Sidis, William James - Biography. William James Sidis - the most gifted man on the planet William James Sidis all about him

Biography

Parents and upbringing (1898-1909)

Teaching activity and further education (1915-1919)

After a group of Harvard students began to threaten Sidis with physical harm, his parents, in order to protect him, found their son a position as an assistant math teacher at Rice University in Houston, Texas. William began work in December 1915, at the age of 17. He taught a course in Euclidean geometry, non-Euclidean geometry and trigonometry. (On Euclidean geometry, he himself wrote a textbook in Greek). But less than a year later, disappointed by his work and the bad attitude of students who were older than him, William returned to New England. In September 1916, Sidis entered Harvard Law School, but did not graduate from it, interrupting his studies in the last year in March 1919.

Politics and arrest (1919-1921)

In 1919, shortly after Sidis left law school, he was arrested for participating in a May Day demonstration in Boston and sentenced to 18 months in prison. The arrest of one of the youngest Harvard graduates was widely reported in the press and quickly made Sidis a local celebrity. During the trial, Sidis called himself a socialist and stated that he refused the draft for the First World War for ideological reasons. (Later he developed his own quasi-liberal theory based on individual rights and "American social integrity"). But Sidis' father managed to convince the district attorney not to send William to serve his sentence. Instead, his parents sent him to a sanitarium in New Hampshire for a year, and the following year they took him to California. They began to insist that he change, otherwise they threatened to send their son to a lunatic asylum.

Later years (1921-1944)

Publications and research topics

Areas of study in which Sidis' work remains include American history, cosmology, and psychology. Sidis was a railway ticket collector and was immersed in the study of transportation systems. Under the pseudonym "Frank Falupa", he wrote a treatise on railroad tickets, in which he identified ways to increase the capacity of the transport network, which are only now beginning to find acceptance. In 1930, he received a patent for a perpetual perpetual calendar, which took leap years into account.

Sidis knew about 40 languages ​​(according to other sources - 300) and freely translated from one to another. Sidis also created an artificial language he called Vendergood in his second book, entitled "Book of Vendergood", which he wrote at the age of eight. The language is mostly based on Latin and Greek, but also based on German, French and other Romance languages.

Sidis was socially passive. At a young age, he decided to give up sex and devote his life to intellectual development. His interests manifested themselves in rather exotic forms. He wrote a study on alternative US history. In his adult life, he worked as a simple accountant, wore traditional rural clothes and quit his job as soon as his genius was discovered. In an effort to live unnoticed, he hid from journalists.

The son of Jewish emigrants from Russia, the youngest student at Harvard, professor. Author of many scientific works - biographers William James Sidis believe that he was the most gifted person of all who ever lived on Earth.

At the end of the nineteenth century, ships crammed full of emigrants from Europe and Russia arrived in New York Harbor. In one of these ships, Boris and Sarah Sidis (Sidis) arrived in America from Tsarist Russia. They quickly gained fame in the States as people of extraordinary ability. Boris became a pioneer in the study of psychology, and Sarah, one of a tiny number of women of those years, received a medical degree.

Under the tutelage of his brilliant but eccentric parents, young William James Sidis grew up to be a man of extraordinary talents. The baby's education began in the very first months of his life: Boris and Sarah tried to make the child's brain absorb information in extraordinary volumes.

Using wooden cubes, Boris began to show the alphabet to his little son - at the same time, he introduced the boy into a hypnotic state so that he would repeat the letters after him.

At six months, William was able to pronounce the word "door", and a month later his vocabulary had doubled - the baby pronounced the word "moon". At eight months, proud parents noted that their son can eat from a spoon on his own - few babies learn this skill even in a year. He could recognize and repeat the letters on the cubes, thus demonstrating the character recognition abilities of four-year-olds. At the age of one and a half he was reading a daily newspaper.

Closer to William's fifth birthday, the press began to show interest in his extraordinary abilities. The kid already knew how to type on a typewriter from his high chair, having tapped out a list of his toys on it. He also took over the study of Latin, Greek, Russian, French, German and Hebrew.

His thirst for knowledge seemed insatiable: William easily overcame such volumes as Grey's Anatomy or Homer's books to study with ease. He went to high school at six, but after six months his knowledge corresponded to the level of the graduate school curriculum. His stunning accomplishments were the perfect reason for the boy to appear on the front page of The New York Times.

At the age of nine, William Sidis tried to enter Harvard: the entrance exams were not a serious test for him, but the university commission refused him under the pretext of "emotional immaturity" for student life.

