Who was the last scientific/mathematical polymath

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It's going to be me. Couple weeks into calculus 1 now, doing well, already past the chain rule and beyond. Quotient rule was a joke. Product rule remains my specialty.

I ask my professor his thoughts on quantum mechanics and partial derivatives. He's impressed i know about the subject. We converse after class for some time, sharing mathematical insights; i can keep up. He tells me of great things ahead like series and laplacians. I tell him i already read about series on wikipedia. He is yet again impressed at my enthusiasm. What a joy it is to have your professor visibly brighten when he learns of your talents.

And now I sit here wondering what it must be like to be a brainlet, unable to engage your professor as an intellectual peer.

All of the deep conversations you people must miss out on because you aren't able to overcome the intellectual IQ barrier that stands in the way of your academic success... it's so sad.

My professor and I know each other on first name basis now, but i call him Dr. out of respect.

And yet here you brainlets sit, probably havent even made eye contact with yours out of fear that they will gauge your brainlet IQ levels.

A true shame, but just know it is because i was born special that i am special. I can't help being a genius, nor can my professor.

Two of a kind is two flocks in a bush.

/join showderp

>>8477282
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

Leibniz?

>>8477289
>Couple of weeks into the subject matter and hasn't fucked up the basics
>told my professor about the things I read on wikipedia
>has obviously failed to understand what a polymath actually is and just used the opportunity for an autistic bragging session about his unremarkable achievements.

Stay classy mate.

>>8477289
Kek m8, nice memeing. Just wait till you get take Triple Integrals II or Finite Topological Model Theory III w/ Barnett Identities. I'm sure you're a force to be reckoned with, but those courses will knock anyone on there ass.

>>8477479
>being this autistic

>>8477486
Calling someone autistic is a bit rich when you can barely spell.

>>8477492
Nigga, nobody checks their spelling when they're shitposting on a Mongolian Fly Fishing image board.

>>8477289
kek

>>8477304
probably this

>>8477521
what are Von Neumann's accomplishments?

Maybe someone like me? I Already have a Masters in History & Political Science (unique program). Worked as both an Urban Planner and then Bus-Dev guy for my city. Fucking hated the people though.

Due to workplace redundancy and a lack of will to work at a desk for the rest of my life, I re-enrolled and now am working toward an undergraduate in Electrical Engineering. I will likely have to also learn programing because I want to get into automation as well (Shit is cool).

My Goal is to eventually get an HBA for fun and get a PhD in both English lit-crit) and Math by the time I'm 50. I just need a good paying job first to fund such a journey.

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I know people on here like to make fun of him, but I would say Sam Harris.

He's made significant contributions to neurology, philosophy, and theology--- while at the same time becoming a tremendously successful author.

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Edwin Hubble did great things for astronomy and also for basketball.

>>8477289
That is me when I was in high school

>>8477289
Any retard can do calc 1, holy shit aren't you a special snowflake. Chain rule, that's real fucking difficult. You know calc 1 is a class for juniors in high school, right? Hell, there were plenty of sophomores and juniors taking calc bc at my school a few years ago. Kys

>>8477534
>philosophy, and theology

HAHAHAHAHAHA, no.

>>8477289
stale pasta

>>8477289
Are you going to get a phd in triple integrals?

Mochizuki, he can move between universes by means of Medellin transforms

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>>8477492

>>8477534
Why do you say that? No philosopher takes his work seriously.

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>>8477528
>what is reading the wikipedia article linked

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>>8477282
Linus Pauling. He did extensive work in both science AND pseudoscience!

I think I have the drive to be a leader in a field it's just that I procrastinate a lot.

>>8477534
sam harris is barely a neuroscientist. i dont think hes even done anything further than whats in his phd. they maybe interesting topics but i wouldnt call his contribution significant beyond any other normal neuroscientist who publishes a paper. Hes made less significant contributions than Dawkins and we all know how much /sci/ insists hes not an actual scientist. Hes not a theologian either.

>>8477282
today is hard to be a polymath because people in science are elitists and don't welcome many types of people. It's very hard to be good at even one science because you have to pull the true knowledge out if someone's ass so often. Profs pretend to love science but they actually don't care about its future, they care about their ass in science.

>>8478100
not sure you understand what a polymath is

>>8478106
No, I understand, a polymath is a scientist working in multiple fields.

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>>8478069
Zizek is such a meme, I recognised his style in the first sentence

>>8478113
No, a poly math is someone who has expertise in many fields, not just science.

Honestly it might be JVN
His work was actually very important for the fields he was involved in and I doubt anyone comes close to the diversity of his achievements at least in recent times.

>>8478291

who have there been in last 200 years?

>>8477663

...ok?

>>8478054

I believe his work represents a fusion of his fields of interest that will only be appreciated with time.

>>8478097

This discounts the influence of his philosophical work on the field of neurology. Take free will, for instance.

>>8478421

what has been his insight about free will in neuroscience then? (and my predisposed view at this point is that they probably aren't going to be the slightest bit original or have had any effect on how people do neuroscience or think about it apart from maybe the general population)

>>8478339
von neumann, all memes aside

Jacob Barnett. He invented the time machine I used to travel back here and and inform you of his achievements.

>>8478339
Can't think of one.

>>8477532
You're an inspiration to people trying to do something similar. Thank you

John Nash Jr.

>>8477282

First, a banality. Second, a specific reply to the OP.

Of course mathematicians and polymaths are two different things. And to your credit, you correctly and tacitly differentiate the two words when you adjectivally specify a "mathematical polymath" in your title/prompt. As we know, a "polymath" by definition excels in and has made contributions to multiple fields of human endeavor, none of which is necessarily math or the sciences, although they often come up in connection with the word, just by the simple fact that polymaths are supposed to be smart, and smart people contribute to the sciences.

One slight variation on the OP's prompt, then (especially since he alludes to today's necessity of specialization in the sciences) is, "who was the last person to have total or near-total, comprehensive knowledge of all existing mathematical knowledge up until that given historical point?" And one very good answer to that question, one that has not been mentioned by name in this thread thus far, is: Augustin Louis Cauchy.

"Cauchy and his contemporary Gauss were among the last mathematicians to know the whole of mathematics as known at their time, and both made important contributions to nearly every branch, both pure and applied, as well as to physics and astronomy... Cauchy was the founder of complex function theory and a pioneer in the field of permutation groups, and determinants. His total written output of mathematics fills 24 large volumes, and is second only to that of Euler. He wrote more than 500 research papers after the age of 50. Cauchy died at the age of 67 on May 23, 1857."

-Historical blurb on Cauchy, Joseph A. Gallian, Contemporary Abstract Algebra, Sixth Edition, page 119.

I thought that it was Cauchy who had been dubbed "the last of the universalists", which has basically the same meaning that I've suggested. But this turns out instead to have been Poincare, also described as a polymath:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9

>>8477289
disgusting pasta