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The Failure Myth A Short Bibliographical Biography of W. J. Sidis Dan Mahony, M. Phil. |
"We attempt to explain rather than advocate."―WJ
The failure-myth was a weave of old fallacies, popular misunderstandings of the new science of psychology, and rigid notions about what constitutes success. "The desire for fame is the last infirmity cast off even by the wise."—Tacitus |
INTRODUCTION
First came the resurrection of a popular fallacy that child
prodigies tend toward unproductive lives. Just why so many
believe such a thing is hard to know. There has never been
any actual evidence for it.
Secondly it was supposed that his father,
a great psychologist, somehow caused his son's genius
either through some mysterious psychological technique
or by having discovered magical educational methods.
Third: a childhood of "all-work-no-play" had caused his
supposed failure; and fourth: his working at low-paying
jobs was confirmation of all of the above. A fifth false
belief was that his fatal brain hemorrhage had
psychological causes.
It is not difficult to refute the failure myth. Let's do so one by one.
The first misconception is contradicted by the practical fact
that no psychologist would claim that genius can be created
by any of the methods of psychology.
The second, 'prodigies-burn-out', has been disproved by abundant
historical and statistical evidence, especially that provided by
Lewis Terman, which shows that vast majority of prodigies go on to
lead productive lives. As did Sidis.
The third, "all-work-and-no-play," is contradicted by his mother's
description of his early education which was self-motivated.
"He asked me a question one day, and then triumphantly said,
'But you will say, "Let's look it up," and I can look it up myself!'
That is the last lesson I gave Billy."—The Sidis Story
Said his father: "My boy plays―plays with his toys,
and plays with his books. And that is the key to the whole situation.
Get the child so interested in study that study will truly be play."
The fourth, because Harvard's youngest graduate was as an adult
engaged at mere labor, he was therefore a failure. This despite
the great scientific discoveries and works of art by persons who
were not employees of university corporations. The list is long.
Einstein developed his theory of relativity while working
as a patent examiner. Newton? Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Descartes? Artillery advisor to his king―coordinate
geometry. Philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce? Hundreds of
articles for encyclopedias and popular science magazines—
besides his many books. Painter Paul Gauguin? Bank teller
until he quit to pursue his art. Composer Charles Ives? Insurance.
(He once said business life made his music richer.)
And Sidis? Accountancy Clerk. He paid his own way instead
of living la dolce vita of academe. His hard-earned pay went
into his research and self-publishing, especially his extensive
travel by street-car across the country researching American
history at the local level. And while Tacitus's warning about
the addictive nature of fame might have guided him to some
degree, the Okamakammesset principle of anonymous contribution
was the path under foot―the hardest path to find.
The fifth misconception, that his fatal cerebral hemorrhage at
age 46 was caused by "thinking too much," rested on the popular
confusion of brain with mind. His father, Boris Sidis, died at age
56 from the same physiological cause.
Boris Sidis, Ph.D., M.D., wrote in 1919 that there is a widespread fear
of precocity: "This abject fear of genius and of precocity is one of the
most pernicious philistine superstitions, causing the retardation of the
progress of humanity."—Precocity in Children After years of negative
publicity surrounding his son, this great psychologist was deleted from
the history of American psychology, due in no small part to academe's
subservience to public opinion. See the clickable bibliography in the
In the first discussion of William's genius, in The Nation in 1910,
possibly written by the great Charles Sanders Peirce, we read: "Dr.
Boris Sidis, the eminent psychologist who is the boy's father, is said
to regard his son's achievements as indicating that by proper methods
of instruction several years could be cut off from the time actually
employed in bringing boys up to the college or university stage.
With the proposition itself we have no particular fault to find; but
that young Sidis's exploits serve in any degree to establish it we deny
without hesitation. The part played by native genius is so manifestly
predominant in this case as to nullify any general application."
But whom do we blame for the negative image of William Sidis?
The failure myth was not just an invention of the press. It rested in
the public mind. The press merely fed on it. And reinforced it.
And all the while, Sidis's adherence to the
Okamakammesset principle of anonymous contribution
further fed the frenzy. (See also Sidis's Pseudonyms.)
SHORT ANNOTATED CHRONOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following short biography interweaves an annotated bibliography
of Sidis's writings with another of news articles about him during
his lifetime. Most of the press clippings can be found in Harvard's
Houghton Library, and from microfilms of New York Times articles
which are thoroughly indexed and available on microfilm in many
research libraries. The only book about him does not dispute the
failure myth. One reviewer wrote, "Amy Wallace... skillfully weaves
vitality and wit into this very unfortunate story of wasted genius."
Not so! Well spent genius. Very well spent.
[William James to Boris Sidis, letters and
postcards 1896 - 1907, Houghton Library,
Harvard University]
-------------------------------------------------------
James occasionally replied to Boris's requests for
suggestions re his son's future education James Letters.
Boris was one of James's students at Harvard, and was
among the first to get the new degree of Ph. D. in Psychology
James's students included Edward Larrabee Thorndike,
the founder of the Journal of Educational Psychology.
