[HN Gopher] The Martians of Budapest
___________________________________________________________________
The Martians of Budapest
Author : privatdozent
Score : 296 points
Date : 2021-10-02 06:38 UTC (16 hours ago)
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| areoform wrote:
| I feel like trying to extract a trend here might be overstating
| the case a bit. It is important to remember that many European
| intellectuals, such as Hans Bethe, Enrico Fermi, James Franck,
| Emilio Segre, Maria Goeppert-Mayer etc, fled to the US due to the
| rise of fascism in Europe.
|
| On the European side, it was one of the greatest acts of self-
| sabotage seen at a civilizational scale. At the American end, it
| was a boon. There were more Noble prize winners hanging around
| coffee machines than you could shake a stick at.
|
| The analysis fails to account for this; for e.g. they weren't
| intelligent just because they were of jewish heritage. They fled
| because they were intelligent _and_ jewish. And those who didn 't
| flee were killed. Is it any wonder that a list of fleeing
| European geniuses that the US govt. allowed entry into the States
| is dominated by jewish geniuses?
|
| Out of this list, the only anomaly that truly stands out, and is
| perhaps the reason why the term "The Martians" was coined is John
| von Neumann. Quoting from a prior comment,
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25455028
|
| It is difficult to overstate just how smart and well rounded von
| Neumann was. Most contemporary accounts are from the outside
| looking in, but his mind was truly extraordinary. He wasn't just
| a genius in one capacity, but he was a genius in every capacity.
| It is tempting to think of him as a savant, but he was far from
| it. He was social, brilliant, artistic, ethically considerate,
| and gifted in every sense of the word. His mind is the kind of
| mind that comes along only once in a millennia. And it becomes
| more and more obvious the closer you get to him.
|
| One of the best memoirs I've read is that of Marina Whitman nee
| von Neumann, his daughter. It is her memoir, with her memories
| and her extraordinary life and career. But her genesis was this
| extraordinary being. von Neumann doted on her. He loved her and
| tried to fulfil the whole of her extraordinary being and train
| her gifted mind. The result was a woman who became an
| extraordinarily perceptive economist who helped guide _some_ of
| the economic policy of the United States. In a way, this wasn 't
| unexpected, as she was, of course, von Neumann's bridge to the
| future.
|
| I would like to avoid reducing her story to him, but she offers a
| unique, familial glimpse into his mind. The early parts of her
| book deal with her father, and talk about his extraordinary mind.
| It's genuinely hard to capture the true dimensions of his mental
| prowess. And it's harder to capture the fact that he knew it and
| he tried to do his best to live up to it. That's what's so
| special about von Neumann. He wasn't just the greatest mind of
| the past millennia in sheer intellectual throughput and ability;
| he was a mind willing to make sacrifices to leave the Earth
| better than he found it. As his daughter puts it,
|
| > _Were it not for his oft-repeated conviction that everyone--man
| or woman--had a moral obligation to make full use of her or his
| intellectual capacities, I might not have pushed myself to such a
| level of academic achievement or set my sights on a lifelong
| professional commitment at a time when society made it difficult
| for a woman to combine a career with family obligations._
|
| and,
|
| > _But my father 's intellectual appetite was by no means
| narrowly confined to mathematics, and his passion for learning
| lasted all his life. He was multilingual at an early age; and
| until his final days, he could quote from memory Goethe in
| German, Voltaire in French, and Thucydides in Greek. His
| knowledge of Byzantine history, acquired entirely through
| recreational reading, equaled that of many academic specialists.
| My mother used to say, only half jokingly, that one of the
| reasons she divorced him was his penchant for spending hours
| reading one of the tomes of an enormous German encyclopedia in
| the bathroom. Because his banker father felt that he needed to
| bolster his study of mathematics with more practical training,
| Johnny completed a degree in chemical engineering at the
| Eidgennossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich, at the
| same time that he received a PhD in mathematics from the
| University of Budapest, both at age twenty-two._
|
| He became cynical over time. She describes his deep pessimism of
| humanity; something compounded by The Bomb. But then again who
| hasn't become a pessimist with time? He still tried to fix humans
| and give them things that would help move them forward. And yes,
| I'm talking about him separately from the rest of humanity,
| because his mind was profoundly different from the rest of
| humanity. As the article quotes Hans Bethe's famous saying, "I
| have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann's does
| not indicate a species superior to that of man." He was The
| Martian.
|
| I don't wish to spoil the book for those who'd like to read it,
| but the prologue is heart wrenching. He died far too young. I
| can't imagine what he might have transformed had he lived into
| his nineties and hundreds.
|
| > _The more important consideration, though, was national
| security. Given the top secret nature of my father 's
| involvements, absolute privacy was essential when, in the early
| stages of his hospitalization, various top-ranking members of the
| military-industrial establishment sat at his bedside to pick his
| brain before it was too late. Vince Ford, an Air Force colonel
| who had been closely involved in the supersecret development of
| an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), along with General
| Bernard Schriever and my father, was assigned as his full-time
| aide. Eight airmen, all with top secret clearance, rotated around
| the clock. Their job was both to attend to my father's everyday
| needs and, in the later stages of his illness, to assure that,
| affected by medication or the advancing cancer, he did not
| inadvertently blurt out military secrets._
|
| And this, the saddest part,
|
| > _After only a few minutes, my father made what seemed to be a
| very peculiar and frightening request from a man who was widely
| regarded as one of the greatest--if not the greatest--
| mathematician of the twentieth century. He wanted me to give him
| two numbers, like seven and six or ten and three, and ask him to
| tell me their sum. For as long as I could remember, I had always
| known that my father 's major source of self-regard, what he felt
| to be the very essence of his being, was his incredible mental
| capacity. In this late stage of his illness, he must have been
| aware that this capacity was deteriorating rapidly, and the panic
| that caused was worse than any physical pain. In demanding that I
| test him on these elementary sums, he was seeking reassurance
| that at least a small fragment of his intellectual powers
| remained._
|
| > _I could only choke out a couple of these pairs of numbers and
| then, without even registering his answers, fled the room in
| tears. Months earlier we had talked, with a candor rare for the
| time, about the fact that, at a shockingly young age and in the
| midst of an extraordinarily productive life, he was going to die.
| But that was still a father-daughter discussion, with him in the
| dominant role. This sudden, humiliating role reversal compounded
| both his pain and mine. After that, my father spoke very little
| or not at all, although the doctors couldn 't offer any physical
| reason for his retreat into silence. My own explanation was that
| the sheer horror of experiencing the deterioration of his mental
| powers at the age of fifty-three was too much for him to bear.
| Added to this pain, I feared, was my apparent betrayal of his
| dreams for his only child, his link to the future which was being
| denied to him._
|
| Whitman, Marina. The Martian's Daughter (p. 3). University of
| Michigan Press. Kindle Edition.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Martians-Daughter-Memoir-Marina-Whitm...
|
| On a more shameless note, I'm compiling this as a part of my
| Project Karl. It's one of those books that I think everyone
| should know about and read, but few do.
| https://www.projectkarl.com
| cinntaile wrote:
| > His mind is the kind of mind that comes along only once in a
| millennia.
|
| I'm sure the guy was smart, but lets not overdo it.
| [deleted]
| kragen wrote:
| Maybe Newton was on the same level? Or Gauss? Or Leonardo?
|
| Or maybe not.
|
| There have probably been dozens of people in the past
| millennium who had the _potential_ to develop that kind of
| mind, but most of them probably lived and died without the
| opportunity to develop their gifts, whether because of
| enslavement, rural poverty, or lack of access to education.
| mandmandam wrote:
| I really don't know if that's overdoing it. Da Vinci might
| compare, but I suspect that even he would be in awe at some
| of Neumann's abilities.
| throwaway34241 wrote:
| His wikipedia page goes into more detail on that front.
| Considered the top mathematician of his time (with also major
| contributions to physics and computer science), other world-
| class mathematicians and physicists being in awe of his
| abilities, sometimes solving (never before answered) math
| problems _easily_ , being able to recite word-for-word the
| books and articles he read, years after reading them,
| simultaneously translating them as necessary, etc.
