Come on, guys. Five pages and nobody mentions Norman Borlaug? He saved over a billion people. And that's just in his lifetime. And he's such a badass that he still spends a lot of time in wheat fields researching on how to save more people when he can and he's over 90.
I second Tesla. Dude basically designed the basis of the modern power grid, the radio and radio controlled machines, the electric motor, discovered x-rays and did tons of groundwork for electro magnetism.
The conflict between Tesla and Edison is one of the most interesting parts of scientific history, to me. Both were smart guys, with Tesla maybe being more eligible for the title of 'genius' than his rival, but Edison is the guy we all read about in our gradeschool history books. Tesla died alone in the hotel room he'd spent the last years of his life living in, and Edison ended up a veritable tycoon.
Also, because I haven't seen his name mentioned with the rest of the classical love in- Aristotle. Dude took Plato back down to Earth and basically invented scientists. Plus he was probably the first and last guy in history to know everything there was to know about anything.
Aristotle held physics back a few hundred years with his "fire goes up because it wants to go to the sun! water goes down because it wants to rejoin the ocean!"
The conflict between Tesla and Edison is one of the most interesting parts of scientific history, to me. Both were smart guys, with Tesla maybe being more eligible for the title of 'genius' than his rival, but Edison is the guy we all read about in our gradeschool history books. Tesla died alone in the hotel room he'd spent the last years of his life living in, and Edison ended up a veritable tycoon.
There's a great book about this called Loving Little Egypt.
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HarrierThe Star Spangled ManRegistered Userregular
edited June 2007
Has Napoleon been mentioned? I'm sure he has. Still, Napoleon. He was not only a military genius, not only a political genius, but he was enough of a genius to use both of those talents in harmony. Motherfucker was a master of organization and administration.
Actually, in a similar vein, I'll nominate Genghis Khan as well.
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I don't wanna kill anybody. I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from.
Has Napoleon been mentioned? I'm sure he has. Still, Napoleon. He was not only a military genius, not only a political genius, but he was enough of a genius to use both of those talents in harmony. Motherfucker was a master of organization and administration.
Actually, in a similar vein, I'll nominate Genghis Khan as well.
I would agree that Napoleon was a organizational, administrative, and political genius, but I don't think he was a great tactician. All he did was use his superior numbers and charge the shit out of the enemy line at hardpoints.
God, don't you know that aliens from the karkatan system invented calculus fifteen million years ago?
Um, 16 million years ago. Someone didn't pay attention in Karkatan History 101!
Nah, but Doodman did bring up a good point. People are bringing up all of these dead European and American dudes, but there's virtually no mention of Eastern Asia. C'mon, what about Confucius, Qin Shi Huang, Sun Tzu and Toyotomi Hideyoshi? Admittedly, not the best choices, either... oi, it's been a while.
EDIT: Gah, Genghis Khan too. Dang it Harrier, there goes my point...
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HarrierThe Star Spangled ManRegistered Userregular
edited June 2007
It's still a salient point. I just happened to be thinking of Napoleon and Alexander the Great, then I remembered 10th Grade World History and thought, "Didn't that one Mongol guy do sort of the same thing?"
I think the reason people forget Eastern Asia is simple location bias. We haven't felt the impact of the great geniuses of the Orient because, here in the Occident, we're outside the range of their accomplishments.
Well, sort of. The Mongols got as far as Germany, right?
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I don't wanna kill anybody. I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from.
The conflict between Tesla and Edison is one of the most interesting parts of scientific history, to me. Both were smart guys, with Tesla maybe being more eligible for the title of 'genius' than his rival, but Edison is the guy we all read about in our gradeschool history books. Tesla died alone in the hotel room he'd spent the last years of his life living in, and Edison ended up a veritable tycoon.
Yes but that's because Tesla probably developed dementia in his later life by all accounts and wasn't much use for anything by that stage. His whole life was funded purely by his inventions and the fact he made a lot of good ones - he never liked paying attention to his finances and never really saved up so when he eventually conked out, and he did conk out (because of the dementia) he just had nothing less and came across as a mad man promising fantastical yet unworkable machines.
Nonetheless, thanks to the way most idiots don't understand the scientific method, the free energy community has more or less latched onto Tesla as their savior and cites his early inventions as proof that clearly his later ideas like wireless power transmission, the plasma cannon and for some reason a weird idea about holography must be bulletproof and he just died before he invented them. Frankly, I'm glad no one decided to give him money at that point because the man fortunately ran out of it all while trying to build what was essentially a 60m high spark-gap generator.