But William Sidis's greatness could not possibly have been
caused by anything a psychologist has to offer.
At birth came, randomly, his extremely rare IQ, and oh
yes, the never mentioned by family, friends, and media—a
photographic memory. I say this because I had the privilege
of knowing his Sister Helena, who her seventies all too
often would ask: "Don't you remember I told you that?"
Some news stories told of his ability to memorize train
schedules as he read them.
Then came a fine academic home-schooling generated
mostly by himself, but happily and ably aided by his parents
(e.g., his mother taught him to how to spell as he learned
to speak).
Then came a, presumably, excellent education at Harvard
College, and then Harvard Law School. (He completed two
years there and left in good standing.)
But declining any further academic affiliation,
his life-long self-education and research included hundreds of
trolley-car rides to libraries research sites all across America.
Sidis tried to lead a perfect moral life, and remained celibate
as part of that goal. He never spoke ill of anyone. His guiding
principle was the ancient wisdom of a deceased Native-American
nation he had discovered under foot in Middlesex County,
Massachusetts.
An additional benefit of his principled lifestyle was that he
avoided the common ad hominem fallacy of linking his
own great abilities with the truth or falsity of his writings.
(We readers must do the same. We will judge the truth or
falsity of his writings regardless of its author.)
A PHENOMENON IN KILTS
Boston Transcript, Nov. 16, 1906
Massachusetts law required boys to attend school,
so he had to endure primary school even though
he already had a college-entrance education. The
article described his progress through grade school.
One wonders why the 3rd and 5th grades took so long.
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"...the record from the school register of his advance runs: "First Grade - Only a day or two. Second Grade - A few Days. Third Grade - Three months. Fourth Grade - One week. Fifth Grade - Fifteen weeks. Sixth and Seventh Grades - Five and a half weeks. Yesterday morning, Headmaster. . . of the Brookline High School was persuaded to allow me to see the boy at his work at school without letting him know that anyone was looking at him." |
This article, while admiring of him, is also an early example
of invasion of his privacy. This subject would come up again
in a big way 30 years later.
AN INFANT PRODIGY
North American Review, 1907, #184, 887-888
It wasn't long before naysayers laid down what
would be a lifelong gauntlet. "With this pathetic
eagerness for utterly irrelevant knowledge, went
also an exaggerated reverence for the written
word." Not so. In fact he had, at an early age, an
eagerness for true knowledge and reverence for the truth.
At least the confused article concluded with a
positive: "It is to be hoped that the premature
development will not stop short, but that the
disinterested love of knowledge and of law may
solve some of this world's scientific problems."
Such as the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
The article also mentions he "spent his summers at a
hotel in the mountains...It was his pleasing custom
to speak of all the guests in the house, in which he
spent his summers..." The hotel or guesthouse may
well be Shackford's in Albany, NH, which W. J.
named "Passaconaway House" in his first book
Passaconaway in the White Mountains, Chapter 13
DR. SIDIS OF BROOKLINE
Brookline [MA] Chronicle, Mar. 7, 1908
Boris gets his M.D., becoming perhaps the first to
have both a Ph. D. in psychology and M.D. from Harvard.
His Ph.D. in psychology was likely looked down upon
in the field of psychopathology which was ruled by M.D.'s
with little knowledge or understanding of the subject. It's
just that they had Rx. Boris's sarcastic opening sentence
in a 1899 talk to the American Medico-Psychological
Assn. was: "I cannot help feeling grateful to you for the
honor you have bestowed on me, a mere psychologist,
by your kind invitation to read a paper on any subject
in my line of work." Nature & Principles of Psychology
CHILD ENTERS HARVARD
Boy Prodigy of Eleven Will
Pursue Special Studies
New York Times, Sunday, Oct. 10, 1909, p.1.
-------------------------------------------------
William is front-page news in the Sunday
Edition of this prestigious international
newspaper: "The youngest and smallest
student ever matriculated at Harvard,
entered to-day as a special student. He is
William J. Sidis of Brookline, the 11-year-
old son of Dr. and Mrs. Boris Sidis." The
Times went on to say his parents were
originally from Poland. They were from
Russia.
HARVARD'S CHILD PRODIGY
All Amazed at Mathematical Grasp of
Youngest Matriculate Aged 13 Years
-------------------------------------------------
"Three years ago the boy first knocked at
the classic gates of Harvard for admittance,
but the powers that be refused him on
account of his youth."
New York Times, Mon., Oct. 11, 1909, p.1
Front page for a second day. Remarkable.
But already the Times makes a major error:
he is not thirteen but eleven years old, as
the paper correctly reported just the day
before.