|
| Ordinarily that would be hyperbole...
| carapace wrote:
| I don't think you can overdo it when it comes to Jansci
|
| "There was a seminar for advanced students in Zurich that I
| was teaching and von Neumann was in the class. I came to a
| certain theorem, and I said it is not proved and it may be
| difficult. von Neumann didn't say anything but after five
| minutes he raised his hand. When I called on him he went to
| the blackboard and proceeded to write down the proof. After
| that I was afraid of von Neumann" -- _George Polya_
|
| "von Neumann would carry on a conversation with my 3-year-old
| son, and the two of them would talk as equals, and I
| sometimes wondered if he used the same principle when he
| talked to the rest of us." -- _Edward Teller_
|
| ...One afternoon around 4:50 p.m. John von Neumann came by
| and saw what Fermi had on the blackboard and asked what he
| was doing. So Enrico told him and John von Neumann said
| "That's very interesting." He came back about 15 minutes
| later and gave him the answer. Fermi leaned against his
| doorpost and told me, "You know that man makes me feel I know
| no mathematics at all." -- _Enrico Fermi_
|
| "You know, Herb, Johnny can do calculations in his head ten
| times as fast as I can. And I can do them ten times as fast
| as you can, so you can see how impressive Johnny is" --
| _Enrico Fermi_ again
|
| "One had the impression of a perfect instrument whose gears
| were machined to mesh accurately to a thousandth of an inch."
| -- _Eugene Wigner_
|
| It goes on and on...
|
| https://superintelligence.fandom.com/wiki/John_von_Neumann_(.
| ..
| cinntaile wrote:
| How does this tell us something about the last 1000 years?
| You want to call him the smartest man of the 20th century
| sure go ahead, but you hardly have any idea about the other
| 9 centuries.
| carapace wrote:
| Can you point to anyone like him in the recorded history
| of the last thousand years? There may well be some whose
| lives were unrecorded or of whom the records were lost.
| marton78 wrote:
| Gauss comes to mind.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Gauss far exceeded von neuman in mathematical impact and
| pushing math forward. So did many other mathematicians
| that were contemporaries of von neuman. The same for
| physics. Von Neuman would not even be in the list of top
| 10 mathematicians in the 20th Century, let alone of all
| time. The twentieth century had giants like Kolmogorov,
| Hilbert, Grothendieck, none of whom were smarter than von
| neumann, but they made far greater discoveries.
|
| But this just shows that when you are talking about
| _impact_ as opposed to _intelligence_ , a lot of things
| other than IQ come into play. I am certain von neumann
| was much smarter than Gauss, but Gauss had an instinct
| for discovery that was remarkable. Newton is another
| example -- someone not nearly as brilliant as Von Neuman
| (my impression) but had an incredibly deep insight and
| much bigger impact. They say that Feynman's IQ was ~120,
| which would certainly be lower than von neuman, but he
| made a much bigger impact as well.
| 363849473754 wrote:
| I wouldn't go far as to say Von Neumann was smarter than
| Grothendieck. I think they're both different types of
| geniuses, where their genius manifest in different ways.
| Grothendieck was a genius in working with extremely deep
| abstractions, I'd say he eclipses Von Neumann in this
| way, whereas Von Neumann had a different type of genius
| in which he eclipsed others at. In Grothendieck's case he
| was a profound genius, who made profound impacts in
| mathematics.
|
| Another mathematician that reminds me of Von Neumann is
| Euler. He also memorized long passages and could do
| complicated calculations in his head quickly.
|
| A quote on Euler from wikipedia:
|
| "He was able to, for example, repeat the Aeneid of Virgil
| from beginning to end without hesitation, and for every
| page in the edition he could indicate which line was the
| first and which was the last even decades after having
| read it"
| prvc wrote:
| >I wouldn't go far as to say Von Neumann was smarter than
| Grothendieck
|
| He famously recounted his inability to derive Heron's
| formula for the area of a triangle when he was a teenager
| (despite realizing that such a formula ought to exist via
| conceptual reasoning), and seems to have subsequently
| kept an unbalanced set of talents in the same vein.
| G3nD wrote:
| "ethically considerate" Didn't he want to nuke the USSR as soon
| as possible?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| IIRC the quote I've seen on HN, it wasn't "nuke USSR as soon
| as possible", but more like "given that you already want to
| nuke Moscow tomorrow, why not do it today?".
| SaintGhurka wrote:
| It's probably not fair to judge that without recalling that
| he was a teenager during the Red Terror in Hungary.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror_(Hungary)
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Right. So it's ethically considerate to kill 50 million
| people in pure vengeance for 600?
| marton78 wrote:
| That was not his reason, as I stated in another comment.
| You're free to educate yourself about his thoughts on the
| matter, which would be much more productive than a snarky
| comment.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I have already. I don't believe what he said publicly. I
| see no reason why I would have to. He was noted to be
| much more cruel and unconcerned with the destructive
| power of the nuclear bomb than his peers and recommended
| the nuking of civilian targets. He spoke of the necessity
| to destroy the USSR on ideological grounds. The idea that
| a preemptive strike would be limited against a nuclearly
| armed country is preposterous and ridiculous, and he had
| already suggested nuking for population destruction
| instead of military use.
| marton78 wrote:
| Yes, but due to ethical considerations. One doesn't have to
| agree with the outcome of his reasoning, but it's well
| established that his reasons were ethical, not cynical or
| egoistic.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The ethical considerations of killing 50+ million?
| marton78 wrote:
| He was convinced that without an American preemptive
| strike, even more would die. He was wrong of course, as
| we now know, but it wasn't clear at that time.
|
| There's an episode of Hardcore History on this topic, I
| think the title was "Destroyer of Worlds".
| sudosysgen wrote:
| It was pretty clear at the time that the Soviets had no
| intention or capability to destroy the US in such a way
| that the US would not able to respond with a nuclear
| strike.
|
| He was noted by his colleagues to be exceptionally
| unperturbed by his work. He recommended that the US
| strike Kyoto despite having no military significance to
| speak of.
|
| He himself admitted that he was ideologically violently
| opposed to the existence of the USSR. It's clear that his
| motives were not about minimizing death and destruction.
| beerandt wrote:
| One of the early arguments for a first strike was the ability
| to target military installations only.
|
| Due to the limitations in early US targeting ability, a US
| counter strike likely meant having to go with a counter-value
| response instead of a counter-force one. Meaning bigger
| targets like cities over smaller military-only targets.
|
| So if you worked under the presumption that war with the
| Soviets was inevitable, a first strike _avoided_ mass
| casualties in the magnitude of 10s of millions in favor of
| decapitating military targets.
|
| So yes, there is a logical argument that it would be the more
| ethical choice.
|
| It wasn't until the 80's with advances in both
| surveying/geodesy (predicting precise ballistic trajectories
| taking into account local variances in gravity) and
| targeting/ delivery accuracy (B-1, B-2, peacekeeper ICBMs,
| and better SLBMs) that the game-theory changed.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| That's just not realistic. The Soviet army relied on its
| productive capabilities to wage war. Without destroying
| cities, nuclear war with the USSR would simply be absurd.
|
| Beyond that, American intelligence in the USSR was weak,
| and they wouldn't have been able to pin down high value
| military targets. They'd also have serious issues striking
| deep within the USSR.
|
| Von Neumann also recommended that Kyoto, instead of
| Hiroshima or Nagasaki, be nuked, despite it having very
| little military significance and leading to many more
| deaths.
|
| By the time he started proposing a strike of the USSR, the
| USSR had already started deploying early warning radar, jet
| interceptors and even guided missile systems designed
| specifically to stop B-29s carryig nuclear bombs. In
| testing they proved to be even more effective than needed
| to completely protect the installations they were defending
| against slow and heavy bombers. A strike in 1951 would have
| been a total disaster and would have not at all stopped
| their industry. The US didn't even know where they were
| making bombs.
|
| His political views were that coexistence with the USSR was
| impossible. As it turns out, the USSR had no plans of
| invading the US, he was simply wrong.
|
| Let's not try to whitewash history. Neumann knew that
| Soviet intelligence and counter intelligence was
| formidable. He knew that the strength of the Soviet
| military was in its cities . He had already recommended
| nuclear strikes on civilian population centers with low
| military value. He was noted by his fellow physicists to be
| unperturbed by his work. It's quite unlikely that he had
| any illusions about what as needed to actually stop the
| Soviet war machine.
|
| He thought that the Soviet Union could coexist with the US.
| He was violent in his hatred of the Soviets and was
| militaristic. He thought that the US had to defeat the
| Soviets sooner than later. Surely we both realize that this
| means millions of dead.
| AQuantized wrote:
| I do think someone European geniuses like Heisenberg were
| destroyed by WWII instead of enlivened by it, working on the
| German nuclear project they didn't want nor think they could
| succeed in, and surrounded by comparatively few other geniuses.
