Greatest genius in history

[Ecthy]

Neumann also developed the game theory. International relations

[duke o' york]

Pele.
Show me Newton or Da Vinci playing one-twos off the legs of opposing defenders.

[mitch]

Originally posted by Gangerolf
gengis khan and alexander the great. guys like that must have been pretty smart too.

My history professor used to always say Napoleon's IQ would be off the charts today. I would have to say he probably was one of the smartest people alive during his time.

[RGBVideo]

Turing was a genius

[Dr Strangelove]

Many of Napoleon's military innovations existed before him, he just brought them together.

The same can be said of many of Leonardo da Vinci's designs.

[Sava]

I have no idea. I've never met any of these people.

[Krill]

Grog

What a genius to camp out on that mountain for so long...

[mitch]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Many of Napoleon's military innovations existed before him, he just brought them together.

The same can be said of many of Leonardo da Vinci's designs.

Da Vinci had designs for tanks, airplanes, helicopters, robots, submarines, scuba gear, machine guns, cluster bombs, etc etc etc. The list goes on. And his designs are just a part of what he accomplished during his lifetime. His work in anatomy alone would have made the guy famous. But then he went on and even started having significant achievements in civil engineering.

And then there's the da Vinci the artist. Its really hard to put anyone above this guy.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by mitch


Da Vinci had designs for tanks, airplanes, helicopters, robots, submarines, scuba gear, machine guns, cluster bombs, etc etc etc. The list goes on. And his designs are just a part of what he accomplished during his lifetime. His work in anatomy alone would have made the guy famous. But then he went on and even started having significant achievements in civil engineering.

And then there's the da Vinci the artist. Its really hard to put anyone above this guy.

Nah, Da Vinci doesn't count since he obviously is a time traveller that couldn't return

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by mitch


Da Vinci had designs for tanks, airplanes, helicopters, robots, submarines, scuba gear, machine guns, cluster bombs, etc etc etc.

Yes, those are the ones I'm talking about. Many of them either already existed or had no chance of being useful.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Asher

Aristotle was important but pales in comparison to other people mentioned in this thread.

We're not talking about most important to your pansy field, but the smartest. Someone who is wrong half the time isn't a genius, he's a perfect example of the Philosopher's shotgun theory of intellectuality...with enough pellets one of them is bound to hit.

Aristotle was as much a biologist and political scientist as he was a philosopher. Just because a person's idea is proven wrong doesn't mean that person is not smart. Oh, and I find it funny that a CompSci person is bashing the man who pretty much invented formal logic.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Odin
Aristotle was as much a biologist and political scientist as he was a philosopher. Just because a person's idea is proven wrong doesn't mean that person is not smart.

He's smart, but he's not the greatest genius ever considering how often he was wrong.

Oh, and I find it funny that a CompSci person is bashing the man who pretty much invented formal logic.

WTF? Artistotle did not "pretty much invent" formal logic -- not even close.

Aristotelian logic != Formal logic...

IIRC China and India both played with the concepts of logic and reasoning before Aristotle, and Descartes and/or Leibniz are generally considered the fathers of formal logic.

Further still, Artistotle's logic and reasoning studies were largely dismissed 200 years ago.

And logic as a whole was not useful to computer science until George Boole.

[Agathon]

Aristotle invented the major scientific fields. They have Greek names because of him. He also invented literary criticism and political science. He's easily in anyone's top three of world philosophers. Add to that his pioneering work on logic.

He is simply the most versatile and intellectually brilliant person ever to have lived. Nobody can match his power with abstract ideas.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Aristotle invented the major scientific fields. They have Greek names because of him. He also invented literary criticism and political science. He's easily in anyone's top three of world philosophers. Add to that his pioneering work on logic.

He is simply the most versatile and intellectually brilliant person ever to have lived. Nobody can match his power with abstract ideas.

Partitioning fields when they are at its infancy requires some brains, but it doesn't qualify them as the greatest genius ever. It's a bit funny to claim he invented "literary criticism" -- are we to believe no one ever criticized literature before Aristotle? And further still, his work on logic was largely **** and based on people before him.

He's only called the father of logic from Philosophers who jerk off to his pictures, like the person who elegantly wrote the above masturbatory passage.

You guys forget the other areas where aristotle was wrong and misdirected scientific research, such as with chemistry. The nature of Philosophy seems to forget his many failures and focus on his successes, even if they are questionable (like his work with logic).

Artistotle thought the sun revolved around the earth, for example. Not to mention heavens were immutable and the stars/planets ethereal... There is a huge difference between being the greatest genius ever, and being so prolific and random in your works (being wrong the majority of the time) to sometimes get things right.

[Ljube]

Euclid. All of his postulates/theorems still stand.