We begin to see just how much nonfact
can make its way into a newspaper. The
article goes on to tell how the registrar,
referring to previous attempts at admission,
asks: "What, again?" W. J. had passed
the entrance exams two years earlier but
was rejected because of his age. This year
was different however. There was now a
prodigy project. Boris had just delivered
"Philistine and Genius" to the Harvard
Summer School. It dealt with the faults
of the educational system and urged early-
childhood education. It would come back to
haunt him and his son
A SAVANT AT THIRTEEN YOUNG
SIDIS KNOWS MORE ON ENTERING
THAN MANY ON LEAVING
A Scholar at Three
New York Times, Sunday, Oct. 17, 1909, Pt.5, p.9
---------------------------------------------------------
For the second
time the Times gets the central factwrong: his age. And things go downhill from there:
"He is a Russian Jew―one is tempted to write
'of course' after that sentence, so common are boy
wonders among the Jews, and especially among
Russian Jews." Worse follows with the first signs
of the Burnout Myth that would persist in the press
to this day: "Child wonders are usually looked on
rather coldly and there are always prophets to
predict the sad end of precocity."
SIDIS COULD READ AT TWO YEARS OLD
Under Father's Scientific Forcing Almost
from Birth
New York Times, Oct. 18, 1909, p.7
---------------------------------------------------------
Boris has somehow managed to force genius.
SIDIS OF HARVARD
New York Times, Oct. 18, 1909, p.6
---------------------------------------------------------
Asks intelligent questions about his
education. Decides reserve energy
is his secret power. Maybe so. But as
The Nation would soon assert, it is a
case of unusual abilities at the far end
of the Bell Curve, combined with a pre-
school education and home schooling
and a student with a love of knowledge.
SIDIS OF HARVARD
Youngest Freshman in the History of the College
Boston Sunday Herald, Nov. 7, 1909, p.5
---------------------------------------------------------
A picture is worth a thousand words―well maybe
less in a newspaper. The distortion of his image
implies that something must be wrong with him.
He was not a freshman. He was admitted as a
special student in a experimental prodigies project.
A number of child prodigies from around the
country were "accepted" (assembled) to take
part in an experimental curriculum. The aim was
to educate them in such a way as to grant them a
real BA, not one with an asterisk. He was to take
a so-called Half-Course (Mathematics 6 1)
extended over a full year. He got a B.
He remained a special student for the next three
years taking a full course load, and was matriculated
as a senior in his fifth year in 1913. His grades?
10 A's, 9 B's, 4 C's: 
The senior class included one Richard Buckminster
Fuller who, upon receiving a copy of The Animate
and the Inanimate 65 years later, expressed in a
letter to Scientific American his "...excitement and
joy that Sidis did go on to fulfill his promise."
ELEVEN YEAR OLD BOY LECTURES TO
MATHEMATICIANS
Answers Questions for Half An Hour; Talks
About Parallelopipedon and
Hectatonacosahedron With Utmost Ease
[
Boston Globe ?], Jan. 6, 1910, p.1.-----------------------------------------------------
Fragments: "In the games played in fourth-
dimension land the good player is he who can find
new short cuts in arriving at points, planes, faces
and sides. When you find a new short cut you get the
same pleasant sensation as when you are able to
fit two pieces into a jig-saw puzzle at the same time.
But the real situation is that we live in a three-dimensional
world. We know length, breadth, and height. Suppose we...
had one more dimension, a fourth?
The easy manner in which, in his discussions, he
approached and passed over the word "parallelopipedon"
made the professors gasp, and when he began to coin
a few words and between breaths slipped out
"hectatonacosahedragon" [hectatonacosahedron?]...
After drawing figures and proving theories until everyone
in the room was amazed, young Sidis suddenly glanced
at his watch in true platform style and brought his lecture
to a close. Then the professors asked him questions for
half an hour."
Boy of 11 Astounds Professors
Boston Transcript, Jan. 6, 1910, p.1
----------------------------------------------------
Front-page hyperbole. Only a few
faculty were present, and none said he
was astounded, though one thought
Sidis showed "great promise."
BOY OF TEN ADDRESSES
HARVARD TEACHERS
New York Times, Jan. 6, 1910, p.1
The Times gets his age wrong yet again,
this time lower rather than higher.
His age was the most important aspect of the
news about him at the time.
Here are the minutes of that meeting
of the Harvard Math Club.
ILLUSTRATING A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION
(letter to the Editor)
New York Times, Jan. 7, 1910, p.8
Young Sidis' Training (letter to the Editor)
New York Times, Jan. 9, 1910, p.8
The Golden Age of Youth (letter to the Editor)
New York Times, Jan. 11, 1910, p.8
--------------------------------------------------
Readers begin to wonder about 'burnout'. It is
here we begin to see the public's role in what
a newspaper says. The burnout myth was a
public misconception. The media here express
that misconception.
Sidis An Avatar? (letter to the Editor)
New York Times, Jan. 12, 1910, p.8
-----------------------------------------------------
Apparently not all its readers believed in burnout.
Precocity and Genius
The Nation, Jan. 13, 1910, pp. 31-32
-----------------------------------------------------
This article, possibly written by the great
American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce,
discusses nurture vs. nature.