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| prvc wrote:
| When I was a child, I enjoyed working through a book called
| "Hungarian Problem Book", which contained much more interesting
| and fun problems than I had seen up to that point. It certainly
| had a stimulating and energizing effect on me. Worth a look if
| you're interested in math problems.
| graycat wrote:
| There is a lot of discussion in this thread about intelligence,
| Hungarians, Jews, old central European schools and coffee shops,
| etc.
|
| In my experience, the main conclusion I come to is: Humans are
| super TOUGH to characterize, measure meaningfully, predict, etc.
| SUPER tough.
|
| E.g., there is the stumbling block of the usual dichotomy of
| _nature_ (i.e., genetics, DNA) and _nurture_ (i.e., the
| environment of their childhood, etc.).
|
| We can try to focus on just the _nature_ part, but again we get
| stumbling blocks of the wide variety of outcomes from, seemingly,
| too many _factors_.
|
| Sure, can give a test with 100 questions to millions of people
| and then use the linear algebra principle components
| decomposition to find 100 orthogonal _factors_ and eigenvalues.
| Then there is a claim that IQ is just the largest of the 100
| factors. Sooooo, that omits 99 other factors. Hmm .... Then,
| tough to have much faith in IQ.
|
| So, we can suspect that the other 99 factors can help or ruin the
| effect of the IQ factor. In my experience, that can happen.
|
| I'm not Jewish or Hungarian and have never made any particular
| effort to have contact with either, but one way and another by
| accident or forces unknown at the time to me have had some
| contact. So:
|
| (a) Dad thought that a big advantage would be a college education
| so I got one.
|
| (b) Mom thought that a big advantage would be a Ph.D. so I got
| one. So did my brother.
|
| (c) In grades 1-8, the teachers regarded me as in the bottom half
| of the class, maybe near or at the bottom of the class. So I
| tended to give up on school or trying to do well. My parents were
| fine with that.
|
| (d) I'm a male, and, as is common for boys, by the 8th grade my
| handwriting was still a mess. So, with that mess, my accuracy in
| 8th grade arithmetic was poor, and the teacher warmly advised me
| never to take anymore math.
|
| (e) In the 9th grade, I saw that I could do well in math so did.
| My main motivation was to reverse the 8 years of the teachers
| treating me as a poor student. Sooooo, that was the goofy reason
| I got into math. Lesson: A lot of what happens to people can be
| from just goofy reasons that have nothing to do with IQ or
| ability.
|
| The school I went to in grades 1-12 was intended as the city's
| premier college prep school. Supposedly 97% of the students went
| on to college. Since there was no Jewish high school in town, the
| Jewish kids also went to that school. Then in the Math SATs, of
| #1, #2, #3, I was #2 and #1 and #3 were Jewish. I had done nearly
| as well or a little better than both of them in grade 9-12 math
| classes. I had made no effort to _compete_ : I had come to like
| math and enjoyed cutting off insults from the teachers. I didn't
| see anything very special about the _abilities_ of the Jewish
| students.
|
| As I continued in math, I heard about several of the names of the
| Jewish Hungarian mathematicians in the OP: Halmos remains my
| favorite author. Once I got von Neumann's _Quantum Mechanics_ and
| got through the first half, just some math, the physics was
| later, easily enough before got interrupted by other work. Von
| Neumann 's game theory work was heavily around the saddle point
| result, and that is an easy result of duality in the linear
| algebra of linear programming. I heard about Wigner since my
| ugrad honors paper was on group representations for molecular
| spectroscopy. Early in my career, I was at GE as they took
| Kemeny's work on Basic and timesharing, etc. and made a business
| out of it. Later I was reading Feynman's _Lectures_ and saw his
| remark that a particle of unknown position has uniform
| probability distribution over all of space. If that space has the
| usual assumption of infinite area, then there can be no such
| distribution. For the Manhattan Project picture of von Neumann,
| Feynman, and Ulam, once I used Ulam 's result _tightness_ in a
| paper I published. Once I published a paper on a fine detail
| about the (Karush) Kuhn-Tucker conditions. Later I saw that the
| famous paper of Arrow (mentioned in the OP), Hurwicz, and Uzawa
| mentioned a problem, and my work solved that problem also. The
| Chair of my Ph.D. orals committee was Jewish -- the brightest
| prof in his department was not Jewish or Hungarian.
|
| Point: I've never had any ambitions to be at the top of
| academics, but I have not found that work the Jews or Hungarians
| do is too difficult to understand or, in some cases, extend.
|
| As an example of the influence of the other 99 _factors_ , maybe
| the brightest person I knew was my wife. She was Valedictorian,
| PBK, _Summa Cum Laude_ , ..., etc. But some of those 99 factors
| proved fatal.
|
| Concluding Suggestion: When see some good work, e.g., the Halmos
| work on _sufficient statistics_ , a good performance of the Bach
| _Chaconne_ , e.g.,
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngjEVKxQCWs
|
| or the
|
| Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto no.2
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEGOihjqO9w
|
| etc., just be glad for such good parts of civilization, credit
| the person doing the work, and f'get about whatever 100 _factors_
| , nature, nurture, etc. were the _cause_.
| qsi wrote:
| For further perspective, I also recommend reading Scott
| Alexander's retelling at
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-consid...
| IlliOnato wrote:
| It's a bit strange that Scott Alexander, when counting famous
| physicists with Jewish ancestry, counts zero of Russian/Soviet
| ones, and ever tries to explain this (pogroms, persecution,
| etc.)
|
| There is quite a number of such physicists. Lev Landau, Abram
| Ioffe, Igor Tamm, Mikhail Leontovich, Zhores Alferov, Alexander
| Friedmann, Matvei Bronstein.
|
| A list of famous Russian/Jewish mathematicians is also
| impressive.
|
| Overall, ethnic Jews were totally over-represented in Soviet
| science...
| epivosism wrote:
| Noticeably long lifespans. I realize it's hard to quantify this
| but just eyeballing it, for a group of 10 people who got famous
| before age 50, born that far back, to have four members break 90
| seems unusual - including wartime or other disease-related
| deaths.
|
| The fact that IQ tests can predict longevity is interesting.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC30556/
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothian_birth-cohort_studies
|
| John von Neumann=54, Paul Erdos=83, Eugene Wigner=93, Leo
| Szilard=66, Edward Teller=95, Theodore von Karman=82, John
| Hersanyi=80, John G. Kemeny=66, Paul Halmos=90, George Polya=98
| dredmorbius wrote:
| n: 10, sum: 807, min: 54, max: 98, mean: 80.700000, median:
| 82.5, sd: 14.507086
| mritchie712 wrote:
| Does that control for income? I'd imagine a good bit would be
| explained by that.
| ovi256 wrote:
| IQ predicts income too.
| beebeepka wrote:
| I'd imagine the main thing is genetics and way of living. One
| of my grandpas lived to almost 100 and he's always been poor.
