

"Easily had an IQ between 250 and 300" - jiganti
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis

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twillerelator
It's been speculated that Sidis's intelligence was due in part to having thin-
walled blood vessels in the brain, making it easy for nutrients like oxygen to
diffuse into brain cells. This theory explains his and his fathers' premature
deaths due to stroke.

It also suggests that ordinary people today might increase their intelligence
by trying to eliminate arterial plaque.

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thirsteh
It's ironic that there's a comment about intelligence tests being misleading,
and that no scale is defined for the supposed IQ score of 250 to 300. 'IQ'
means nothing by itself--you need to know which scale is being used (see
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Reliabili...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Reliability)).
110 on one can equal 150 on another--and that's the main reason IQ scores are
chiefly given in 'percentile of population', i.e. "higher than 98% of the
population", nowadays.

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hugh3
And yet (leaving the debate about whether these IQ numbers are meaningful
aside) he never produced anything of any real value.

His one published book apparently " _predicted the existence of regions of
space where the second law of thermodynamics operated in reverse to the
temporal direction that we experience in our local area. Everything outside of
what we would today call a galaxy would be such a region. Sidis claimed that
the matter in this region would not generate light._ ". This not only sounds
wrong, it sounds like the kind of wrong that only somebody not particularly
versed in thermodynamics (even as it existed in the 1920s) would write. His
writings on other subjects seem to be equally wrong-headed.

It's a classic smart person disease, to think

(a) I have an idea

(b) I am smart, therefore

(c) My idea must be right!

See also: Einstein on politics.

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johnconroy
Cool -- never heard of this guy. I have a theory that the vast majority of the
greatest human ideas never come to fruition because the people who have them
are too f __ked up to ever implement them, or to even articulate them in an
appropriate environment (academic paper, novel/book , whatever).

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jiganti
This would make sense, society tends to disfavor the different, as the
tendency to "do what others do" is so deeply ingrained that anyone different
in a less than obviously beneficial way is outcasted.

If you're talking about the "mad genius" types, who struggle to cope with
internal conflict, I'd agree as well. Ultimately, the requirement in this
context for an "idea coming to fruition" would simply require that the person
cares about everyone hearing their theory, or the benefit to the world that
might result.