The idea that precocity―or at any rate precocity of any such character as this―generally dies down into mediocrity has very little foundation. Some actually go so far as to think that the very fact of unusual brilliancy in a child at so early an age is a prophesy of little ability when he grows up; a notion that rests upon the same fallacy as that which regards the children of highly gifted parents as less likely to be highly endowed than other children. They are vastly more likely to be thus endowed―as Galton conclusively demonstrated in his "Hereditary Genius." Another question raised in connection with young Sidis is that of training versus native endowment. Dr. Boris Sidis, the eminent psychologist who is the boy's father, is said to regard his son's achievements as indicating that by proper methods of instruction several years could be cut off from the time actually employed in bringing boys up to the college or university stage. With the proposition itself we have no particular fault to find; but that young Sidis's exploits serve in any degree to establish it we deny without hesitation. The part played by native genius is so manifestly predominant in this case as to nullify any general application. This is evident on the face of the matter; but confirmation of the strongest kind is given, if any were needed, in such precedents as those of Pascal or Hamilton, both of whom made the amazing mathematical conquests of their youth without any outside help whatsoever. |
He Has No Equal: William James Sidis
World's Most Wonderful Boy
Utica [NY] Saturday Globe, Jan. 15, 1910
------------------------------------------------------------
Article says, "Oh well, look at his father
and mother. Dr. Sidis is a Harvard man
and has an international reputation for
his brilliant work...while his wife [Dr.
Sarah Sidis] holds the degree of medicine
and is wonderfully brilliant."
Professor Sidis Assails Harvard Methods
Offers New Child Training Ideas
Fragment from Boston (?) newspaper,
Jan. 17, 1910.
-------------------------------------------------------
Article about Boris's new book Philistine and Genius
reads, "...or at least it is supposed that [Harvard's]
President Eliot was referred to..." There must have
been some Harvard brew-ha-ha over this matter.
The average Harvard professor doesn't get much
media attention at all, let alone a taste of 15-minute
superstardom. But Boris was mainly questioning the
educational system in and did not mention Harvard.
This matter will reappear shortly.
Of Personal Interest
------------------------------------------------
Boston Advocate, Jan. 17, 1910
...he is of extremely happy disposition, brimming over with humor and fun. His physical condition is splendid, his cheeks glow with health. Many a girl would envy his complexion. Being above five feet four, he towers over the average boy his age...He is healthy, strong, and sturdy. |
"Bending the Twig"
Sidis" by Harold Addington Bruce
American Monthly, 1910, #69, 690-695
------------------------------------------------------------
Writer Harold Addington Bruce was a Sidis family friend.
American Magazine, 1910, #71, 71-81
------------------------------------------------------
Article about the major psychologists of
the time presents Boris Sidis and Sigmund
Freud as equal in influence. Boris strongly
argued against the fundamental assumptions
of psychoanalysis in a number of his books.
Freud made sure to ignore him.
The Boy Prodigy of Harvard
---------------------------------------------------------
Current Literature, 1910, #48, 291-293
"Boy prodigy and the Fourth Dimension"
by F. Fleischman
Harpers Weekly, 1910, #54, 9
Sidis Boy
Independent, 1910, #68, 162
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NOTES AND NEWS Mrs. Martha S. Jones, of Boston, Mass., has presented her estate and magnificent parks near Portsmouth, N. H., to Dr. Boris Sidis, of Brookline, Mass., for the purpose of establishing a private hospital, to be named 'The Maplewood Farms, Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute,' in which modern methods of psychopathology and psychotherapeutics will be employed in the treatment of functional nervous diseases. The hospital will open in the early spring. [Psychological Bulletin, 1910, 7, 75.] |
Advertisement in
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1910
Dr. Sidis To Open Novel Institution
Made Possible by Mrs. Martha Jones Gift
New Bedford [MA] Standard, June 25, 1911
(Click.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The first of what became known as residential
treatment centers. One of its many innovations
was residential family therapy.
[Book review of] Philistine and Genius by
Boris Sidis. New York Times, June 25, 1911, p. 404
Dr. Sidis In An Unkind Mood: His Vigorous
and Unkind Indictment of the American
System of Popular Education
New York Times, June 25, 1911, p. 402
-------------------------------------------------------------
Review of Boris's 10th book,
Philistine and Geniusin which he argued that education
should begin much earlier than age five. He
added that "In every child there is genius."
Dr. Sidis On Education
Boston Transcript, July 1, 1911
"Intellectual Precocity: Comparison Between
J. S. Mill and the Son of Dr. Boris Sidis"
by Tom Williams
Pedagogical Seminary, 1911, #18, 85-103
"Lightning Calculators"
by Harold Addington Bruce
McClure's Magazine, 1912, #39, 586-596
----------------------------------------------------------
Has picture of WJS but nothing about him.
"Precocious Children" by Katherine Dolbear
Pedagogical Seminary, 1912, #19, 461-491
----------------------------------------------------------
"The effect of his education seems to have been
to produce a boy who can do wonderful, even
brilliant reasoning but has difficulty in transferring
that reasoning power to everyday affairs. In a class
room at Harvard where a formula was being explained
the boy became bored and began to balance his
hat upside down on his head."