| Very, very poor
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Same with my grandpa, has to do with calorie-rich food like
| meat was only consumed maybe once a week, on Sunday. Meat
| was a luxury, they ate mostly potatoes, bread and thick
| veggie soups.
| oblak wrote:
| Kind of shocking this has been downvoted. I guess it is
| finally daytime in the US...
|
| These kinds of threads always go downhill around that time
| potatoman22 wrote:
| That's a pretty prejudiced thing to say
| oblak wrote:
| Sadly, it has been my experience
| riffraff wrote:
| I think "some" poverty for people born in the first half of
| the 20th century is correlated with long life spans.
|
| People didn't eat much and had healthier food (more veggies
| because those were cheaper), spent a lot of time outdoors
| or doing physical work. They got the good stuff of the
| "olden times", but still reaped a lot of the benefits of
| modern medicine especially in their late years.
|
| I am worried my generation won't live as long as my
| grandparents' on average.
| zuzun wrote:
| Since the article discusses the origin of the term, Richard
| Rhodes in The Making of the Atomic Bomb writes:
|
| > Otto Frisch remembers that his friend Fritz Houtermans [..]
| proposed the popular theory that "these people were really
| visitors from Mars"
|
| His Wikipedia article goes into more details:
|
| > Houtermans had a great sense of humor. Many have commented on
| this, and one of his colleagues, Haro von Buttlar, collected
| stories told by Houtermans and privately published them in a book
| with more than 40 pages. One story purports to explain the
| contributions of seven of the twentieth century's most
| exceptional scientists, Theodore von Karman, George de Hevesy,
| Michael Polanyi, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann,
| and Edward Teller, all Hungarians. According to Houtermans, they
| are Martians, who are afraid that their accents will give them
| away, so they masquerade as Hungarians, i.e., people unable to
| speak any language but Hungarian without an accent.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Houtermans#Personal
| wolf550e wrote:
| They were all Jewish. Jews are over-represented in Physics
| Nobel prize laureats, not just Hungarian Jews.
| proto-n wrote:
| More discussion about this:
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-
| consid...
| noir_lord wrote:
| Possibly a double whammy effect of been Hungarian _and_
| Jewish.
|
| My partner is Hungarian and they put an emphasis on rigorous
| education across the board that we (in the UK or at least my
| part of it) don't.
|
| Outside of the upper middle-class and above there is a strong
| streak of anti-intellectualism in England (I can't speak for
| the other member countries of the UK) and certainly the case
| in the working class schools I was educated in, you'd get
| bullied for been the class swot basically.
| Swizec wrote:
| > My partner is Hungarian and they put an emphasis on
| rigorous education across the board that we (in the UK or
| at least my part of it) don't.
|
| I wonder if this is an Austro-Hungary effect or a central
| Europe thing. Every country I know of that follows the
| German education system is considered to "put an emphasis
| on rigorous education across the board".
|
| Whenever we compare notes from my Slovenian schooling with
| American friends it seems like the US education system is a
| joke by comparison.
|
| Although in official rankings we score lower so who knows.
| Maybe I just got lucky
| ricardobayes wrote:
| It's called the prussian school model, focuses heavily on
| memorizing and lexical knowledge. But is very poor on
| teamwork and preparing you for real life. Prussian
| (German) society needed reliable factory workers so
| that's why school starts so early (7:30-8:00 AM) to
| pretty much condition children to get up early, be
| obedient and just focus on the job.
| riffraff wrote:
| I believe this is the average experience of most in
| Europe, I am Italian and I find the US (lower) education
| system worse than the Italian one too, and we score
| _terribly_ in all international rankings.
|
| I believe it's probably a different distribution:
| european education is maybe flattened around the average,
| while in the US there is possibly a wider distribution.
| kaba0 wrote:
| I'm sorry but as a Hungarian, this is laughable.
|
| Any positive we had at a time comes from socialism's
| general focus on education (one of the few positives of it)
| - eg. both Russian and Hungarian math education went up to
| differentiation/integration by the end of secondary school.
| It also had very extensive programs for talented students.
|
| Unfortunately, currently we have seriously laughable pay
| for teachers (barely above the seriously laughable minimal
| pay), so we have a bunch of burnt out, old teacher with no
| motivation.
| dralley wrote:
| >Any positive we had at a time comes from socialism's
| general focus on education (one of the few positives of
| it)
|
| If we're still talking about "the martians" here, don't
| they predate the socialist control of Hungary by at least
| a decade?
| emteycz wrote:
| Yes. But the Austro-Hungarians had famously good (for the
| time) schools all over the empire.
| cpursley wrote:
| This is a big problem in America as well, especially
| pronounced in certain subcultures.
| mountainplus wrote:
| I'd like to offer my point as Hungarian, and enthusiast of the
| history of Hungarian mathematics education, who heard lots of
| stories from math teacher grandparents.
|
| This article is great read, well researched and quoted. Still, I
| think what it really misses to hit home and hammer down is the
| context and background where it all came from: the unbelievable
| greatness of the math education and math teachers of this country
| with streak going on over 100 years even though we might be at
| the end tail now (but still, great results still being achieved
| at the math olympics, if that is a metric that would matter to
| the reader: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38xeYPAUPd0).
|
| So while the Martians are of course worthy of accolades since
| their (+ || -) contributions and their unique and sad background
| are much more exceptional than every one of their peers but they
| weren't just one off geniuses. They were a culmination of many
| things.
|
| From year to year, like some american sports draft an unusually
| high output of great systems thinkers and numbermongers entered
| almost all fields of real sciences.
|
| It all starts perhaps w/ Sipos Pal, Farkas Gyula, and the father
| Bolyai Farkas, figureheads of Hungarian sciences of the 19th
| century. They set down the basics of sciences education of
| Hungary with decades of hard work. They and their peers organised
| societies for math and physics and later started publishing KoMal
| math journal - mentioned in the article - in 1891 which is still
| active to this day) to be able to build out common curriculum
| integrating the advanced concepts of the time, Bolyai also
| traveled Europe went to Gottingen and befriended Gauss to start
| creating continental connections. The wider context always proved
| to be favorable except the abhorrent times of 2nd world war. But
| even then, these amazing people of course had to flee for their
| lives but during their childhood they were able to develop their
| crafts because first the Austro-Hungarian Empire then also the
| interwar "kingdom" needed to display intellectual sovereignty and
| then when socialism slided in, that regime was highly interested
| in praising the sciences instead of religion, and also did good
| by opening up universities and education in general for the women
| the poor the peasents. For the past 150 years, up until now this
| also meant that being sciences teacher in elementary or high-
| school were most respectable and lifelong vocations held in high
| regard in these societies. It's an incredibly delicate and
| complicated topic that I might not have the vocabulary to flesh
| out fully.
|
| So to get back to the main poin, that the Martians weren't
| Martians in the context of the history of maths in Hungary. By
| the time the next generation grew up the flood gates have opened,
| here's a semi-random sampling sans Martians, starting from 1802
| until 1960s, the main epicenters being Transylvania -> Budapest
| -> Szeged -> Budapest && Debrecen && Szeged, so it was really not
| just a locality in say 1 city:
|
| son Bolyai Janos, Eotvos Lorand, Valyi Gyula, Konig Denes &
| brother Konig Gyorgy, Fejer Lipot _, Szego Gabor, Riesz Frigyes_
| & brother Marcell, Haar Alfred _, Szokefalvy-nagy father & son_
| (before the Martians these 4 were the first generation of widely
| famous Hungarian mathematicians, I believe), Szego Gabor,
| Egervary Jeno, Kerekjarto Bela, Lanczos Kornel, Rado Tibor,
| Nemenyi Pal, Redei Laszlo, Kalmar Laszlo, Janossy Lajos, the
| couple Szekeres Eszter and Gyorgy, Peter Rozsa, Hajos Gyorgy, the
| power couple Turan Pal and T. Sos Vera, Gallai Tibor, Fejes Toth
| Laszlo, Suranyi Janos, Bodo Zalan, Erdos' favourite pal Renyi
| Alfred, Fary Istvan, Lax Peter, Csaszar Akos, Hajnal Andras,
| Aczel Janos, Csakany Bela, Szemeredi Endre, Bollobas Bela, Lovasz
| Laszlo, Csirmaz Laszlo, Tusnady Gabor, Barany Imre, Babai Laszlo,
| Furedi Zoltan, Komjath Peter, Pach Janos, Stipsicz Andras
|
| (Important to note that as in many fields these great scientists
| were also teaching, and many of the teachers below were also
| researching and publishing.)