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HarrierThe Star Spangled ManRegistered Userregular
Edison's best skill was stealing shit form people who worked for him. He was a better businessman than Tesla was but as a scientist Edison couldn't hold a candle to Tesla. Edison was a tinkerer and engineer. Tesla was both an accomplished inventor and a visionary scientist
I would agree that Napoleon was a organizational, administrative, and political genius, but I don't think he was a great tactician. All he did was use his superior numbers and charge the shit out of the enemy line at hardpoints.
Napoleon was a brilliant tactician. Brilliant. He mastered intricate troop movements, logistical control, and found a way to use heavy calvary in ways unheard of at the time. He re-invented field artillery tactics, a premise that's still used today by modern artillerymen.
His superior numbers tactic you deride was at the time, unheard of. Most armies moved in smaller numbers. Napoleon kept his army together, utilized skirmishers and flanking parties, and re-organized his divisions to meet whatever army they faced. He re-invented warfare for western civilizaiton. If that's not genius, then I don't know what is.
Oh, we should give a shout out to Thomas Bayes for inventing Bayesian statistics. Spawned a whole area of statistical analysis from an attempt to find a way to derive the probability of the existence of God (and found and reported that it couldn't be done without knowing the initial probability of god existing, which is well, making shit up as they say).
Also, because I haven't seen his name mentioned with the rest of the classical love in- Aristotle. Dude took Plato back down to Earth and basically invented scientists. Plus he was probably the first and last guy in history to know everything there was to know about anything.
Aristotle held physics back a few hundred years with his "fire goes up because it wants to go to the sun! water goes down because it wants to rejoin the ocean!"
More than a few hundred. That's how much of a genius he was. These days it takes barely a century before everyone stops slurping long enough to point out all the flaws in your work.
There's a great book about this called Loving Little Egypt.
This one?
Editorial Reviews: From Library Journal Imagine E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime rewritten by a mellower, comically more benevolent Thomas Pynchon and you might have a novel something like this one. Real peopleAlexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, William Randolph Hearstare involved in imagined events, and historical facts counterpoint fictional themes. Mourly Vold, a nearly blind student, discovers how to make free telephone connections and creates a communications network of blind people called the Party Line. Hearst, hearing of this, fears a conspiracy of Bolsheviks or Mexican anarchists, and enlists the aid of his old crony Edison in catching the dangerous miscreant. All is resolved in a broadly farcical (though perhaps too hurried) conclusion, with many chuckles along the way and some interesting speculations on the nature of scientific investigation. An intriguing and enjoyable romp by the author of McKay's Bees .
The conflict between Tesla and Edison is one of the most interesting parts of scientific history, to me. Both were smart guys, with Tesla maybe being more eligible for the title of 'genius' than his rival, but Edison is the guy we all read about in our gradeschool history books. Tesla died alone in the hotel room he'd spent the last years of his life living in, and Edison ended up a veritable tycoon.
Yes but that's because Tesla probably developed dementia in his later life by all accounts and wasn't much use for anything by that stage. His whole life was funded purely by his inventions and the fact he made a lot of good ones - he never liked paying attention to his finances and never really saved up so when he eventually conked out, and he did conk out (because of the dementia) he just had nothing less and came across as a mad man promising fantastical yet unworkable machines.
Lots of geniuses suffer from mental problems; Tesla was special in that he was screwed out of a lifetime of recognition and financial security by a guy who executed animals to prove his ideas' superiority, and who ended up using and profiting from Tesla's ideas anyway once he realized that they were better. All of this after having rejected them as useless when Tesla was actually working for him.
Not that I'm actually indignant about this. Okay, well, maybe I am... it sort of baffles me that we still laud Edison as a great scientist in children's stories, and that Tesla remains an eccentric and mysterious figure.
It's still a salient point. I just happened to be thinking of Napoleon and Alexander the Great, then I remembered 10th Grade World History and thought, "Didn't that one Mongol guy do sort of the same thing?"
I think the reason people forget Eastern Asia is simple location bias. We haven't felt the impact of the great geniuses of the Orient because, here in the Occident, we're outside the range of their accomplishments.
Well, sort of. The Mongols got as far as Germany, right?
The accomplishments that these Asian thinkers had, however, don't matter anymore because western thought has become the way of thinking for the entire world. Up until the mid 1800s, yeah, most of these ideas made a difference for a large proportion of the world, but then Europeans came in and carved it up for themselves.
The reason history seems to have such a focus is not solely because of a bias: it's because they focus on what has the most effect on our lives right now. Sure Confucius' ideas defined Chinese and to some degree East Asian thought for over a millennia, but now the effects of people like Karl Marx and Josef Stalin are more influential in modern Chinese history, and explaining why they are where they are today.
