Talk:William James Sidis/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

What's with thelogics.org as a source?

One of the really tough problems in writing a Wikipedia about the late William James Sidis is finding good sources. Has anyone checked the most used sources in this article against the Wikipedia policy on reliable sources? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 03:54, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Adding (repairing?) archives link

The archive link was missing. It may have been accidentally removed, or intentionally so. I don't know how archives are normally generated, but someone might want to make sure everything is working correctly on this page / maybe watch it for vandalism.--184.63.132.236 (talk) 08:50, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

League of Nations?

This bit might be better explained as one of the many exaggerations about him rather than presented as fact:

"According to The Prodigy: a Biography of William James Sidis he briefly served on the League of Nations before leaving because 28th U.S. president Woodrow Wilson would not withdraw troops deployed during the Great War. He was outspoken about his pacifism."

The League of Nations wasn't formed until Jan 1920, just before Woodrow Wilson's term ended, and the "American Expeditionary Force" of WWI was done withdrawing in 1919. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.119.204.117 (talk) 01:28, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

The Prodigy doesn't say that William served on the League of Nations. Page 154 says that William's father, Boris, was appointed to a peace delegation by President Wilson, and that it was his father who refused to go when President Wilson vowed to continue fighting Russian revolutionaries. William was merely supposed to accompany his father as an interpreter (even though Boris, unlike William, was a native speaker of Russian).

Since The Prodigy is the only source of this information, and because The Prodigy provides no citations and is riddled with errors, I suggest removing this bit until additional sources are found.

However, William's mother, Sarah, visited Russia on behalf of the League of Women voters in 1928-9.

Nabuking (talk) 23:16, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

References

Article needs revision with myths posted in a different section

People should be informed before making an edit or changing info. Just some excerpts by qualified people on WJS:

MIT Professor Daniel Comstock: His method of thinking is real intellect. It is not automatic. He does not cram his head with facts. He reasons. Karl Friedrich Gauss is the only example in history, of all prodigies, whom Sidis resembles. I predict the young Sidis will be a great astronomical mathematician. He’ll evolve new theories and invent new ways of calculating astronomical phenomena. I believe he will be a great mathematician, the leader in that science in the future.’”

Norbert Wiener (Ex-Prodigy): The talk would have done credit to a first- or second-year graduate student of any age.......the talk represented the triumph of the unaided efforts of a very brilliant child.’

“Both Sidis and I were in the class, and it was there that I first became aware of the boy's real ability and how great a loss mathematics suffered in his premature breakdown." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rahully2j (talk • contribs) 09:35, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Buckminister Fuller: I find his whole book to be a fine cosmological piece. . Norbert Wiener used to talk to me about him . . . and Norbert was grieved that Sidis did not go on to fulfill his seemingly great promise of brilliance . . .

A lot of the info is available at Sidis.net. For further information ask for a request. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rahully2j (talk • contribs) 04:58, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Vandalism

This article needs to be completely rewritten and corrected for obvious vandalism. He has a "0" I.Q., was fluent in no languages, was stupid!? Who is steering the ship here? Please, help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1974WALKER (talk • contribs) 16:55, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Vandalism is a common problem with this article, but seems to get quickly reverted. Based on the time you posted this message, you seem to have caught it during one of those cycles. @1974WALKER: you are welcome to edit the article (or almost any WP article) yourself whenever you find vandalism or other details you would like changed. DMacks (talk) 03:13, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply @DMacks

Sorry, I just saw the post. 1974WALKER (talk) 18:05, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal

• The Animate and the Inanimate (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

There doesn't seem to be enough material specifically about this book to warrant an article devoted to it, as opposed to a description in a section here. There's less than a paragraph in Montour (1977), for example, and a passing mention in Bates (2011), which explicitly notes that the book got no attention at the time. No reliable sources have turned up that discuss the science in it, and the claims of originality made in the passing mentions of it are clearly overblown (the concept of a black hole dates back to 1784, and even the calculation within general relativity predates 1920). The Animate and the Inanimate seems only to be discussed in the context of Sidis' life story, which makes it more suitable for inclusion here than as a stand-alone article. XOR'easter (talk) 19:46, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support no evidence of a separate notability from Sidis himself. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:52, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support Having a look through possible sourcing, there doesn't seem to be anything even approaching sufficient notability for a standalone articles. I'd suggest merging to a named subsection above Verdergood language. --tronvillain (talk) 20:37, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
  • That seems like it would be a good place for it. XOR'easter (talk) 21:53, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
• Speedy Merge. I do not anticipate anyone is going to object to this. jps (talk) 11:57, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
• Obvious merge is obvious. Guy (help!) 16:05, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support. Hyperbolick (talk) 04:27, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
  • If anyone wants to go ahead and call this a snow close and implement the merge, that's probably warranted by now. XOR'easter (talk) 04:51, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support as per above comments. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 10:46, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

OK, I've carried out the merge (and done a bit of copy-editing on the text). XOR'easter (talk) 23:31, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

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

This article is riddled with bad sources

This whole section:

Regardless of the exaggerations, Sidis is judged by other high IQ peers such as MIT Physics professor Daniel F. Comstock, Robert M. Pirsig, Doug Renselle,[3] Dan Mahony, Buckminster Fuller[4] and another notable American mathematical prodigy Norbert Wiener to have had the real ability.[5] Sidis became famous first for his precocity and later for his eccentricity and withdrawal from public life. Eventually, he avoided mathematics altogether, writing on other subjects under a number of pseudonyms.

I checked the linked sources and none of them support the claims made in the text above. I think the whole paragraph should be deleted.