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Could Isaac Newton Get a Faculty Job?
An anonymous reader writes "Could Isaac Newton get a faculty job, or is modern society too intolerant of eccentricity? That's one of the questions that Glenn Reynolds asks Neal Stephenson in this interview over at TechCentralstation. Others involve the changing nature of fame in an age of fragmented media, the role of the Seventeenth Century in shaping the modern world, and what it's like to write a book with a fountain pen, in the twenty-first century."
If anyone's interested, James Gleick recently released a wonderful biography of Sir Isaac. It's a very entertaining, very fast read.
Disclaimer: I've never read any other Newton biography, so I can't validate the accuracy. ;)
"Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
You're probably right. My father-in-law, a psychologist, was reading about various historical smart people and thought the descriptions of their personalities/habits sounded consistent with people diagnosed as ADD/ADHD.
John Nash was extremely eccentric but held down positions at MIT.
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Now that I think about it.. didn't Newton have a job at Cambridge too?
/.ers won't get it.
I'm assuming you're joking; I'm also assuming some
Yeah, he had an insignificant little job, sorta equivalent to a modern "Dorm Mother": he was the second Lucasian Chair of Mathematics.
Hell, they give that wheelchair guy a job and he's hanging out with strippers all the time. I'd say Hawking's pretty eccentric.
Stephen Hawking, of course, is the current Lucasian Chair.
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Sorry to be pedantic, but there is no such thing as the "Nobel Prize for Economics."
Alfred Nobel's will makes provision for four Swedish prizes (Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, Literature) and one Norwegian prize (Peace.) The reason for the seperation is due to Nobel's analysis of the relative merits of the two cultures - he believed that Norwegian society was more enlightened than Sweden thus better equiped to award the Peace prize.
There is an additional prize called the 'Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel" Which is (as the name suggests) awarded by the Bank of Sweden, NOT by the Swedish or Norwegian Nobel committees. Prestigious as it is, it is not a Nobel Prize.
More information on the prizes is available here
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The focus of 'A Beautiful Mind' was NOT to document all of his bizarreness, but to demonstrate what schizophrenia could be like--and it did a decent job of it.
Having worked as a mental health associate in a residential treatment facility that primarily cares for schizophrenics, I think it important to point out a few things.
First, most schizophrenics are bizarre. By definition. Catatonic schizophrenics may not be, but bizarreness of thought is one of the requirements for diagnosis (source: DSM-IV revised). Thus to say that John Nash was sometimes bizarre is redundant. Of course he was.
Second, sexuality is unrelated to the discussion. Why bring it up?
Third, schizophrenia is a very debilitating disease. It is not easily overcome. If you think that the movie was overly romantic, consider this: two-thirds (approximately) of schizophrenics do not get better, regardless of treatment. It is very exceptional that someone with schizophrenia can learn to cope as well as Nash did. His story is exceptional, even if hollywood made it seem "cute" or whatever. I respect him for what he did. The movie, in terms of its treatment of what schizophrenics go through, did a good job of illustrating the nature of thier delusions, hallucinations and paranoia. IF ANYTHING IT UNDERSTATED IT!!!!!
Having worked with a man who truly believed his mother was a leprechaun, another who believed that he invented the Knight Rider car (but the government stole it, and made the show so they could kill his family and cover it all up) (he also believed that demons would throw "fury darts" at him, and that was why he attacked people), and another (blond) man who believed the devil was persecuting him becuase he had red hair, I have a lot of respect for those who manage to overcome this. I also feel that unless you have worked with these people, you cannot rightfully comment on their "bizarreness".
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As an aside (maybe a second rant), I also worked with some who were ADD/ADHD, and it is a strange thing. It is also mostly behavioral (I believe, some will argue), and is very rare outside the US. Ritalin should NEVER be given to children. If you know anything about medicine or psychology, consider this. The test group for Ritalin was adult humans and rats (sometimes different, sometimes not). There has NOT been any solid research on the long-term effects of Ritalin on young children. To generalize the results of studies on adults to children is a good example of bad statistics and medicine.
I know I haven't cited references like I should, but it is late.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
Yes, it's true. He was one of the greatest geniuses ever, but he was an asshole. His famous statement, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants", was a sarcastic comment directed at Robert Hooke who was a little hunch-backed guy. When Newton oversaw the moving of the Royal Society to a new location and they were moving the portraits of all the members, Hooke's portrait somehow got lost. So now no one knows what Hooke looked like.
It's not about authoritarianism, you blasted postmodernist. It's about whether or not gifted people actually have an attention deficit, which they clearly do not. They just think faster. See this paper for more serious information about misdiagnosis and dual diagnosis for gifted (in particular ADHD, ODD, and OCD), and why it happens.
No. His father died young and although his family technically belonged to the squirearchy, they were very poor. As a teenager he had to do farm work. He had to work his way through Cambridge as the poorest grade of student. It's believed that this explained his attitude to money (grasping) in later life. He was able to "sit around pondering" because the University was closed by the plague and he had to go home for a while.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.