Academic statement of the burnout myth.
Portrait
McClure's Magazine, 1912, #39, 586
Portrait
Literary Digest, 1912, #54, 514
"A Record of Experiments" by Joseph Hyslop
Proc. of Amer. Soc. of Psychical Research,
1912, #6, 371-372
--------------------------------------------------------------
A subject in an experimental investigation of
psychic processes happens to mention Sidis.
The Dormant Waker
New York Times, Feb. 18, 1913, p.12
----------------------------------------------------
Discusses Boris's Psychology of Sleep but refers to
him as "a Harvard Professor, unnamed"
[Untitled]
New York Times, May 7, 1914, p.10
----------------------------------------------------
Leaks, a month early, impending
graduation of Sidis from Harvard.
Harvard A. B. At 16, William James Sidis,
the youngest student to get degree there
New York Times, June 14, 1914, p.1
----------------------------------------------------------
His transcript indicates he was given no
special treatment and that he did well
enough on his exams and other
requirements to graduate Cum Laude
at the age of an average high school senior.
Sidis, W. J., Unconscious Intelligence
Appendix IV of Symptomatology,
Psychognosis, and Diagnosis of
Psychopathic Diseases by Boris Sidis
Ph.D., M.D. Boston: Badger, 1914, 432-439.
------------------------------------------------------
Presents a logical argument against the
foundations of psychoanalysis.
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The subconscious has been explained in two ways; according to one of these, the phenomena of the subconscious are manifestations of a consciousness, possessing all the attributes of intelligence and other adaptations that any consciousness possesses, while according to the other theory there is behind these phenomena an "unconscious intelligence" which has all the properties of intelligence, but which somehow or other is not conscious. |
He argues that psychoanalytic theory makes a classic
scientific error by assigning different causes to the same
effects. The effects caused by a psychoanalytic
'unconscious' and the effects caused by conscious
processes, "...have no points of difference sufficient
to justify a difference in explanation (p. 435)."
This Plan Is Full Of Promise
New York Times, April 24, 1915, p.10
------------------------------------------------------
Subtly hints at 'burnout'.
'14 - William James Sidis Is A Fellow In
Mathematics (instructing) at the Rice
Institute, Houston, Tex.
Harvard Bulletin, Oct. 20, 1915
--------------------------------------------------
Being constitutionally unable to be
a faculty member, then or thereafter,
he returned to Boston and entered
Harvard Law School.
"A Twelve Year Old Boy Wonder Child"
by R. H. Moulton
American Magazine, Feb. 1915, #79, 56-58
"Portrait"
Illustrated World, 1915, #24, 49
"William James Sidis, the Harvard Prodigy
Who Graduated At 16, as he looks today
(caption under photo)."
------------------------------------------------------
Fragment from Boston Sunday Herald
Bruce, Harold Addington
The Riddle of Personality
NY: Moffat Yard, 1915, 88-93
------------------------------------------
Bruce offers a 'bending the twig'
theory of education.
Sidis, William, Passaconaway in the White Mountains
by Charles Edward Beals, Jr. (pseud.), with Introduction
by Charles E. Beals (pseud., Boris Sidis).
Boston: Badger, 1916.
Boris wrote the Introduction:
|
The young man who wrote this book commenced his explorations of Passaconaway-land when four years old, at which mature age he climbed to the "turn of the slide" on Mount Passaconaway. With him it was a case of 'love at first sight." He cannot remember when he did not love the White Mountains. And with each succeeding year, that feeling has deepened. How the world looks from a Beal-loved little mountain nest―"Score-o'- Peaks"― the youngster will tell. If, by his chapters, he shall succeed in imparting to some weary soul a tithe of the pleasure which has been experienced by one family during nearly a score of summers, I shall think that it was indeed a happy inspiration which led me to suggest to the lad that he record the things herein set down. |
The book is magnificently researched and thoroughly footnoted.
The history of the Penacook nation contained herein serves as
the first research for The Tribes and the States written a score of
years later. It also provides an almost mystical description of the
White Mountains of New Hampshire (home of the Penacooks)
which is so detailed it was likely written by a person with a
photographic memory. Passaconaway
'Nerves' and Experts On What To Eat:
Dr. Boris Sidis Considers Abnormal
Psychology Exaggerated Heredity
Boston Herald, March 24, 1917
-------------------------------------------------------
A complete confusion of Boris's theory
that genes play a major part in our
makeup and his distinction between the
'abnormal' and the 'pathological' in his
masterwork The Foundations of Normal
and Abnormal Psychology : "The
abnormal is the normal out of place [e.g.,
walking is normal but not while asleep], the
'pathological' is the normal under extreme
conditions [e.g., excessive cleanliness]
[Transcript from Harvard Law School, 1917]
That he also completed two years at Harvard Law,
was never mentioned by the press.