The two years that the teenager was waiting for permission to enter, he spent in college. He discovered that he could calculate what day of the week a date would fall on in the past or future, and wrote four books. In 1909, when the young genius was 11 years old, the leadership of the prestigious university finally relented and allowed the boy to join the ranks of students. It was a brilliant course: in 1909, Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics, and the composer Roger Sessions entered Harvard with Sidis.

Sidis graduated at age 16, graduating from Harvard with honors. He briefly taught at the University of Houston, but soon retired: it became obvious that his age and fame attracted students much more than his lectures. Sidis briefly returned to Harvard to get a law degree, but here, too, he was disappointed: he was not interested in the law.

In 1919, William was again subjected to public persecution when he participated in a demonstration that turned into a real riot. This episode further emphasized his unconventional philosophy - lack of faith in God, for example (William called him "the big boss of Christians"), and social isolation. The political views of Sidis later developed into something that most closely resembled liberalism.

The young man escaped prison only thanks to the influence of his parents, but they put him under house arrest in a summer house in California. In a rage, William headed to the east coast to avoid the pressure of his parents and not to remember his talents, which he regarded as unnecessary archaism. He mastered the simplest specialties, a clerk and an accountant, each time changing jobs when his fame as a mathematical genius surfaced. He once said: “I get sick from one kind of mathematical formula. Everything I want to do, the calculating machine does. But they won't leave me alone!"

Even at an older age, Sidis made attempts to protect himself from the attention of society. He wrote several books, but under assumed names. One such book, titled The Train Ticket Collector's Guide, painstakingly describes a hobby that Sidis devoted much of his life to. He wrote it under the pseudonym "Frank Falupa".

William's biographers called this work "the most boring book ever written." In another voluminous manuscript entitled "The Tribes and the States," Sidis provides compelling evidence that the political system of New England is heavily influenced by the democratic principles of federalism of the Penacoque Indians.

In parallel, Sidis continued to study languages ​​- in total he knew about 200 of them, and one he invented himself. Areas of study in which Sidis' work remains include American history, cosmology, and psychology.

Sidis did not live long. He was significantly crippled by the constant attention of newspapermen. The press, which had previously admired him, turned their backs on him. The most derogatory article appeared in The New Yorker in 1937 under the title "April Fool's Fool." It ridiculed everything from Sidis' hobbies to his physique.

Sidis filed a lawsuit for defamation and invasion of privacy. Although he won a small sum out of court, the charge of invasion of privacy was dismissed by the US Supreme Court. He died in 1944. Obituaries called him an "amazing loser" and a "burnt genius".

In psychiatry, there is a term "the phenomenon of Sidis", and they denote a person who is extremely gifted in his youth, but has not achieved anything significant in adulthood.

Svetlana Kondrashova

Biography

Born April 1, 1898 in New York in a family of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. His father was subjected to political persecution in his homeland and spent 2 years in solitary confinement, and after emigrating he taught psychology at Harvard University and was one of the most significant psychiatrists and psychologists in the United States of his time. His mother Sarah Sidis (Mandelbaum) graduated from the University of Boston Medicine in 1897 but gave up her career to raise William.

The parents wanted to make W. J. Sidis a genius, using their own methods of education, for which they were criticized. At the age of 18 months, he was reading the New York Times. At the age of 6, William became an atheist. By the time he was eight, he had written four books. His IQ was estimated to be in the region of 250 to 300 (the highest recorded IQ in history).

At the age of 11, W. J. Sidis entered Harvard. He was one of the young talents who studied at Harvard in 1909: father of cybernetics Norbert Wiener and composer Roger Sessions.

Areas of study in which Sidis's work remains include American history, cosmology, and psychology. Sidis was a railway ticket collector and was immersed in the study of transportation systems. Under the pseudonym "Frank Falupa", he wrote a treatise on railroad tickets, in which he identified ways to increase the capacity of the transport network, which are only now beginning to find acceptance. In 1930, he received a patent for a perpetual perpetual calendar that took leap years into account.

Sidis knew about 40 languages ​​(according to other sources - 200) and freely translated from one to another. Sidis also created an artificial language he called Vendergood in his second book, entitled "Book of Vendergood", which he wrote at the age of eight. The language is mostly based on Latin and Greek, but also based on German, French and other Romance languages.