|
| My heart and admiration goes out to all these brilliant minds.
| It's all due to the opportunity to learn, which was made
| available through the works and sacrifices of great teachers:
|
| Ratz Laszlo has been portrayed in the article but there are more:
|
| Sutak Jozsef, Arany Daniel, Konig Gyula, Farago Andor & brother
| Laszlo, Bauer Mihaly, Jordan Karoly, Szele Tibor, Soos Paula,
| Varga Otto, Szasz Pal, Kunfalvi Rezso, Bakos Tibor, Szenassy
| Barna, Imrecze Zoltanne, Farkas Miklos, Rabai Imre, Posa Lajos,
| Pataki Janos, and the many unnamed dedicated and humane teachers
| who worked hard every day with every class.
|
| (And not to forget Kulin Gyorgy, who founded amateur astronomy in
| Hungary and is the most important astronomy teacher and
| discoverer of our country.)
|
| I wouldn't know this much if not for the collected writings of
| Vekerdi Laszlo, a great historian of maths educators and
| mathematicians of the country and Szenassy Barna who wrote a huge
| monography.
|
| Unfortunately there aren't many good links in [EN] except for
| Wikipedia but I tried to extend on the part of the article that I
| think it is crucial for correct understanding and historical
| clarity. I wish I would have time to write a sentence or two
| about each of these names. I can't do that right now but there
| are some great books in English to read for those who are
| interested.
|
| How odd but how great. It's a disaster and hard to quantify the
| loss caused by the fascistic decade or so.
|
| And to the author, lastly: Thanks for spreading the word!
| Animats wrote:
| This is an old story, and is mentioned in various books about the
| Manhattan Project and Los Alamos.
|
| Part of the article is missing, in the section about the high
| school years, above "of von Karman in 1872". Many of that group
| went to high schools in a very small geographical area.
| friendly_chap wrote:
| Hungarian perspective here:
|
| I believe there are a couple of factors at play here.
|
| First of all, most (perhaps all) of those people are Hungarian
| Jews, and Jewish people (imho) are both very intelligent and
| their culture values education a lot. Hungary had a very large
| Jewish population at the time, so no wonder we produced so many
| great scientists!
|
| Second is the Hungarian language. Ede Teller specifically said
| his scientific achievements are thanks to the Hungarian language,
| and without it he could only be a high school teacher. I can find
| a few sources if you want, and the ones I know about might not be
| accurate, but for example Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who spoke
| 58 languages himself, said of our language: "Do you know which
| language, because of its constructive ability and the harmony of
| its rhythm, comes before all the others? The Hungarian! It seems
| as if the Hungarians themselves do not know the treasure of their
| language...".
|
| Third Hungary at that point was a rather developed country,
| unlike now. Budapest metro opened after the London one, as the
| worlds' second.
|
| Edit: Fourth, not related to the previous 3 as not unique to
| Hungary, but there were probably "network effects" at play.
| Science does not happen in a vacuum, as Paul Erdos said for him
| maths is a social activity (as witnessed by his vagabond tendency
| to move in with his peers and work on problems while living at
| their house). So probably having all these great minds in related
| fields was a kind of a feedback loop.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| I've never heard anyone before making the claim that Hungarian
| in any way assists intellectual capacity.
|
| I do believe there is something to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,
| but not to _this_ degree. I know that, for example, Chinese
| students have a greater aptitude for basic arithmetic because
| in Chinese the sounds for the numbers are shorter and simpler
| than in most languages. This makes longer numbers easier to
| hold in short-term memory, assisting mental arithmetic. But...
| that 's not going to churn out award-winning theoreticians!
|
| I'm curious to know why anyone would make the claim that
| Hungarian is "that special" for intellectual thought. It's a
| bit of an odd duck of a language, sure. But not _that_ special.
| To my knowledge the main beneficial property it has is that its
| structure makes it especially suitable for poetry. However, it
| shares that trait with Latin and I believe French also.
| kaba0 wrote:
| I'm not sure why you are downvoted.
|
| I'm a native speaker and I did have a phase as a teenager
| when I thought that language must have to do something with
| intellect, mostly based on some nationalistic feeling. But
| I'm yet to find anything that would make it that special.
|
| The only rare linguistic thing it has is double negation (we
| say I've never not eaten something instead of never eaten) -
| which might paradoxically help? (Due to people having to
| leave behind linguistic symbolism to properly do logical
| reasoning? But I'm entirely guessing here)
| AQuantized wrote:
| It's interesting that Hungarian is one of the few Uralic
| languages in modern Europe, alongside Finnish and Estonian as
| the other 2 major representatives. Finland and Estonian could
| be argued to have enjoyed outsized success in STEM fields as
| well. I wonder if there could be value in learning languages
| with divergent roots. Most Europeans learn multiple languages,
| but typically they have similar roots (Indo-European) and a
| fair amount of crossover.
|
| There is some evidence for the weak form of linguistic
| relativity, the idea that language can have significant impact
| on cognition. Perhaps taken to the extreme, with learning many
| varied and highly divergent languages at a young age, it can
| explain some of e.g. von Neumann's brilliance.
| sampo wrote:
| There is a fringe theory, that agglutinative languages with
| consistent vocabulary are more effortless for children to
| learn. So children would spend less time learning and
| memorizing words, and could proceed faster to learn other
| things.
|
| English vocabulary is a patchwork with origins from several
| different languages, so words with related meaning can look
| different. Whereas for example Finnish is consistent:
| kirjoittaa - to write kirjailija - writer
| kirja - book kirje - letter kirjasto -
| library kirjallisuus - literature kirjasin -
| font
|
| In this way, you can learn the same vocabulary by learning
| maybe 5x smaller amount of root words.
|
| http://finnish-and-pisa.blogspot.com/
| jiggawatts wrote:
| I learned to read and write Hungarian in a matter of
| _weeks_. It is spelled phonetically, with only a handful of
| special cases. It 's hilariously easy.
|
| English is a random mish-mash of at least four languages,
| making it seem very random and ad-hoc. However, it
| mercifully uses the latin alphabet. Chinese is just a
| nightmare, with students spending most of their schooling
| just to become literate...
| tigerlily wrote:
| Which resources did you use to learn to rw Hungarian so
| fast?
| kaba0 wrote:
| As far as I know, even the weak form of linguistic relativity
| is heavily disputed.
|
| Please see my sibling comment with a well-written article on
| a more likely reason.
| friendly_chap wrote:
| Probably. But when Edward Teller himself states it, I tend
| to listen. Perhaps he said jokingly though.
| growt wrote:
| I believe it. My wife is Hungarian and I'm trying to
| learn the language. I'm german myself and I think german
| is already quite complex, but Hungarian is just nuts (or
| probably martian). At some points I accused my teacher
| that she is just making stuff up on the fly ;)
| friendly_chap wrote:
| I do believe that is the case and I have my pet layman
| unscientific theories too about languages. For example I
| believe English not being phonetic and often times
| pronounciation not making any sense trains people to accept
| things "as is", make them get over illogical things way
| easier. I believe this makes a someone more prone to respect
| authority, which was confirmed by my years in the UK. Of
| course life is messy and you can never be sure.
|
| Just a toy hunch I like to think about from time to time. I
| wish I could see English with its original alphabet before
| being forced into the confines of the latin one. Apparently
| many sounds are misrepresented due to that.
| tome wrote:
| > I believe this makes a someone more prone to respect
| authority, which was confirmed by my years in the UK.
