

Mathematician's Century-Old Secrets Unlocked - damien
http://news.yahoo.com/mathematicians-century-old-secrets-unlocked-171554694.html

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charlieflowers
I think it is fascinating that (a) this guy dropped knowledge that was WAAAY
ahead of his time, so much so that we're just now understanding some of it,
and (b) he sincerely believed he obtained some of this knowledge via divine
revelation.

That doesn't mean that _I_ believe it was divine revelation. But I have to
admit, those 2 facts certainly make the situation interesting.

~~~
negamax
Second point could have been cultural and also related to upbringing. I
understand the conundrum that he should/could have lead to the conclusion
about atheism or at least about rational doubts in divinity. But imagine this
(everything hypothetical)

1\. A kid from the age of 5 or younger, worships a Goddess because of
village/family reasons and ask for knowledge

2\. He understand he's smarter than everyone around him because of high IQ but
attributes it to the Goddess

3\. This fuses, in his mind, causality of his intelligence being divinity.

4\. To not risk his higher mental faculty, in event of wrath by the God, he
kept on believing that his gift is God sent

~~~
charlieflowers
No, that's not what I meant. What I meant was that the information was so far
ahead of its time that it seems like it _could_ have come from a higher
intelligence.

So, on the one hand, we must acknowledge how incredibly advanced this guy was,
teaching us something we could not even grasp until recently. But at the same
time, we feel he was misled by superstition about where that info came from.

We credit him so highly on the one hand, and disbelieve him so cavalierly on
the other.

His story _can_ be explained scientifically. But on the spectrum of stories
that claim "divine revelation," this one has to be one of the more credible,
simply because of how advanced the information was.

~~~
andrewflnr
Someone in one of the other Ramanujan threads mentioned that if you did have
divine guidance and wanted to prove it, dropping information that's ahead of
your time but could be verified later is one obvious way.

~~~
negamax
That's every super intelligent person (as compared to his time's population
set) ever. Aren't we proving some of Einstein's work now?

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splicer
Dupe: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4933656>

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JoeAltmaier
"cold weather" hurt his health? He got TB from infected milk! He could have
lived to a ripe old age at home.