Sidis was socially passive. At a young age, he decided to give up sex and devote his life to intellectual development. His interests manifested themselves in rather exotic forms. He wrote a study on alternative US history. In his adult life, he worked as a simple accountant, wore traditional rural clothes and quit his job as soon as his genius was discovered. In an effort to live unnoticed, he hid from journalists.

Sidis died of an intracerebral hemorrhage in 1944, at the age of 46, in Boston. His father died earlier, from the same ailment in 1923 at 56.

Grade

W. J. Sidis is rated by some biographers as the most gifted man on Earth. Here are the moments of the biography that gave rise to this opinion:

• William learned to write towards the end of his first year of life.
• In the fourth year of his life, he read Homer in the original.
• At the age of six he studied Aristotelian logic.
• Between the ages of 4 and 8 he wrote 4 books, including one monograph on anatomy.
• At the age of seven, he passed the Harvard Medical School exam in anatomy.
• By the age of 8, William knew 8 languages ​​- English, Latin, Greek, Russian, Hebrew, French, German and another one that he invented himself.
• In adulthood, William was fluent in 40 languages, and, according to some authors, this number reached 200.
• At the age of 11, Sidis entered Harvard University and was soon lecturing at the Harvard Mathematics Club.
• He graduated from Harvard with honors at 16.

W. J. Sidis has been criticized by some as the most telling example of the risk that child prodigies run the risk of failing to succeed in adulthood.

Notes

Literature

• Wallace, Amy The Prodigy: A biography of William James Sidis, America's Greatest Child Prodigy, New York: E.P. Duton & Co. 1986.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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William James Sidis(English) William James Sidis; April 1 ( 18980401 ) - July 17) - an eccentric child prodigy, famous in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, who had extraordinary mathematical, linguistic and mental abilities.

Biography

Parents and upbringing (1898-1909)

Boris Sidis (Sidis) was born in Berdichev into a Jewish family. At home, he was persecuted for political reasons and spent two years in solitary confinement. In 1887 he emigrated to the United States, where he received a doctorate in medicine from Harvard University, taught psychology there, and published a number of books and articles. He was one of the most significant psychiatrists and psychologists in the United States of his time. He founded such a direction as psychopathology, dealt with issues of hypnosis and group psychotherapy, wrote the book "Psychology of Suggestion", which to this day is considered an authoritative publication. Boris criticized the activities of Sigmund Freud and was categorically against the "mad epidemic of Freudianism that is now invading America." In addition, Sidis criticized eugenics, which was popular in those years, and opposed the First World War. Boris was a polyglot and was able to instill this quality in William at an early age.

William's mother - Sarah Sidis (Mandelbaum) - graduated from the Boston University School of Medicine in 1897, but gave up her career to raise William. The parents wanted to make W. J. Sidis a genius using their own teaching methods, for which they were criticized. At the age of 18 months, William was able to read the New York Times newspaper, at the age of 6 he became an atheist. By the time he was eight, he had written four books. He was estimated to be in the region of 250 to 300 (the highest recorded IQ in history).

Harvard and college life (1905-1915)

From the first time, Boris failed to send the child to study at Harvard - in 1905, the university administration did not want to take such a young student. But four years later, when William was 11 years old, he entered Harvard in the experimental department for gifted children, becoming the youngest student. Famous personalities such as the father of cybernetics Norbert Wiener, engineer-inventor Richard Buckminster Fuller and composer Roger Sessions studied in his group. In early 1910, Sidis's knowledge of higher mathematics was so deep that he was invited to lecture on four-dimensional space at the Harvard Mathematical Club. Professor Daniel F. Comstock ( English) prophesied for Sidis a grandiose career as a mathematician and predicted his future leadership in this field.

Teaching activity and further education (1915-1919)

After a group of Harvard students began to threaten Sidis with physical harm, his parents, in order to protect him, found his son a position as an assistant math teacher at Rice University in Houston, Texas. William began work in December 1915 at the age of 17. He taught courses in Euclidean geometry, non-Euclidean geometry and trigonometry. (On Euclidean geometry, he himself wrote a textbook in Greek). But less than a year later, disillusioned with his work and the bad attitude of students who were older than him, William returned to New England. In September 1916, Sidis entered Harvard Law School, but did not graduate from it, interrupting his studies in the last year in March 1919.

Politics and arrest (1919-1921)

In 1919, shortly after Sidis left law school, he was arrested for participating in a May Day demonstration in Boston and sentenced to 18 months in prison. The arrest of one of the youngest Harvard graduates was widely reported in the press and quickly made Sidis a local celebrity.