|
| Whether the British are prone to respect authority because
| of their language is debatable. It's less debatable whether
| those in a larger Anglophone nation are prone to respect
| authority! Just look at some of the behaviours we've seen
| over the last 18 months.
| bserge wrote:
| I've observed the British respect other people, society and
| hierarchy. Not authority per se. That's the Germans heh.
| noir_lord wrote:
| > I believe this makes a someone more prone to respect
| authority, which was confirmed by my years in the UK. Of
| course life is messy and you can never be sure.
|
| I doubt that as the largest country by English as a first
| language is the US and I wouldn't say that those folks on
| the whole respect authority in the same way that we do.
|
| I think the way authority is respected in the UK has more
| to do with our endemic class system (which still exists)
| _and_ the fact that unlike most European countries we never
| had a revolution in the last couple of centuries (came
| close at points and of course there was Cromwell but that
| was a different kind of revolution and much earlier).
| _moof wrote:
| Lots of languages have orthographic depth. I doubt you'll
| find a correlation if you look at more than one or two
| languages/cultures. Heck, the French only pronounce half
| their letters, and they _killed_ their monarchs.
| friendly_chap wrote:
| Hungarian pretty much only does that to ease
| pronounciation, ie. when two consonants can't be
| pronounced after each other eg. "utca" (means street)
| etc.
| kaba0 wrote:
| For a more accurate dissection on the topic please read this
| already linked blog post:
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-consid...
|
| TLDR: the reason indeed has to do with Ashkenazi Jews, who are
| genetically more likely to have high IQ (at the price of
| several illness specific only to them), but also the number of
| them at the country and their class. The reason Martians is
| called out as an "anomaly", is due to Hungary being thought of
| as a small country unlikely to give so many talented people to
| the world. But the fact is, that countries having similar
| percentage of Ashkenazi Jewish people had similar percentage of
| Nobel price winners, eg. Germany. It's just thought of as a
| bigger country where it doesn't seem as extraordinary.
| rat87 wrote:
| > Ashkenazi Jews, who are genetically more likely to have
| high IQ
|
| As an Ashkenazi Jew I think this theory is likely nonsense,
| but dangerous nonsense which can drive racism.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Well, I did found a few studies on the topic, but would not
| call it having overwhelming evidence so you may be right.
|
| I couldn't make as good a job as the linked article, but
| what other explanation could you give on the very real
| difference between the racial composition of scientific
| geniuses vs the "average" people (define the former as you
| prefer)? Because one definition (number of Nobel prize
| winners) will definitely wake racist explanations. The
| article very clearly goes into several possible
| explanations, rejecting most of them.
|
| It was not the particular school, nor the city, Jewish
| cultural heritage could have an effect but afaik not every
| Jewish Nobel prize winner held strictly onto religious
| traditions (though still, it is a standing possible
| explanation, especially with a strong view on the
| importance of education as culture doesn't stop at
| religion). Being of higher class families definitely
| correlates with every sorts of success, but it is not
| specific to Jewish people.
|
| So I'm still not bought on the environment-only
| explanation. Of course it is never only nature or nurture
| for complex situations, but a more "fertile ground" for
| studying will amplify other nurture effects as well.
|
| I'm writing all these as a non-Jewish Hungarian though, so
| my thoughts are definitely not from nationalism or racism,
| but more from a form of awe (though I agree that positive
| discrimination/bias may also be problematic)
| rbanffy wrote:
| Racism is always a stick. The same reasoning that would say
| Ashkenazis are smarter than the general population can be
| used to say the general population is less intelligent, or
| valuable.
|
| Humanity is immensely diverse and our tools to measure
| value are extremely flawed and unreliable.
|
| Let's not forget there are probably many Tellers and Von
| Neumanns that never got to university because they couldn't
| afford it and are now tending tables to pay for rent. It
| doesn't make them any less valuable or talented. It just
| makes them less successful and visible.
| xyzelement wrote:
| Just curious, why? Are you looking at the theory, saying "I
| don't like what it implies therefore I wish it were false"
| or is there more to it?
|
| I don't know what the answer is but I do feel that Jews
| culturally value intelligence/education and I can see how
| that leads to it being sought and passed on in marriage and
| children.
| pvg wrote:
| Because it's fairly plain genetic determinism, the same
| kind of theory that postulated the superiority of, say,
| 'Aryans'.
| IlliOnato wrote:
| While I have my doubts about that theory, there is
| nothing deterministic about this "genetic determinism".
| It says nothing about human value or "superiority".
|
| It basically says that in Ashkenazi Jewish gene pool
| there could be higher prevalence of genes that make
| carriers better than average in certain cognitive tasks
| (which happened to be valuable in XIX-XX centuries, but
| were in much lesser demand before, BTW).
|
| It says nothing whatever about any particular Jew or non-
| Jew.
|
| And even if we find a particular gene in a particular
| person, there is no determinism. Other genes,
| nurture/upbringing, and sheer luck would play just as
| important a role.
|
| And of course IQ is not a measure of human "value".
| Frankly, I find _that_ idea repugnant...
| tptacek wrote:
| "IQ isn't a measure of human value" is a message board
| scientific racism debate trope. When you can reconstruct
| an entire thread from the search bar, we're better off
| just leaving the discussion for the search bar.
| xyzelement wrote:
| Hang on. You are mixing "what's true" and "how I feel
| about what it implies." That sounds highly unscientific
| to me.
|
| "Ashkenazi Jews selectively breed for intelligence and
| therefore have higher inate IQ" is either true or false.
| That's the first question to answer and it seems logical
| to me that this is at least possible/likely. Once we
| establish that it's true, we can confront the
| implications with intellectual integrity.
| tptacek wrote:
| We're now recapitulating essentially every thread about
| scientific racism that has ever occurred on any message
| board. I would like to gently suggest we not do this.
| There are values HN holds dearer than "intellectual
| integrity", whatever that may mean to whoever writes it,
| and the most important of them is creating a space for
| curious conversation. As moderatin' Dan has said over,
| and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and
| over, and over, and knitting, and knitting, and knitting,
| and knitting, ah-hah-hahhnd knitting, ah-hah-hahhnd
| knitting, ah-hah-hahhnd knitting, and knitting again:
| appeals to these kinds of polarizing arguments do nothing
| but threaten to burn down that space.
| IlliOnato wrote:
| Steven Pinker suggested that scientists should
| voluntarily avoid research and discussion of such topics,
| not because it's not worthwhile, but because (given human
| history and social organization, and the fact that "race"
| can be used as a highly visible marker) it can provoke
| the worst in people, or be used by bad ones to justify
| their nasty attitude and behaviour.
|
| I could subscribe to a version of this dictum, but it
| should apply to all participants and views, not just a
| particular theory someone prefers.
|
| If there are rules (better spelled out) like "any
| discussion of a connection or lack thereof between genes,
| race, and cognitive abilities is not allowed on this
| site", fine with me. I can see the reason, and anyway
| it's fair.
|
| Allowing some people to say that there is no connection,
| while suppressing ones of a different opinion (in a
| scientific context, mind you) is entirely different.
| tptacek wrote:
| The metadiscussion about scientific racism is no more
| productive.
| IlliOnato wrote:
| "citation needed" :-)
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _I can find a few sources if you want_
|
| Yes please. Thank you in advance!
|
| > _Jewish people (imho)_
|
| That was presented more as an _impression_ than a data-based
| evaluation, but ok - it means HN has a little tolerance for
| para-intellectual bursts. :) (If all impressions were
| heartwarming, they would constitute less of a problem. They
| would probably not constitute a problem at all, if the mandate
| was clear that one 's thoughts must duly be vetted.)
| friendly_chap wrote:
| I got blocked from posting more in this thread. Will collect
| them in this comment if I can edit it. I don't deny most of
| these lists are probably tainted by national pride, and their
| contents might be partially fabrications.
|
| I have tied to check them over the years and found some to be
| indeed true, but a good number of them evaded my google fu.
| Perhaps not that valuable sources, nevertheless:
|
| https://magyarmegmaradasert.hu/in-english/our-
| language/1632-...
