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Recently I randomly came across the book Dear Prof Dyson (https://www.amazon.com/Dear-Professor-Dyson-Correspondence-U...) in Half Price Books. I had loved Dyson’s literary-scientific style from Disturbing the Universe so bought this one, too. His patience in answering letters from undergrads on topics ranging from physics to philosophy is amazing, what a learned man! It seems like having a literary bent was more common among scientists in older times compared to now.
On a different note, the bombing event at UCSB mentioned at the event was very interesting, never heard of it before, here’s more information in case you want to dig in: https://livinghistory.as.ucsb.edu/2019/12/04/faculty-club-bo...
Paraphrase:
“I secretly enjoyed the bombing of London. I was a teenager, after all, and it was a delightful noise, the explosions and crinkling of buildings”
He was inspired by the Little Prince to develop warm blooded plants to colonize the asteroid belt, which he claimed contained more surface area than the rest of the solar system.
Beautiful mind. Such a weirdo. RIP.
I remember a brief exchange of emails I had with Dyson. Nothing of import, talking about some old math that he had once done.
He seemed very kind.
I was lucky enough to have a conversation with him after a lecture once. He was very nice to me, but also a contrarian. Even still, I've met few people whose minds so clearly demonstrated their enormous breadth of thought, let alone in a short conversation late at night.
In a limited way I had a similar experience emailing Chomsky about some minor quote attribution and similarly trivial things, there are many things we disagree on (although much we do, etc.) but his intelligence and breath was clear.
> His intelligence and breath was clear.
That bad huh? Hehe.
I emailed Chomsky some horribly pompous 'intellectual' questions when I was eighteen. I cringed when I read them years later. But Chomsky answered within a day, giving gentle, thoughtful answers to each of my questions. It was a far kinder response than my email merited. I used to read and watch everything by Chomsky, and one thing that does cut through is his basic human decency.
You're lucky I missed a letter and not a word, it's a real issue with my writing.
He had been stopped by the police for walking. They had some reason: he had broken his glasses and was wearing scuba diving goggles to assist his vision. When asked for identification, he produced a card with his picture and fingerprints on it from the Department of Defense. It said that the bearer of this card was entitled to receive top-secret information.
A very interesting character. Too bad he was a climate sceptic, otherwise a splendid fellow.
The Web of Stories interview is very good:
Why are they always so eccentric? Are there normal geniuses or is that just how it works out?
Tons of "normal" geniuses out there. You just don't hear about them because they don't get the press.
I'm inclined to believe that old saying about genius and insanity.
Coincidentally, just above this article right now is a modern example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33288706
I do think the brain is probably at some (or very close to) theoretical optimum.
Though I’m of the mind that we generally underestimate the potential of the average person and overestimate that of the genius archetype.
> I do think the brain is probably at some (or very close to) theoretical optimum.
I've read this is called Algernon Hypothesis / Algernon Argument; 'Gwern has a lot of notes on this here[0], particularly in context of intelligence-enhancing interventions, but it makes sense for the argument to hold with respect to natural-born geniuses.
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[0] - https://www.gwern.net/Drug-heuristics#algernon-argument
Perhaps John Bardeen, to date the only person to receive 2 Nobel Prizes in physics, could be considered a "normal" genius?