Ask HN: Who are some modern examples of persons like Von Neumann and Gödel?

8 points·nejlika··6 comments

I don't think it makes sense to define what I mean with "like", as they were people who did a lot and had a lot of things that were spectacular in their stories. But if you have any examples, please let us know in what way you think they are like them.

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Terrence Tao is astonishingly productive.

https://terrytao.wordpress.com/

He was one of the few I could think of too. But it feels like they are few and far between. Given the potential for reach of the internet I'd expect for more people to become more known, and not become people only known to a handful of active contemporaries as happened to Von Neumann

This may be the proverbial signal to noise ratio. For example, there are a gazillion really good musicians with channels on YouTube. You could argue that some of them are better than similar musicians who have record deals, but due to the huge competitive numbers, only a few get noticed.

Sometimes the best get buried under a pile of mediocrity.

That is true. But I would have guessed that HN would have been a great place to find those hidden gems because of how niche some stuff around here can be. I guess one part of the problem could be that it is now more difficult to be widely influential: everybody is more or less specialized into narrow fields of study or activity - leading to fewer people being widely interacted with and having their ideas shared.

Scott Aaronson https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/

Douglas Hofstadter

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