The smartest man who ever lived. One should pay attention, when the smartest man who ever lived, with an IQ between 250 and 300 writes about philosophy. Here is a fine book by the extraordinary man, William James Sidis. A January morning in 1910 hundreds of students and professors gathered in the great lecture hall at Harvard University. On stage steps up William James Sidi to present his research about the mathematics of the fourth dimension. William was just eleven years old. William James Sidis was a genius and he still has the highest IQ ever recorded, somewhere between 250 and 300.
Taught himself Latin and Greek
William James Sidis was able to read the New York Times when he was 18 months old and taught himself Latin and Greek. A few years later he spoke more than ten languages and wrote books on all kinds of topics. But William was a shy person and he did not like to be in the spotlight. He broke with his family and lived alone. He took simple jobs and every time he was recognized as the wonder-child he moved on. During his life, he wrote an unknown number of books. He wrote mostly under different pseudonyms and it still is disputed what works he actually wrote, it has been speculated that a huge number of his books were never published. Read more about this topic here: Are Highly Intelligent People Less Happy?
First man to suggest black holes
He wrote extensively on politics, anthropology, grammar, astronomy, anatomy. He theorised about black holes before anyone else but published them in an obscure book nobody read: The Animate and the Inanimate. He made valuable contributions to philosophy and took on Aristotle and Heidegger and wrote treatises on history, government, economics, and political affairs and he also wrote books on public transportation and organizational structures. I suggest you read the excellent Wikipedia article about him.
From the book:
This work sets forth a theory which is speculative in nature, there being no verifying experiments. It is based on the idea of the reversibility of everything in time; that is, that every type of process has its time-image, a corresponding process which is its exact reverse with respect to time. This accounts for all physical laws but one, namely, the second law of thermodynamics. This law has been found during the nineteenth century to be a source of a great deal of difficulty. The eminent physicist, Clerk-Maxwell, in the middle of the nineteenth century, while giving a proof of that law, admitted that reversals are possible by imagining a “sorting demon” who could sort out the smaller particles, and separate the slower ones from the faster ones. This second law of thermodynamics brought in the idea of energy-level, of unavailable energy (or “entropy” as it was called by Clausius) which was constantly increasing. In the theory herein set forth, we suppose that reversals of the second law are a regular phenomenon, and identify them with what is generally known as life. This changes the idea of unavailable energy into that of a reserve fund of energy, used only by life, and created by non-living forces.
Download the free PDF book, The Animate and the Inanimate, here:
Thank you so much for providing the Sidis book as a freebie.
Most appreciated and much obliged.
Everyone has a certain amino acid that can improve the intelligence by one point a day. I can tell the certain one for each person, and will be glad to do so, if asked. In some cases, it may improve intellect 2 or 3 points a day.
Dear Jim,
I wish to be true increasing intelligence is possible just because certain amino acid. Unfortunately, is only possible developing internal networks created by knowledge, and even though is not likely, and almost impossible, at a rate desired.
Alfredo Illescas
Hello Jim! I am very interested in knowing my magic amino acid, and also the basis your ability. I am a pharmacist from Kenya.
Thank you for your services.
Everyone has a certain amino acid that can improve the intelligence by one point a day. One amino acid for the brain of each human. I can tell the certain one for each person, and will be glad to do so, if asked. In some cases, it may improve intellect 2 or 3 points a day.
Hello James
Quite interested in your theory. Please contact me at alicornllc@gmail.com. Willing to test your amino acid idea out. I believe that is a link to curing autism as well.
Autism is not a disease.
It’s a higher level of intelligence that most professional in their ignorance, think it needs fixed since in so many cases, lack of INTELLIGENCE prevent testing these individuals.
I agree with you based on a childhood experience in primary school in Zimbabwe. There was a guy older than the rest of us who could not proceed beyond grade 3. During play time we would ask him to spell Shona words and he would always get it correct. Then we thought lets ask him to spell the sound of a whistle which he did and all we could tell was he could spell different whistles. He died young and I wish someone could have recorded him doing his prodigious spelling magic of sounds. His name was Andrew Tapfumaneyi. MHSRIEP!
The classic “Varieties of Religious Experience” is by William James, not William Sidis. Thanks for drawing attention to Sidis’s actual works, though.
The books listed are by three different people. One is the philosopher and psychologist William James, another is his friend Boris Sidis. The third is Boris’s son William James Sidis, whom his father named for his friend William James.
Varieties of Religious Experience is a different William James. Kind of shocked a website on religious texts wouldn’t know this – it’s very very well known.