago
Einstein was lucky as well as smart. He was a curious kid while the cracks in the foundations that Newton laid were growing too wide to ignore; he graduated just as the whole structure collapsed. The things he and his contemporaries built in its place still stand, and they didn't leave room to build beside them. By mid century, not even Einstein could do what Einstein did.
coolj 13y ago
Look at how fast and wide the field of physics has grown in the past 70 years. The proliferation of new theories, discoveries, inventions, and solutions, across such vast practical and theoretical disciplines in physics, almost makes me think the "Einsteins" of our generation are not individuals, but groups of people working together. With the ability to share data quickly and effectively, we have become able to have multiple persons working on the same problems at the same time, which has allowed us to accomplish some unbelievable things. We've built particle detectors to observe elementary particles that are fundamental to the Standard Model. We've discovered carbon nanotubes and graphene. We've potentially discovered dark matter. We have our geniuses too, and some are famous (e.g., Hawking), but maybe they are not as famous as their predecessors because their contributions seem to blend with the overall march of science and our expectation of radical advance (jetpacks and all)?

ceejayoz 13y ago

> Some people say that geniuses always survives life hardships, but the fact that there are no new Einsteins (or Maxwells, Plancks...) seems to show this isn't true. No new Einsteins, Maxwells, and Plancks? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Physics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Phys...

fianchetto 13y ago
A Nobel doth not a genius make.
- samweinberg 13y ago
  But a Nobel is granted to a genius already made.
  - fianchetto 13y ago
    Not necessarily. Robert Lucas, for instance.
gdsimoes 13y ago
Every year someone will win the Nobel prize and that doesn't mean they are great like most of the early winners. And I'm not the only one who thinks like that. I remember Freeman Dyson saying something like that in article.

illuminate 13y ago

"I have come to the conclusion that if he was born today he would probably be a college drop out." And without mentors, his gift to the world then might have been squandered.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago

There was a Feynman, but not much since then.

saraid216 13y ago

Yeah. I've never heard of Feynman or Hawking or anyone either.

eevilspock 13y ago
I'm pretty sure both of them are anti-authoritarian.

thisrod 13y ago

Einstein was lucky as well as smart. He was a curious kid while the cracks in the foundations that Newton laid were growing too wide to ignore; he graduated just as the whole structure collapsed. The things he and his contemporaries built in its place still stand, and they didn't leave room to build beside them. By mid century, not even Einstein could do what Einstein did.

coolj 13y ago

Look at how fast and wide the field of physics has grown in the past 70 years. The proliferation of new theories, discoveries, inventions, and solutions, across such vast practical and theoretical disciplines in physics, almost makes me think the "Einsteins" of our generation are not individuals, but groups of people working together. With the ability to share data quickly and effectively, we have become able to have multiple persons working on the same problems at the same time, which has allowed us to accomplish some unbelievable things. We've built particle detectors to observe elementary particles that are fundamental to the Standard Model. We've discovered carbon nanotubes and graphene. We've potentially discovered dark matter. We have our geniuses too, and some are famous (e.g., Hawking), but maybe they are not as famous as their predecessors because their contributions seem to blend with the overall march of science and our expectation of radical advance (jetpacks and all)?