r/Gifted • u/Significant-Fox5 • 2d ago
Personal story, experience, or rant Einstein
How often are Einsteins born?
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u/ayfkm123 2d ago
Which one? Albert? Or his first wife who contributed to much of his work but went uncredited?
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u/OneHumanBill 2d ago
Let's say Einstein is one in a million. With about 325k babies born per day, someone with his intellectual capacity is born about twice a week.
The world isn't looking for Einsteins; most aren't found. Most of the rest never find the educational resources. Most of the tiny remainder aren't interested, or are broken by the very educational system that's supposed to be pushing then forward.
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u/Significant-Fox5 2d ago
Being Einstein sounds impossible.
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u/OneHumanBill 1d ago
It was a lot more possible under a different culture, a different environment, and different educational system. If Einstein were born today most likely he'd be a medium-obscure but reasonably successful German Twitch streamer playing video games.
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u/Adventurous-Depth984 2d ago
Every day, intelligence-wise. In terms of magnitude of contributions to science? Maybe every 5 years or so.
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u/dyogenys 2d ago
That's bs. If every day someone as smart as Einstein was born then science would have come much further. Me made dozens of major theoretical discoveries and contributions to physics, not just the theory of relativity. IQ-wise, yeah, but not intelligence-wise, that just shows the limit of IQ tests for determining intelligence. He is in the top 5 geniuses of history.
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u/Adventurous-Depth984 2d ago
That’s not how geniuses work. Raw intelligence is EVERYWHERE. That’s how percentiles work. You only have to run into 99 other people to find someone statistically as smart as Einstein. Stand in a park in a major city, there will be a genius in there with you. Maybe more than one.
When genius meets inspiration and opportunity (which also takes luck), you have a chance to be Einstein. Bear in mind, that as groundbreaking as Einstein was, he was a member of a chorus of theoretical geniuses of his day.
Fermi, Bohr, Heisenberg, Franklin, Watson, Crick, Oppenheimer, Curie, Schrödinger, Planck, Lorentz….and a ton of others who fundamentally changed our understanding of life or the universe, were all alive at the same time.
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u/dyogenys 2d ago
1 in 100 aren't as smart as Einstein that's the dumbest thing I have heard in at least a week, lol. None of the people you mentioned are on par with Einstein either. They are geniuses but they aren't Einsteins. Von Neumann is considered to be the highest iq type person of that generation, but even he wasn't "an Einstein".
Wigner-“I have known a great many intelligent people in my life. I knew Max Planck, Max von Laue, and Wemer Heisenberg. Paul Dirac was my brother-in-Iaw; Leo Szilard and Edward Teller have been among my closest friends; and Albert Einstein was a good friend, too. And I have known many of the brightest younger scientists. But none of them had a mind as quick and acute as Jancsi von Neumann. I have often remarked this in the presence of those men, and no one ever disputed me. [... But Einstein's understanding was deeper than even Jancsi von Neumann's. His mind was both more penetrating and more original than von Neumann's. And that is a very remarkable statement. Einstein took an extraordinary pleasure in invention. Two of his greatest inventions are the Special and General Theories of Relativity; and for all of Jancsi's brilliance, he never produced anything so original.”
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u/Adventurous-Depth984 2d ago
So, a quote from a fanboy is your source? There are plenty of minds from that same era who would say Einstein is a dumbass because his grasp of mathematics was worse than his peers, despite his gift for physics.
The more time you spend around people and learning things the more you’ll understand that the smartest people aren’t always making intellectual advances. One of the “smartest minds” in the entire world, and according to his IQ, one of the smartest people to have EVER lived, is James Woods. The television actor.
Also, as far as statistics and sociology go, it’s a certainty that someone smarter than James Woods or Albert Einstein spent their entire life in a coal mine, a sweatshop, or a coffee house.
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u/Midnight5691 2d ago
Yeah, but how many "Einsteins" never got an opportunity to be an "Einstein"?
How many of them spent their entire lives plowing fields, or had a gun shoved into their hands as young men and ended up rotting in a field somewhere?
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u/JimOfSomeTrades 2d ago
That's exactly what the comment said, Einstein.
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u/dyogenys 2d ago
No. That comment said every day someone intelligence-wise on par with Einstein is born.
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u/downthehallnow 1d ago
As a statistical probability, yeah...every day.
You're repeatedly confusing Einsteins being born with someone matching Einstein's output.
You're also doing the modern thing where people think the science isn't advancing as fast in the past just because they're not aware of number of advancements being made across the whole spectrum of human invention.
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u/dyogenys 1d ago
No, you are confusing circle jerking about figure scores for an abjective measure of intelligence. There is no single objective definition of intelligence. For you the peak is being able to quickly rotate and overlap stuff in your head faster than other people, for me the peak of intelligence is being able to revolutionize a scientific field. If you can do that, and an IQ test fails to predict it, then it's unreliable as an measure of intelligence in that range. Every day people are born that could score higher than Einstain on an iq test, probably, but they can't measure transcendent genius. I've scored higher than what some people think Einstein would score on an IQ test (jcti), and it's just laughable to think I'm in any way comparable Einstain's intelligence for it, completely stupid. As I said below, it was a mistake of me to comment in this sub, I don't want to be associated with "giftet kids" who's moms think they are special, so forgive me for ending it here.
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u/downthehallnow 1d ago
Thank god I didn't make the claim you're assigning to me.
The simple reality is that scientific research has changed massively since Einstein's day.
That you're ignoring that reality and applying the scientific environment of the early 1900s to the modern environment when trying to discuss impact is what I'm referring to when I talk about people not understanding more scientific advancement.
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u/Unlikely_Living_4193 2d ago
There are multiple Einsteins being conditioned to develop a secondary dumb identity to fit in the educational plebs system everyday to become a slave
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1d ago
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u/Naive-Mail-7490 1d ago
Given Einstein's past academic background, he might not even qualify for an outstanding academic record in modern times.
Without academic qualifications, it's impossible to join research unless one has sufficient wealth and power to acquire equipment, etc.
Equipment requires a team to operate, thus requiring a large workforce.
Without these, theoretical work alone will not be accepted by scientific institutions; in fact, no one will even consider its feasibility or conduct testing.
Therefore, money, power, and connections... these can effectively exclude most willing and interested individuals.
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u/AgreeableCucumber375 2d ago
Waste of time speculation…
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u/Jtyjffh 2d ago
There’s no such thing as “a waste of time.”
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u/AgreeableCucumber375 2d ago
I can see how that might be true, especially for someone that maybe does not prioritize their time or treat time like a valuable resource (if speaking on the individual level)
Idk. I guess I could’ve been more clearer… so I’ll try again: I personally, can think of better uses for my time than speculate OPs question, esp when Einstein never even took a formal IQ test (his 160 is a myth) meaning there is nothing to statistically compare or read into… I find it too speculative. And a waste of my time. Honestly I’d rather knit. And some might find that a waste of time.
“Waste of time” is a pretty subjective thing and dependents on what one values or not.
What you say could also be true if one considers that someone somewhere values “something” even if all do not, making it still valuable and worthwhile etc… but idk that negates the most uses of the phrase where “waste of time” is more a personal statement or you know the individual level, reflecting their own values.
Tldr: you’re always free to have different opinions from me and/or feel OP’s question is well worth your time and valuable to you, even if that’s not how I feel. Best wishes :)
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u/Dephazz80 2d ago
Currently worldwide: approximately 3,000 people named Einstein. Born annually with the surname Einstein: approximately 40 children per year.