During the trial, Sidis called himself a socialist and stated that he refused the draft for the First World War for ideological reasons. (Later he developed his own quasi-liberal theory based on individual rights and "American social integrity"). But Sidis's father managed to convince the district attorney not to send William to serve his sentence. Instead, his parents sent him to a sanitarium in New Hampshire for a year, and the following year they took him to California. They began to insist that he change, otherwise they threatened to send their son to a lunatic asylum.

Later years (1921-1944)

He lived in New York separately from his parents, for a long time he was afraid to return to Massachusetts because of a possible arrest. He worked and was engaged in collecting. He sued newspapers that published articles about his life.

Publications and research topics

Areas of study in which Sidis' work remains include American history, cosmology, and psychology. Sidis was a railway ticket collector and was immersed in the study of transportation systems. Under the pseudonym "Frank Falupa", he wrote a treatise on railroad tickets in which he identified ways to increase the capacity of the transport network. In 1930 he received a patent for a perpetual perpetual calendar that took leap years into account.

Sidis knew about 40 languages ​​(according to other sources - 200) and freely translated from one to another [[C:Wikipedia:Articles without sources (country: Lua error: callParserFunction: function "#property" was not found. )]][[C:Wikipedia:Articles without sources (country: Lua error: callParserFunction: function "#property" was not found. )]] . Sidis also created an artificial language he called Vendergood in his second book, entitled "Book of Vendergood", which he wrote at the age of eight. The language is mostly based on Latin and Greek, but also based on German, French and other Romance languages.

Sidis was socially passive. At a young age, he decided to give up sex and devote his life to intellectual development. His interests manifested themselves in rather exotic forms. He wrote a study on alternative US history. He spent his adult life working as a simple bookkeeper, wearing traditional country clothes and quitting his job as soon as his genius was discovered. In an effort to live unnoticed, he hid from journalists.

Grade

W. J. Sidis is rated by some biographers as the most gifted man on earth. Here are the moments of the biography that gave rise to this opinion:

• William learned to write towards the end of his first year of life.
• In the fourth year of his life, he read Homer in the original.
• At the age of six he studied Aristotelian logic.
• Between the ages of 4 and 8 he wrote 4 books, including one monograph on anatomy.
• At the age of seven, he passed the Harvard Medical School exam in anatomy.
• By the age of 8, William knew 8 languages ​​- English, Latin, Greek, Russian, Hebrew, French, German and another one that he invented himself.
• In adulthood, William was fluent in 40 languages, and, according to some authors, this number reached 200.
• At the age of 11, he entered Harvard University and was soon lecturing at the Harvard Mathematics Club.
• He graduated from Harvard with honors at 16.

Some critics use the example of W. J. Sidis as the most telling example of the risk that child prodigies run the risk of failing to succeed in adulthood.

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Notes

Literature

• Wallace, Amy The Prodigy: A biography of William James Sidis, America's Greatest Child Prodigy, New York: E.P. Duton & Co. 1986. ISBN 0-525-24404-2

Links

Works by William Sidis:

• "The animate and the inanimate"
• "The Tribes and the States"
• «Notes on the Collection of transfers»
• "Collisions in Street and Highway Transportation"[[K:Wikipedia:Articles without sources (country: Lua error: callParserFunction: function "#property" was not found. )]][[C:Wikipedia:Articles without sources (country: Lua error: callParserFunction: function "#property" was not found. )]][[C:Wikipedia:Articles without sources (country: Lua error: callParserFunction: function "#property" was not found. )]] [ ]