Sidis, William "A Remark on the Occurrence of
Revolutions" (with foreword by Boris Sidis)
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1918, 13, 213-228
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sidis remarks on a statistical correlation between sunspot
cycles the occurrence of revolutions.
|
However, I do not wish to be understood as saying that the sun-spots cause revolutions. An appearance of sun-spots could not, by itself, produce revolution unless other circumstances are already such as to cause the revolution. All such revolutions would occur anyway, even without the sun-spot variations; but these sun-spot variations superadd natural extremes of climate, causing not only physical discomfort but danger to life and health, thus hastening a revolt that might otherwise have waited for a very long time." |
Revolutions
Arrest 114 Men and Women In Connection with Riot
Boston Herald, May 3, 1919
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Riot" = peaceful protest.
Arrest 102 In Roxbury
Boston Transcript, May 3, 1919
Four Boston Radicals Get Prison Sentences
New York Times, May 3, 1919
Boston Rioters' Cases Disposed Of
Bangor [Maine] Commercial, May 3, 1919
Sidis Gets Year And Half In Jail
Distortion of his beliefs and picture notwithstanding, this article
details his testimony in the trial that focused on his beliefs.
Interestingly, his political socialism at age 21seems based on
the Declaration of Independence and government by consent of
the governed. His later libertarianism and pacifism were based
on the same principles of the primacy of individual rights. Click
the picture or the link above it for full text of this article.
Young Sidis, "Harvard Prodigy," Sentenced
To A Year And A Half In Jail For Rioting
New York Times, May 14, 1919, p.1
--------------------------------------------------------------
He served the time in house arrest supervised
by his parents. See his description of this in
A Youthful Prodigy In Trouble
New York Times, May 15, 1919, p.16
Genius Early Revealed
New York Times, May 15, 1919, p.16
------------------------------------------------------
Burnout myth grows. Having taken
part in an anti-draft demonstration
suggests burn-out.
Boris Sidis The Harvard Boy Prodigy A
Candidate To Serve Out A Jail Sentence
Is A Candidate For Attorney General of
Massachusetts
Lowell [MA] Courier-Citizen, June 11, 1919
--------------------------------------------------------------
Article states, "He stands to know a few
things about the law before he gets through."
This was a period of high activism and personal
profile in public life. His declared 'candidacy'
was a symbolic act to make a point.
[Tuesday, January 6, 1920. Sidis completes The Animate
and the Inanimate, and then waits five years to publish it
(see below.)]
"The Secret Of Sound Sleep"
by Boris Sidis M.D., Ph.D.
American Monthly, Dec. 1922, p.36
---------------------------------------------------
This article, one of more than 50, was his last.
Dr. Boris Sidis Dies Suddenly
Portsmouth [NH] Herald, Oct. 25, 1923
Dr. Boris Sidis Dies
New York Times, Oct. 25, 1923, p.19
Precocity Doesn't Wear Well
New York Times, Jan. 11, 1924, p.16
-----------------------------------------------------
More 'burnout' myth.
Sidis Inherits $4000, May 23, 1924
----------------------------------------------------
Sidis, W. J., The Animate and the Inanimate.
(Boston: Badger, 1925).
----------------------------------------------------------------
He begins the first chapter of this earthshaking work with a
remarkable discovery of what might be called the first law
of physical laws, modestly presented:
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Among the physical laws it is a general characteristic that there is reversibility in time; that is, should the whole universe trace back the various positions that bodies in it have passed through in a given interval of time, but in the reverse order to that in which these positions actually occurred, then the universe, in this imaginary case, would still obey the same laws. |
The only physical law that does not meet the reversibility
requirement is the second law of thermodynamics. And
therein lies a great secret:
|
In
the theory herein set forth, we suppose that
reversals of the second law are a regular phenomenon, and identify them with what is generally known as life. This changes the idea of
unavailable
energy into that of a reserve fund of energy, used only by
life, and created by non-living forces.
Hence, in the last analysis, the second law of thermodynamics is to be interpreted as a mental law, as the law determining the direction in which a given mind will conceive of time as flowing. |
His discovery has immense
ramifications for the way we
understand the universe and indeed ourselves. In Chapter 3,
he presents a devastating argument against the still popular
Big Bang theory. He concludes that the highest probability is
that the universe is infinite and eternal as per the First Law of
Thermodynamics: energy is neither created nor destroyed;
and that the second law of thermodynamics is a psychological
law governing the way we perceive the universe. There are
other more mysterious ramifications such as the continuity of
consciousness after physical death, but this last matter must be
left to time.
Sidis, W. J. Notes on the Collection of Transfers
by Frank Folupa (pseud.) Phila.: Dorrance, 1926
From Introduction:
|
This book is a description of what is, so far as the author is aware, a new kind of hobby, but one which seems on the face of it to be as reasonable, as interesting, and as instructive as any other sort of collection fad. This is the collection of streetcar transfers and allied forms. The author himself has already collected over 1000 such forms, there being no duplicates included. We have been very much tempted to give this process of transfer collection some special name, similar to 'philately,' for stamp collection, and 'numismatics' for coin and medal collection. Consequently, we went so far as to coin the term 'peridromophilly' for the general subject of transfer collection, and concurrently with this, 'peridromophile' for the transfer collector. |
As usual, Sidis is modest about the importance of his work.
