Hunt for Modern Polymaths: 20 Living Examples

Re:Hunt for Modern Polymaths: 20 Living Examples by frisco on Saturday October 10, 2009 @03:17AM (#873074)

A lot of the "strings" seem expansions of others or superfluous. For example, it lists "Physicist, philosopher, author, mathematician" for Penrose. I'm not so sure that theoretical physics and maths are different enough to qualify you as a polymath, and "author" falls out of being a good physicist; he's not exactly writing fiction on the side.

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Re:Hunt for Modern Polymaths: 20 Living Examples by piramida on Saturday October 10, 2009 @04:14AM (#873111)

My thoughts exactly. Taking this criteria, thousands of people can be listed, author just lists people he heard of. Not like any of them are a new Leo.

But yes, even in specialization age there are talented people who are successful in more than one discipline. There are many thousands of them. But "successful" and being world's best is different - there are what, zero people in this list who can be considered top of the crop in more than one listed area?

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Re:Hunt for Modern Polymaths: 20 Living Examples by chromophore on Sunday October 11, 2009 @01:55AM (#874390)

I don't agree with you. Read "Shadows of the Mind", your opinions on him might change.

I don't think being a Polymath means you have to know mutually exclusive stuff. I don't that's possible in the sciences anyway.

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