Sidis passage by William James

Mom was completely subdued by dad's poems ... And he wrote a lot of them to her and brought them to her work every day along with huge posters drawn by his own hand (dad drew superbly), which he unfolded right on her desktop, and on which , among all kinds of painted flowers, it was written in large letters: “Annushka, my little star, I love you!”. Naturally, what woman could endure this for a long time and not give up? .. They no longer parted ... Using every free minute to spend it together, as if someone could take it away from them. Together they went to the cinema, to dances (which they both loved very much), walked in the charming Alytus city park, until one fine day they decided that enough dates were enough and that it was time to take a look at life a little more seriously. They soon got married. But only my father's friend (my mother's younger brother) Jonas knew about this, since neither from my mother's side, nor from my father's relatives, this union did not cause much enthusiasm ... My mother's parents predicted for her a rich neighbor-teacher, who they really liked and, according to their concept, my mother “suited” perfectly, and in my father’s family at that time there was no time for marriage, since grandfather was put in prison at that time, as an “accomplice of the noble” (which, for sure, they tried to “break” the stubbornly resisting dad), and my grandmother went to the hospital from a nervous shock and was very sick. Dad was left with his little brother in his arms and now had to manage the entire household alone, which was very difficult, since the Seryogins at that time lived in a large two-story house (in which I later lived), with a huge old garden around. And, of course, such an economy required good care ...
So three long months passed, and my dad and mom, already married, were still going on dates, until mom accidentally went to dad’s house one day and found a very touching picture there ... Dad stood in the kitchen in front of the stove and looked unhappy “replenished” the hopelessly growing number of pots of semolina porridge, which at that moment was cooking for his little brother. But for some reason, the "harmful" porridge for some reason became more and more, and poor dad could not understand what was happening ... Mom, struggling to hide her smile so as not to offend the unlucky "cook", rolled up her sleeves right there began to put in order all this “stagnant domestic mess”, starting with completely occupied, “porridge stuffed” pots, an indignantly hissing stove ... helplessness, and decided to immediately move to this territory, which was still completely alien and unfamiliar to her ... And although it was not very easy for her at that time either - she worked at the post office (to support herself), and in the evenings went to occupations for passing examinations in medical school.

She, without hesitation, gave all her remaining strength to her exhausted young husband and his family. The house immediately came to life. In the kitchen, there was a stupefying smell of delicious Lithuanian "cepelins", which my father's little brother adored and, just like his father, who had been sitting on dry food for a long time, ate them literally to the "unreasonable" limit. Everything became more or less normal, except for the absence of my grandparents, about whom my poor dad worried very much, and sincerely missed them all this time. But now he already had a young beautiful wife, who, as best she could, tried in every possible way to brighten up his temporary loss, and looking at dad's smiling face, it was clear that she was doing it quite well. Papa's little brother very soon got used to his new aunt and followed her tail, hoping to get something tasty or at least a beautiful "evening fairy tale", which his mother read to him in great abundance before going to bed.
So calmly in everyday worries the days passed, and then the weeks. Grandmother, by that time, had already returned from the hospital and, to her great surprise, found a newly-baked daughter-in-law at home ... And since it was too late to change anything, they simply tried to get to know each other better, avoiding unwanted conflicts (which inevitably appear with any new, too close acquaintance). More precisely, they simply “got used to each other”, trying to honestly bypass any possible “underwater reefs” ... I was always sincerely sorry that my mother and grandmother never fell in love with each other ... They both were (or rather, mother still are) beautiful people, and I loved them both very much. But if grandmother, all her life spent together, somehow tried to adapt to her mother, then mother, on the contrary, at the end of her grandmother’s life, sometimes showed her irritation too openly, which deeply hurt me, since I was very attached to both of them and very she did not like to fall, as they say, "between two fires" or forcefully take sides. I have never been able to figure out what caused this constant "silent" war between these two wonderful women, but apparently there were some very good reasons for this, or perhaps my poor mother and grandmother were just really "incompatible" , as happens quite often with strangers living together. One way or another, it was a pity, because, in general, it was a very friendly and faithful family, in which everyone stood up for each other like a mountain, and experienced every trouble or misfortune together.
But let's go back to the days when all this was just beginning, and when each member of this new family honestly tried to "live in harmony", without creating any trouble for the others ... Grandfather was also at home, but his health, to the great regret of everyone else , after the days spent in detention, deteriorated sharply. Apparently, including the hard days spent in Siberia, all the long ordeals of the Seryogins in unfamiliar cities did not spare the poor grandfather's heart, tormented by life - he began to have repeated microinfarcts ...
Mom made friends with him and tried her best to help him forget everything bad as soon as possible, although she herself had a very, very difficult time. Over the past months, she managed to pass the preparatory and entrance exams for medical school. But, to her great regret, her old dream was not destined to come true for the simple reason that at that time in Lithuania you still had to pay for the institute, and my mother's family (which had nine children) did not have enough finances for this .. In the same year, from a severe nervous shock that happened a few years ago, her still very young mother died - my grandmother from my mother's side, whom I also never saw. She fell ill during the war, on the day when she learned that there was a heavy bombardment in the pioneer camp, in the seaside town of Palanga, and all the children who survived were taken away to no one knows where ... And among these children was her son , the youngest and favorite of all nine children. A few years later he returned, but this, unfortunately, could not help my grandmother. And in the first year of my mother's and father's life together, it slowly faded away... My mother's father, my grandfather, had a large family in his arms, of which only one mother's sister, Domitsela, was married at that time.
And grandfather as a "businessman", unfortunately, was absolutely disastrous... And very soon the wool factory, which he, with his grandmother's "light hand", owned, was put on sale for debts, and his grandmother's parents did not want to help him anymore, so as it was already the third time when the grandfather completely lost everything, the property donated by them.
My grandmother (my mother's mother) came from a very wealthy Lithuanian noble family, the Mitrulyavichus, who, even after the "dispossession", had a lot of land left. So when my grandmother (against my parents' wishes) married my grandfather who had nothing, her parents (not to lose face) gave them a big farm and a beautiful, spacious house... which, after a while , grandfather, thanks to his great "commercial" abilities, lost. But since at that time they already had five children, naturally, the grandmother's parents could not stand aside and gave them a second farm, but with a smaller and not so beautiful house. And again, to the great regret of the whole family, very soon the second “gift” also disappeared ... The next and last help of my grandmother's patient parents was a small woolen factory, which was superbly equipped and, if used correctly, could bring a very good income. , allowing the entire grandmother's family to live comfortably. But grandfather, after all the troubles experienced in life, by this time was already indulging in "strong" drinks, so the almost complete ruin of the family did not have to wait too long ...