The book preserves for posterity a complete record of the US
trolley-car system of the 1920s. The press, apparently
without exception, saw it as further evidence of his 'burnout'.
But Notes on the Collection of Transfers is taxonomy
Aristotelian in breadth and detail.
The transfers were collected while he was "riding his hobby"
in order to research the Tribes and the States at the local level.
Many suggestions have been made re his pseudonym. Perhaps
Frank = French, and Folupa = fallu pas (wasn't practical or necessary).
Russia Has Opportunities: Dr. [Sarah] Sidis
Recently Returned from Foreign Land Says
Wages of People High, Art Appreciated,
But Bread Is Scarcity
Manchester [NH] Union, March 4, 1929
[Fragment from Ripley's Believe Or Not]
US Patent No. 1,718,314 , June 25,
1929
US Index of Patents, 1929, 658 - 660.
US Patent No. 1,784,117, Dec. 9, 1930
US Index of Patents, 1930, 638 - 640.
------------------------------------------------------
His great discovery is (1) a mere 56 calendars are
necessary for a perpetual calendar, and that (2)
they can be quite simply organized within a circle
which rotates within a surrounding square.
|
The invention relates to perpetual calendars in which week-days can be found directly for any given date whatever; and its object is, first, to provide a means by which all such weekdays can be looked up in a direct, simple, and easily understandable manner; secondly, to avoid the cross-reference tables or complex mechanism, one or the other of which have hitherto generally been features of perpetual calendars providing means to look up the week-day of any given date whatever; thirdly, to provide a perpetual calendar in which, once the calendar is adjusted for any given year, a complete and condensed calendar for the year is plainly visible; fourthly, to simplify the parts and their interrelation by the elimination of indicators or pointers which add to the difficulty and expense of manufacture and to the derangement of the operation of the calendar. |
Dare anyone dream of the royalties
for this invention? Better yet, dare
anyone dream of inventing such a
device after so many great
mathematicians
had failed to do so?
Sidis, W. J. The Orarch
A newsletter on liberty and related subjects.
Orarchy = limited government, as opposed
to anarchy = no government. Sidis was by this
time a 'libertarian', maybe the first to use the term.
He may be hinting at this in: The Modern Gray Champion.
Sidis, W. J., The Tribes and the States by John
W. Shattuck (pseud.), ca. 1932. Unpub. ms. 620 pages.
There are certain definite departures from the common and well-known points of view regarding America and its past that the reader will notice. At the opening, it is obvious that the beginnings of American history are sought not in Europe but here in America, among the peoples who originally inhabited this country. The material is partly the legends and traditions of the tribe itself, some of which are embodied in its poems, which are freely quoted throughout this history; partly well-known historical facts and dates, as interpreted from this different point of view; partly facts which are definitely known but which the ordinary history fails to bring out because varying from the standard "patriotic point of view ―all originally presented by the "tribe" as isolated material, but in this history for the first time woven into a continuous whole.--- There are other points of difference from the established text-book view of history, such as: picturing America as a country where popular revolts have been the rule rather than the exception, and even as the origin and inspiration of such revolts throughout the world; describing George Washington, not as the hero of the American Revolution, as he is ordinarily considered, but rather as one who had little sympathy with democracy, and finally overthrew by conspiracy the republic the Revolution established; the existence of a First Republic (John Hancock being its first president) representing the American Revolution, and a Second Republic representing a political counter-revolution; the pre-revolutionary co-operative factory and civil disobedience systems in Massachusetts; or the various peculiar theories of economic and political functions and development as presented here. |
At the heart of this extraordinary history of North
America from prehistoric times is Sidis's Continuity Theory:
|
The
history is thus not a history from the point of view of ancestry, but rather of
locality. The idea developed is that in each locality there is a certain
continuity of tradition that persists in spite of the changing character of its
population—not that the geographical characteristics compel this, as some have
supposed, but rather that each successive wave of invasion or immigration
acquires the traditions from the previous inhabitants of the region.
*
In
America, as in most cases of this sort, the original institutions of the place
not merely have a strong influence on the new people and guide them to the
formation of their own societies, but, in so far as they are displaced, show a
strong tendency to come back |
To this day, twenty-six American states
retain their Native-American
names. The Massachusetts state flag depicts a red man, and even
the Mass. Confederacy, the first white democratic government in
America, adopted a red man as its symbol. Not to mention
the concept of federation invented by the Iroquois
(Hodenosaunee) which is still spreading around the world
today, and well-established in the rotating presidership
(presidency) of the UN Security Council.
Sidis's sources for the history of the red people were:
|
"The various designs of the colored beads in a wampum belt expressed ideas as definitely as any form of writing; and tribal history, minutes of meetings--even personal letters, were written by weaving wampums to express the ideas intended to be conveyed(Chapter III)." |
Out Today: Harvard Prodigy
New York World Telegram,
Aug. 13, 1937, p.15
--------------------------------------------
Reports publication of infamous
New Yorker article.
