Who's your favorite Polymath?
- cowtime
- Posts: 5280
- Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2001 6:00 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Appalachian Mts.
That's who I thought of immediately, but then debated if he fit the bill.
What the heck, I still say Tesla- afterall, he did stuff that no one else has been able to do again.
How's this for a lawn ornament?
"Let low-country intruder approach a cove
And eyes as gray as icicle fangs measure stranger
For size, honesty, and intent."
John Foster West
And eyes as gray as icicle fangs measure stranger
For size, honesty, and intent."
John Foster West
- Wombat
- Posts: 7105
- Joined: Mon Sep 23, 2002 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Location: Probably Evanston, possibly Wollongong
Woody Allen?
*Returning to my grown up voice* Where's Plato and Aristotle? For longevity of influence, they win easily. The trouble is that it is hard, especially with Plato, to know how much of what we hear first in him really originated with him. Leibnitz was amazing but most of his philosophy owed too much to Plato to be considered really original. Newton seems to have enormous depth of originality in physics, although in biographies we often don't get told how close the rivals were to discovering things and how much was borrowed from forgotten contemporaries. C.S.Peirce almost qualifies but perhaps isn't broad enough.
*Returning to my grown up voice* Where's Plato and Aristotle? For longevity of influence, they win easily. The trouble is that it is hard, especially with Plato, to know how much of what we hear first in him really originated with him. Leibnitz was amazing but most of his philosophy owed too much to Plato to be considered really original. Newton seems to have enormous depth of originality in physics, although in biographies we often don't get told how close the rivals were to discovering things and how much was borrowed from forgotten contemporaries. C.S.Peirce almost qualifies but perhaps isn't broad enough.
- dfernandez77
- Posts: 1901
- Joined: Mon Apr 05, 2004 11:09 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: So, please write a little about why you are interested. We're just looking for something that will make it clear to us, when we read it, why you are registering and that you know what this forum is all about.
- Location: US.CA.Tustin
- Flyingcursor
- Posts: 6573
- Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2002 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: This is the first sentence. This is the second of the recommended sentences intended to thwart spam its. This is a third, bonus sentence!
- Location: Portsmouth, VA1, "the States"
Quit punching people in the teeth.djm wrote:I have been using Vasoline on my scarred knuckle calluses, but it doesn't seem to help much. Does anyone have any viable alternatives?
djm
I voted other. I didn't see Pythagoras on that list. Where would we be musically without his error?
I'm no longer trying a new posting paradigm
-
- Posts: 850
- Joined: Sun Apr 28, 2002 6:00 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
-Richard Feynman also appeared before the Rogers Commission following the Challenger space shuttle disaster. I heard he took o-ring material used on the solid rocket boosters, dipped it in liquid oxygen or nitrogen for a quick freeze, then broke it apart in front of the panel to demonstrate graphically how frozen or stiffened o-rings doomed the shuttle.
- Innocent Bystander
- Posts: 6816
- Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:51 pm
- antispam: No
- Location: Directly above the centre of the Earth (UK)
I was listening to Count Ralph de Straet von Kollman (& some alphabet soup at the end of his name) talk about fairies, the other day. He used to be a lawyer - perhaps he still is. But he's better known for his writings. I wouldn't go so far as to call him a polymath, though.
Wizard needs whiskey, badly!