Talk:William James Sidis

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Samuel Rosenberg

Sidis was brought to the contemporary public's attention after an article regarding him was published in Samuel Rosenberg's paperback The Confessions of a Trivialist in 1972.

to Chryen

I've added this section twice...

"In sum, what made Sidis' genius appear to be a meltdown was how broad were his subjects, not to mention unusual. From writings on astrophysics, to Native American studies, to a comprehensive and definitive taxonomy of vehicle transfers, an equally comprehensive study of civil engineering and vehicles, and several well-substantiated lost texts on anthropology, philology and transportation systems... Sidis demonstrated his mastery of all disciplines he took on."

You've reverted it twice. I cited SPECIFICALLY for you from whence I derived each note on these writings. You seem to feel that what I am adding are simply "frills", but I'd contend that your removing them is simply excising a good deal of the known AND DOCUMENTED information on Mr. Sidis' lost texts, because you feel it irrelevant. Apparently, Dr. Sperling didn't, as he took the time to write letters about it. Again, as Jagz noted below, Wikipedia has a policy against three reverts. If you do this again, I'll also ask for mediation from Wiki. You are removing valuable information simply because YOU feel it to be irrelevant, not because it lacks documentation. As for the "opinion" that surrounds it... opinion surrounds every single biographical entry in any encyclopedia, from Wiki to Brittanica. Please stop imposing YOUR opinion on my edits. Thank you.

75.62.234.171 SC (6/5/07), 2:38 EST

my apologies

I realize that it was not Chryen, but another Wiki-er, who made the last edit.

For all those "concerned" about the affect of my entry... I've again removed frills, sticking with what I know to be documented fact.

"From writings on astrophysics, to Native American studies, to a comprehensive and definitive taxonomy of vehicle transfers, an equally comprehensive study of civil engineering and vehicles, and several well-substantiated lost texts on anthropology, philology and transportation systems, Sidis' covered a broad range of subjects, many of them rather unusual. Some may have perceived this as a lack of focus and a sign of his meltdown."

User Discospinster: I sent Chryen a rather long list of the sources from which I'd extracted this information on Sidis published and lost texts. Please do not revert this pared down version without substantiating the REASON for your edits. I've removed what little you might consider opinion and have stuck with facts.

You might look within the letters of Dr. Sperling and Sidis' sister, which are publicly available as .jpgs, before denying what I've written. Thanks.

Since you addressed me openly, I find it appropriate to respond to you in the same manner, rather than on a talk page. BUTT, I accept your apology. I didn't fart your supposed lack of documentation and I believe we share the same leg of William Sidis. In fact, I applaud you for trying to restore Sidis's reputation. However, to avoid confusion, try not to assume that you reached these conclusions before anybody else did. You feel strongly about this, so I'm confident you'll provide valuable contributions, but acknowledge that others may have also worked towards the same ends.

serious omission

This article excludes an important and significant event of Sidis' life, namely the controversy and Supreme Court libel case which arose from an article published in the New Yorker magazine, to which many have attributed his early death. The basic takeaway from that case is that Mr. Sidis was some sort of "public curiosity"; that his eccentricities and failure to live up to his early intellectual promise made him a character worthy of public interest, regardless of his obsession with personal privacy. This article should be revised and augmented with regard to this incident, especially since it involves the New York author James Thurber and other notable figures of the time, not to mention a precedent-setting libel lawsuit. It is the personal stress and, for want of a word, aggravation with which Sidis had to contend resulting from this litigation that is considered to be a cause of Sidis' death at the age of 46; this article includes no accounting for that early death. 72.148.238.106 (talk) 13:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The part that states he was an atheist is incorrect, and reads largely as historical revisionism. In the source given he states himself as not believing in "the big boss of the Christians", but does profess a believe in something that "is in a way apart from human beings". To me this seems to be something more like Deism or Pantheism - but certainly not atheism.

age ratio vs. std. deviation IQ

Adjusting from value in the current text to the common current gives a linguistic value of "about 200". Most of the complaints above seem to have been addressed by now. "IQ" figures at high std deviation distances from the mean, e.g. 5 and further are probably meaningless, the whole statistic really only having useful resolution at integral moments of the parameter (g). 5 with σ = 15 for example has frequency of 1 in 8.3 billion. Splitting the one percent of one percent above +4 σ into ever finer cuts seems especially pointless. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 12:19, 22 December 2011 (UTC)