"Where Are They Now?
April Fool"
by Jared L. Manley
The New Yorker, August 14, 1937, 22-26
----------------------------------------------------------------
This article, a rewrite of Jared Manley's piece by
James Thurber, was central to a famous US
Supreme Court decision in 1941. It implied
that Sidis's enthusiasm for the Okamakammessets
was evidence of burn-out. As to "April Fool," he
was born on April 1. Many celebrities, such as Carol
Burnett, have lost invasion-of-privacy cases due to the
legal precedent set by the Sidis case.
Sidis, W. J., Atlantis ca. 1937. Unpub. ms. missing.
No Privacy for Prodigy
New York Times, Dec. 17, 1941, p.21
------------------------------------------------------
Reports US Supreme Court decision on Sidis's case against The New Yorker
magazine for having violated his rights to privacy in its 1937 article. He had not
assented to an interview. Sidis personally funded his case.
Federal Reporter, 1941, #113, 807-811
-------------------------------------------------------
In a 5 - 4 opinion, hence by the vote of a single
Justice, the US Supreme Court decided that fame
cast upon one's shoulders the burden of losing
one's rights of privacy. Chief Justice Brandeis, the
deciding vote, said The New Yorker article was,
"...merciless in its dissection of intimate details
of its subject's life," and further admitted that
ALL have the "... right to be protected from
the prying of the press..." But he proceeded to
deny Sidis that right because he was a public
figure! This case set the precedent which has
come up time and again in celebrity libel cases
against the press.
What's New In Town, Jan. 3, 1941 - Sept. 18, 1942
---------------------------------------------------------------------
89 weekly columns on interesting and little known
facts about Boston and its history. First week was
titled "Strange But True." (Marmor was Boris's
mother's maiden name.)
Peridromophily and Mr. Willie Sidis
The Evening Sun (Baltimore), Jan. 8, 1943
-------------------------------------------------------------
"Peridromophily" was Sidis's name for his
hobby of collecting trolley-car transfers.
One Time Child Prodigy Found Destitute Here
Boston Traveler, July 14, 1944, p. 1
------------------------------------------------------------------
He was far from destitute. He supported himself with
full-time jobs and lived in an apartment on Canton St.
a working-class section of Boston. He died with no
debt and had $625 of earned money in his bank
account, which would equal $7000 today.
Documents Inflation Calculator
Hub Prodigy Who Held Clerk's Job Dies Penniless
Boston Traveler, July 17, 1944
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most Bostonians considered their lovely city to be
the Hub of the Universe then. Perhaps it was.
Landlady Tells How Sidis Was Stricken
Boston Traveler, July 17, 1944
Sidis A "Wonder" In Childhood Dies
New York Times, July 18, 1944. p. 21
Sidis Once Prodigy Dies In Hospital In Obscurity
Boston Herald, July 18, 1944
---------------------------------------------------------------
Obscurity? His death after a lifetime of press
attention was international news.
The Hidden Genius
New York Times, July 19, 1944, p.18
---------------------------------------------------
'Burnout' one more time.
"Sidis' Boyhood Seen Case of All Work
and No Play" by Alice Burke
Boston Traveler, July 19, 1944
"Sidis Was Victim Of An Experiment"
by Shirley S. Smith.
Boston Traveler, July 19, 1944
"What Happened To One Child Prodigy"
by Ruth Reynolds
New York Sunday News, July 23, 1944, 38-41;
"Taught Son Everything But How To Live"
by Ruth Reynolds
Boston Sunday Post, August 6, 1944
-----------------------------------------------------------
Same article, different titles.
Prodigious Failure
Time, July 31, 1944, #44, p.60
--------------------------------------------
To title an obituary of any human being
in this way makes this a low point in the
history of journalism. An apology has long
been in order given the prestige of this
periodical.
Burned Out Prodigy
Newsweek, July 31, 1944, #24, 77-78
"William James Sidis" by Hallowell Bowser
Saturday Review, July, 1944
by Abraham Sperling, Ph.D.
NY: F. Fell, Inc., 1946, 332-339.
-------------------------------------------
The City College of New York professor
was the first Sidis biographer. He visited Sidis's
family and friends and tells of having seen a
dozen manuscripts written by Sidis. See also
Atlantis Manuscript Philology & Anthropology Mss.
In a letter to Julius Eichel, who had been a friend of
Sidis for more than 20 years, Sperling wrote,
|
Also I am thoroughly familiar with his desire to avoid publicity and his friends' wishes to observe that desire. However, since the appearance of so many distorted news and magazine articles about Bill since his passing, a true and worthy account of the noble spirit and motives that guided Bill Sidis through life is more than justified (Monday, June 25, 1945). |
Amen to that!
![Brookline [MA] Chronicle, Mar. 7, 1908](brooklinechronicle1908.jpg){kind=link}