| mdp2021 wrote:
| If you will be unable to post here, maybe you could collect
| some material, publish the best article on HN as a
| submission, and post the rest of the material in your
| comments there. We can check your submissions from your
| profile.
| giorgioz wrote:
| It seems you're discriminating positively. The Jewish
| population in Hungary was very large at the time. Many of them
| were just farmers. Some of them were doctors and engineers and
| business-men. Those exceptional mathematicians were indeed an
| exception. This is not to negatively discriminate. Believing
| that an ethnicity has super-powers or super-flaws is a bias.
| You notice all the exceptions and don't notice all the other
| average samples that don't confirm your hypothesis. Also small
| sample of populations are just more likely to have extreme
| values. This is more because of the narrow sample.
|
| Finally on the language part, great scientists flew nazi
| countries from all over Europe. Only some of them were
| Hungarian-speaking. Enrico Fermi was from Rome, from a not
| particularly religious Catholic family. Enrico Fermi went to
| the US for better opportunities AND to protect his wife Laura
| whom was Jewish.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > whom was Jewish.
|
| Biased sample indeed. The brilliant scientists who had no
| reason to flee didn't and it's not surprising the reasons to
| flee are over represented in a sample taken from those who
| did.
|
| I also suspect a lot of Jewish Hungarians who fled were not
| brilliant scientists, just rich or talented enough to afford
| escaping.
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| No, you misunderstand. In 80 years before or since, these
| dozen or so ethnically Jewish scientists were literally the
| _only_ world-leading Hungarian scientists. (Maybe I would
| add Eotvos and Szenty-Gyorgyi, but that's about it...)
|
| Given that only 5% of the pre-WW2 population of Hungary was
| Jewish, the fact that 80% of geniuses were of Jewish
| parentage is highly unusual, emigration or not.
| [deleted]
| hpcjoe wrote:
| Not sure why you are being down voted.
|
| I am conservative jewish, and of Hungarian descent on my
| mother's side. Russian on my fathers. Neither parent has a
| Ph.D. I do, and one of 2 brothers is a DDS, other is MS in CS.
| Daughter is double majoring in math and physics, with now a
| minor in complex systems. Going to grad school next year. She's
| half me, half my wife (Mexican American).
|
| Conservative and orthodox jews tend to have quite a bit of
| familial pressure with regards to education. You are expected
| to go to school. Expected to excel. Expected to pursue a
| professional or medical career. I recall this growing up in the
| 1970s.
|
| My dad is an EE, with a penchant for math. My mom is more
| psychologically inclined. Wife has an MS in Physics, and
| teaches college prep high school math. Daughter started out as
| an Art major. I kid you not. Transitioned over to Physics in
| her second year.
|
| Ok, with that as the back story, a few observations.
|
| Many of my fellow jewish students, easily a majority, have gone
| to post graduate education, and are doctors, lawyers,
| scientists, and engineers. Very few have not. The familial
| pressure was common, and we all talked about it in our groups.
| I see a very similar trend with Indian and Chinese American
| families. Same drive to succeed, with pushes from family.
|
| Jews are not a "racial" group, we don't share locus of genes
| that can be used to easily identify us as such. Apart from
| certain families with markers for Tay-Sachs or others.
|
| Conservative and Orthodox jews do share a culture where
| education is seen as the pathway to success, a better life,
| taking care of the extended family, etc. That is, its kind of
| built in to our way of life.
|
| I interpret this to mean a number of things.
|
| 1) Genetics, while important, isn't the dominant feature of
| highly successful people.
|
| 2) Nurture, culture, society, support systems, etc. are the
| things that matter. Put another way, if you set low bars, you
| get results appropriate to setting of low bars. If you set high
| bars, and provide both a support system, and strong cultural
| motivation, you will get results appropriate to the setting of
| high bars.
|
| For me, the martians have always been fascinating. JvN was
| foremost, though Paul Erdos was always a fascinating character.
| I don't think genetics/religion was the deciding factor for
| them. I think it was their environment. If it was an aberration
| for this time and place, or if it was common, that environment,
| the support systems behind it, should be studied, and
| leveraged.
| golemiprague wrote:
| Jews do share genes that can be used to easily identify,
| every genetic check company can do it easily. Especially Jews
| from the same group like Ashkenazi Jews, but also across the
| Jewish diaspora. One exception are the Ethiopian Jews who
| don't share those markers and are probably mostly converts.
| So genetics could be a dominant feature here although those
| type of things are hard to prove.
| anovikov wrote:
| The fact of Budapest being a rich city is not a surprising one
| because it was the capital of Hungary that was many times
| larger than today's Hungary, spreading from Split to Lemberg -
| to be reduced to "ethnic quarter" of Magyars after WWI. And
| every monarchy is a very center-leaning entity so the capital
| would concentrate wealth of the entire - much bigger than today
| - nation. It was a co-capital of Habsburg Empire on the same
| rights as Vienna.
| friendly_chap wrote:
| Indeed, having its territory reduced by 73% after the war all
| but killed her. I mean Hungary was already on a downward
| trajectory after the 1526 Battle of Mohacs which she lost
| against the Ottomans, and that downward slope culminated in
| the Treaty of Trianon, which reduced the country to
| irrelevance ever since.
| rbanffy wrote:
| What can I say about it? It seems we like to be on the
| wrong side of history...
| leaveyou wrote:
| And looking at the Hungarian politics and geopolitics
| it's like you insist on being on a collision course with
| the majority of your closest neighbors. The odds of
| anything good coming out of that for Hungary are very
| slim IMHO.
| hansvs wrote:
| This was an interesting read; I was shocked to find so many
| seemed to enter straight into PhD programmes after completing
| school. Most were done by the time they were 25. Wow!
| abecedarius wrote:
| I don't think that was unusual at the time? Mean age of
| finishing a PhD has gone up over the decades, though I can't
| give a figure from memory, and there may be a U.S./Europe
| difference too.
| cameronperot wrote:
| These interviews with Edward Teller [1] offer first hand insight
| into some of this fascinating history, I quite enjoyed watching
| them.
|
| [1]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRdAp4A5KEA&list=PLVV0r6CmEs...
| marton78 wrote:
| This interview with Cornelius Lanczos is also worth watching.
| He is not one of the Martians, because he went to England
| rather than to America, but he grew up in Budapest in the same
| time -- and he is a formidable storyteller.
| marton78 wrote:
| I forgot the link:
|
| https://youtu.be/PO6xtSxB5Vg
| igarcia wrote:
| I have a feeling that Erno Rubik (the creator of the Rubik's
| Cube) should be on that list, except that he didn't move to the
| US. He's 77 now.
| IlliOnato wrote:
| Since we are talking about ethnicity here, I've heard that
| Rubik's father's ethnicity was Armenian. I don't have a link,
| though.
| cerealbad wrote:
| There is an informative interview with Linus Pauling on youtube
| from 1990 in which he discusses his life and scientific work.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8maetlPd8Q
| Red_Tarsius wrote:
| My pet theory is that Jewish culture didn't suffer from the
| generational drain of monastic orders. In Medieval times, a smart
| Jewish kid - especially future Rabbis - would be expected to "be
| fruitful and multiply". A smart Catholic kid would more often
| become a celibate cog of the Church, thus ending their line.
| flexie wrote:
| Protestant priests have married since the reformation (Luther
| married). So in the mostly protestant Northern and Western
| Europe, and in the mostly protestant US, there was no celibacy
| requirements for 4-500 centuries.
| redtexture wrote:
| > 4-500 centuries.
|
| that would be 500 years
| cat199 wrote:
| > Protestant
|
| this article is about hapsburg empire - direct line to the
| holy roman empire & 100% catholic officially
| DalasNoin wrote:
| Is there evidence that monastic orders selected kids for
| intelligence? This effect should have then stopped with the
| protestant reformation in parts of europe. Maybe it is part of
| the reason why protestant heritage countries are more
| successful than catholic ones.
| kaba0 wrote:
| I think Jewish culture has a tendency of making the cleverest
| man marry the richest woman -- and overall pay close
| attention to discovering talent within their communities.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| It's more likely to have selected _younger_ sons, who did not
| inherit, and were more likely to seek a monastic or otherwise
| religious life.
| marton78 wrote:
| Aren't younger sons less risk averse and thus more likely
| to bring forth societal change?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| This is interesting but wouldn't explain the lack of such
| achievements in non-European cultures.
| [deleted]
| goblinden wrote:
| Mathematics in medieval Islam were lit during the 8th-12th
| centuries! Would these guys have had such an impact without
| Algebra?
