The prodigy

September 4, 2003 1:36 PM

William James Sidis: Collector of streetcar transfers and child genius. More in depth information here. (via a discussion on Boing-boing)
posted by sharksandwich (6 comments total)

Hey, he went to my high school, for god's sake, of COURSE he's a genius. He probably didn't smoke as much weed in the Quad as I did, tho.
posted by tristeza at 1:45 PM on September 4, 2003

Frank Folupa.
posted by samuelad at 1:56 PM on September 4, 2003

I believe children should be pushed much harder when it comes to linguistics at a early age - the rate at which they can pick languages up is phenomenal.

Then they can have a nice and relaxed, broad education until they are old enough to hit uni and specialise.

As everyone would be multilingual, we would appreciate other societies and understand more people. This would be a small step towards making the world a better place. And save the hassle of the dullness of GCSE languages, bleurgh.

Its not like toddlers have that much to do anyway..
posted by Mossy at 2:09 PM on September 4, 2003

I believe children should be pushed much harder when it comes to developing a fascination with streetcar transfers.
posted by samuelad at 2:22 PM on September 4, 2003

I believe that children should be pushed much harder. Preferably on the stairs.
posted by Mayor Curley at 3:01 PM on September 4, 2003

Sidis, and other so called "manufactured genius" like him, have always been of interest to me. Are they lessons as to how well-educated our children could become if our public education system were only somehow different, or are they cautionary tales of what happens when a child is challenged to early?

Plus, this link uses the word "peridromophile". Points for that.
posted by anastasiav at 5:00 PM on September 5, 2003