Ramanujan short life itself is a loss to the world, Imagine how many Ramanujan's were ignored where there is no G.H. Hardy and what about Ramanujans in the other 95%?
Einstein made a few extremely valuable insights in theoretical physics, but I'd say the sheer breadth of comparable work that Von Neumann did across multiple fields makes him more outstanding.
It was intended to apply to oneself, but seems just as true when appreciating the genius of others. No need to diminish von Neumann, etc., AND doing so just diminishes your own credibility.
I for one would ask him what we could do to make it easier for him to listen to the voice of god(s) rather than say "well akshually..."
I'm not sure there's much you can do to help someone at this level, other than perhaps take away outside distractions.
It's not remotely clear how Ramanujan's mind worked, or whether he really knew himself. He seems to have been a lot more highly functioning than an idiot savant, but still operating at a level that is hard to comprehend. Was this an expression of humility or devotion by Ramanujan, or was he just expressing his own lack of understanding of how his mind worked?
Feynmann, like von Neumann, also seems more approachable/understandable in that he wasn't just operating at genius level, but was also a regular fun loving guy (strip clubs, bongo drums, safe hacking and all). Von Neumann and some of his Hungarian peers were famously referred to as "The Martians", but it's really Ramanujan who seems like the alien.
The other version in the West is he moves to rural Montana and sends bombs through the mail.
There might be a middle ground between the two?
I think that if you tried you could imagine a world where Ramanujans are both supported and respected with nice lives, while also contributing to the future of the species rather than helping dig our own grave.
> The other version in the West is he moves to rural Montana and sends bombs through the mail.
Why in the world would those be the only two options?? What a profoundly strange thing to say.
That brilliant geniuses have chosen corporate America and to not go into academia is yours and mine and the world's loss, but a defining feature of the Western world is that they get to make that choice for themselves.
... As if people outside the West have no self-determination? Pretty questionable, on multiple levels. And another indication of absurdly binary thinking/rhetoric. Good luck with that.
“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” ~ Stephen Jay Gould
But people in the upper classes don't like that, so they're telling working class people that people even worse off are after their jobs.
[1] https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674987883 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India
I know more than 3 people in the US, who talk about caste all the time (as in that's their job now) but grew up in very privileged families.
This is similar to another popular narrative that no girl received an education until some sympathetic Englishman in partnership with a local woman allowed girls to go to school. What a load of BS.
Tall claim.
Only the target has changed. The land grabs and slurs and dehumanization are essentially the same, if sometimes with a modern twist.