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| I'm a great fan of mathematical achievements in medieval
| Middle East, India and China. However, it does not explain
| why the Martians of Budapest were Jews, not Persian or
| Chinese, in the context we are discussing in this thread,
| that is "the end of smart-male line by means of celibacy."
| beebeepka wrote:
| Culture. It can't be just genetcs
|
| Edit: whoever downvoted me is a racist! Hohoho
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| Don't worry about downvotes, they're just a "I don't
| agree with you/don't like what you say but I don't bother
| to explain why"-type message.
|
| Back to the topic: maybe it could be a combination of the
| two. Still, it would be interesting to know what exactly
| - in both genetics and culture - made the Budapest
| Martians so successful.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Ignoring your questionable use of the word achievement, Guns,
| Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond explains the massive bulk of
| this. It might not be written for academics, and may jump to
| a conclusion or two, but it's pretty damn convincing all the
| same.
|
| In any case, discounting the geographic luck that Europe has
| benefited from is unwise. And a lil bit racist.
| DalasNoin wrote:
| I think Jared Diamond told a number of convincing stories
| in this book to convince people of geographical
| determinism. However, I don't think that any of it amounts
| to a real proof. Essentially, he picks out more or less
| "successful" societies and then correlates it to the
| features of the environments they existed in. Almost
| certainly overfitting since there is no real test set. His
| theory also does not account for the topic of this link:
| extreme success of a minority group.
| goblinden wrote:
| It is an interesting theory. Makes even more sense when you
| consider that Islamic law of inheritance served as an impetus
| behind the development of algebra!
| Telemakhos wrote:
| Wow, someone should explain the history of algebra to
| Diophantus of Alexandria.
| goblinden wrote:
| Diophhntus certainly is the father of Algebra, but he only
| laid a concrete foundation that al-Khwarizmi solidified
| into a distinct field and built into the castle its become
| today. A lot more than that simple foundation, but you're
| point is taken.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Honestly Catholicism doesn't have a stellar history with smart
| people in general. Or kids, for that matter.
|
| When I mention anti-intellectualism in Catholic doctrine,
| people often retort "Well, St. Augustine...". Guys, if you need
| to go back 1,700 years for a counter-example your argument
| might not be on the firmest ground.
|
| Yes, there are many smart Catholics. I'm not saying Catholics
| are lesser people. This isn't bait, or flaming Catholics. I'm
| adding to the guy above's pet theory, which at first glance
| looks pretty compelling, when you add up the effect of those
| very real and well documented trends over generations.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| It might just be shifting degrees of intellectual challenge.
|
| St Augustine came to shine as part as a response to the
| threat of competing movements such as pelagianism and
| arianism.
|
| (As a side-note, reading the Confessions I came off thinking
| St Augustine felt really anti-intellectual; especially in
| contrast to someone like Boethius)
|
| Then the church went largely intellectually unchallenged for
| a thousand years, and that's never great for bringing out the
| best and the brightest. A lot of what made for example the
| philosophers of antiquity so sharp was the fierce competition
| between rival schools.
|
| Later when the church came under real pressure from the
| reformation, you had counter-reformation groups like the
| Jesuits form as a response which was a huge step up
| intellectually.
|
| I also think we sort of tend to unfairly view the church
| through the writings of its critics; both reformists and
| later the enlightenment had a lot to say that we just seem to
| take as true without consideration of the source. A lot of
| stuff, even bad stuff like the inquisition, wasn't _as_ bad
| as we tend to think. Against the background of what legal
| systems in general looked in the period, the inquisition was
| almost gentle.
| danielvf wrote:
| > A lot of stuff, even bad stuff like the inquisition,
| wasn't as bad as we tend to think. Against the background
| of what legal systems in general looked in the period, the
| inquisition was almost gentle.
|
| The Inquisition, in places, was every bit as bad as it was
| rumored. You are correct that the inquisition was supposed
| to be "gentle" up until it pleased the Holy Spirit to have
| the heretic burned who did not change their beliefs.
|
| ----
|
| And in some places, the program went more according to
| plan:
|
| Inquisitor: Yo dude, do you believe the $CATHLOC_TRUTH
|
| If dude say yes, dude goes free, otherwise continue.
|
| Inquisitor: Yo, here's fifty reasons that $CATHLOC_TRUTH is
| true. Do you believe now?
|
| If dude say yes, dude goes free, otherwise continue.
|
| Inquisitor: Yo, I'm locking you up for six months to think
| about it.
|
| Inquisitor: Yo dude, do you believe the $CATHLOC_TRUTH, if
| not you are going to burn.
|
| If dude say yes, dude goes free, otherwise dude gets burnt.
|
| ----
|
| So at each step of the process there is an "escape hatch"
| if someone is willing to renounce what they believed and
| submit.
|
| ---
|
| But in Spain, it was different. The Spanish style went with
| the theory that the worst heretics would try to hide their
| heresy, and therefor agreeing with the $CATHLOC_TRUTH was
| actually a sign of hidden evil. So in Spain:
|
| Inquisitor: Yo dude, you are a HERITIC!
|
| Dude: I believe the $CATHLOC_TRUTH.
|
| Inquisitor: That's just what a hectic would say! We are
| going to torture you until you say you don't really believe
| the $CATHLOC_TRUTH and you tell us the names of at least
| six of your friends and relative who are also secret
| heritcs. Then we will burn you. Lastly, once you are dead
| I'll keep all your money and lands, and then go arrest your
| friends/family and repeat.
|
| ----
|
| Again, in theory, the inquisition was supposed to use only
| very gentle forms of torture, like waterboarding, but the
| actual practice in southern Spain was even worse.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| I think our views of the inquisition largely are in
| agreement. I'm not trying to whitewash the inquisition.
| Things did go overboard, especially in Spain, and I'm not
| denying that.
|
| The public conception of the inquisition is _only_ of the
| horrors. That just isn 't correct; and it's especially
| not something that the pope intended to happen.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| A more recent (fairly famous) example, the Big Bang theory
| was formulated by a Catholic priest:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre
| mandmandam wrote:
| That's actually a good illustration of my point - he
| believed science and religion shouldn't mix.
|
| Contrast with Judaism, or Buddhism, where integration of
| the spiritual and scientific is often encouraged.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Jesuits definitely look at science as a way of
| discovering the beauty of the world created by God.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Have you heard the phrase, "the exception that proves the
| rule" before?
| kaba0 wrote:
| Then the litany of Christian scientists will disprove
| you.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Scientists are roughly half as likely as the general
| public to believe in God or a higher power -
| https://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-
| belief/
|
| Compound that effect over generations.
| onetimemanytime wrote:
| In practice I'd say that a lot of priests did father children.
| Made of flesh and blood...
| mandmandam wrote:
| And those 'bastards' were often treated horrifically for the
| mother's crimes. This lasted well up into the last century.
|
| Even today children of single mothers are at a large
| disadvantage, but at least it's not quite as institutional
| and savage.
| onetimemanytime wrote:
| Most likely their mom's husband was "daddy" and they were
| raised like their half-siblings, as peasants.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Even today children of single mothers are at a large
| disadvantage,
|
| Except that today, with few exceptions, the decision to
| have that child rests entirely with the mother.
|
| With respect to family matters, females, especially in
| modern societies, have many more options than any other
| demographic of that society, or indeed, in all of history.
|
| It's not quite comparable to how bastard children and their
| mothers were treated in the past.
| redtexture wrote:
| Except except coerced sex.
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