Sidis, William James

Sidis, William James

Teaching activity and further education (1915-1919)

After a group of Harvard students began to threaten Sidis with physical harm, his parents, in order to protect him, found their son a position as an assistant math teacher at Rice University in Houston, Texas. William began work in December 1915, at the age of 17. He taught a course in Euclidean geometry, non-Euclidean geometry and trigonometry. (On Euclidean geometry, he himself wrote a textbook in Greek). But less than a year later, disillusioned with his work and the bad attitude of students who were older than him, William returned to New England. In September 1916, Sidis entered Harvard Law School, but did not graduate from it, interrupting his studies in the last year in March 1919.

Politics and arrest (1919-1921)

In 1919, shortly after Sidis left law school, he was arrested for participating in a May Day demonstration in Boston and sentenced to 18 months in prison. The arrest of one of the youngest Harvard graduates was widely reported in the press and quickly made Sidis a local celebrity. During the trial, Sidis called himself a socialist and stated that he refused the draft for the First World War for ideological reasons. (Later he developed his own quasi-liberal theory based on individual rights and "American social integrity"). But Sidis' father managed to convince the district attorney not to send William to serve his sentence. Instead, his parents sent him to a sanitarium in New Hampshire for a year, and the following year they took him to California. They began to insist that he change, otherwise they threatened to send their son to a lunatic asylum.

Later years (1921-1944)

Publications and research topics

Areas of study in which Sidis' work remains include American history, cosmology, and psychology. Sidis was a railway ticket collector and was immersed in the study of transportation systems. Under the pseudonym "Frank Falupa", he wrote a treatise on railroad tickets, in which he identified ways to increase the capacity of the transport network, which are only now beginning to find acceptance. In 1930 he received a patent for a perpetual perpetual calendar that took leap years into account.

Sidis was socially passive. At a young age, he decided to give up sex and devote his life to intellectual development. His interests manifested themselves in rather exotic forms. He wrote a study on alternative US history. He spent his adult life working as a simple bookkeeper, wearing traditional country clothes and quitting his job as soon as his genius was discovered. In an effort to live unnoticed, he hid from journalists.

Grade

W. J. Sidis is rated by some biographers as the most gifted man on Earth. Here are the moments of the biography that gave rise to this opinion:

• William learned to write towards the end of his first year of life.
• In the fourth year of his life, he read Homer in the original.
• At the age of six he studied Aristotelian logic.
• Between the ages of 4 and 8 he wrote 4 books, including one monograph on anatomy.
• At the age of seven, he passed the Harvard Medical School exam in anatomy.
• By the age of 8, William knew 8 languages ​​- English, Latin, Greek, Russian, Hebrew, French, German and another one that he invented himself.
• In adulthood, William was fluent in 40 languages, and, according to some authors, this number reached 200.
• At the age of 11, Sidis entered Harvard University and was soon lecturing at the Harvard Mathematics Club.
• He graduated from Harvard with honors at 16.

W. J. Sidis has been criticized by some as the most telling example of the risk that child prodigies run the risk of failing to succeed in adulthood.

Notes

Literature

• Wallace, Amy The Prodigy: A biography of William James Sidis, America's Greatest Child Prodigy, New York: E.P. Duton & Co. 1986.