Has Napoleon been mentioned? I'm sure he has. Still, Napoleon. He was not only a military genius, not only a political genius, but he was enough of a genius to use both of those talents in harmony. Motherfucker was a master of organization and administration.
Actually, in a similar vein, I'll nominate Genghis Khan as well.
I would agree that Napoleon was a organizational, administrative, and political genius, but I don't think he was a great tactician. All he did was use his superior numbers and charge the shit out of the enemy line at hardpoints.
There's a great book about this called Loving Little Egypt.
This one?
Editorial Reviews: From Library Journal Imagine E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime rewritten by a mellower, comically more benevolent Thomas Pynchon and you might have a novel something like this one. Real peopleAlexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, William Randolph Hearstare involved in imagined events, and historical facts counterpoint fictional themes. Mourly Vold, a nearly blind student, discovers how to make free telephone connections and creates a communications network of blind people called the Party Line. Hearst, hearing of this, fears a conspiracy of Bolsheviks or Mexican anarchists, and enlists the aid of his old crony Edison in catching the dangerous miscreant. All is resolved in a broadly farcical (though perhaps too hurried) conclusion, with many chuckles along the way and some interesting speculations on the nature of scientific investigation. An intriguing and enjoyable romp by the author of McKay's Bees .
Yeah. It isn't a brilliant book, but it's really fun and though it isn't specifically about Tesla and Edison they play a big part as the main character befriends Tesla.
Has Napoleon been mentioned? I'm sure he has. Still, Napoleon. He was not only a military genius, not only a political genius, but he was enough of a genius to use both of those talents in harmony. Motherfucker was a master of organization and administration.
Actually, in a similar vein, I'll nominate Genghis Khan as well.
I would agree that Napoleon was a organizational, administrative, and political genius, but I don't think he was a great tactician. All he did was use his superior numbers and charge the shit out of the enemy line at hardpoints.
You are wrong.
Although: "lets invade Russia" was a bad move tactically. I don't see why Hitler thought it would be a good move either, I mean; for crying out loud, Napoleon tried it and failed, don't you learn from the past mistakes of others? It would seem not.
Yeah. It isn't a brilliant book, but it's really fun and though it isn't specifically about Tesla and Edison they play a big part as the main character befriends Tesla.
Has Napoleon been mentioned? I'm sure he has. Still, Napoleon. He was not only a military genius, not only a political genius, but he was enough of a genius to use both of those talents in harmony. Motherfucker was a master of organization and administration.
Actually, in a similar vein, I'll nominate Genghis Khan as well.
I would agree that Napoleon was a organizational, administrative, and political genius, but I don't think he was a great tactician. All he did was use his superior numbers and charge the shit out of the enemy line at hardpoints.
You are wrong.
Although: "lets invade Russia" was a bad move tactically. I don't see why Hitler thought it would be a good move either, I mean; for crying out loud, Napoleon tried it and failed, don't you learn from the past mistakes of others? It would seem not.
It wasn't a bad move, he just did it badly. He should have stayed in Moscow. There was no good reason to leave, he was just impatient.
I'm putting my two cents in for Oscar Wilde. In my opinion there has never been a man who so completely enraptured the world by his image, and then proceeded to use his fame as a method of redefining social ideas. He used his wit and his charm and his genius against the system that he at first played slave to.
If you've never read The Importance of Being Earnest, do yourself a favor and read one of a handful of comedies that has influenced all dramatic and comedic plays since it's creation.
I will also end with my favorite quote of his, "Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't the slightest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die."
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
There's a great book about this called Loving Little Egypt.
This one?
Editorial Reviews: From Library Journal Imagine E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime rewritten by a mellower, comically more benevolent Thomas Pynchon and you might have a novel something like this one. Real peopleAlexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, William Randolph Hearstare involved in imagined events, and historical facts counterpoint fictional themes. Mourly Vold, a nearly blind student, discovers how to make free telephone connections and creates a communications network of blind people called the Party Line. Hearst, hearing of this, fears a conspiracy of Bolsheviks or Mexican anarchists, and enlists the aid of his old crony Edison in catching the dangerous miscreant. All is resolved in a broadly farcical (though perhaps too hurried) conclusion, with many chuckles along the way and some interesting speculations on the nature of scientific investigation. An intriguing and enjoyable romp by the author of McKay's Bees .
While we're talking literary genius here, I can't go another post without a mention of Alexandre Dumas. How in the hell do you have more main characters than can be counted on one hand, with the added difficulty of the fact that one of them has six fucking aliases, make their stories riveting of their own accord (to say nothing of how all the lines dovetail beautifully) and do all of this without confusing the reader? :^:
Has Napoleon been mentioned? I'm sure he has. Still, Napoleon. He was not only a military genius, not only a political genius, but he was enough of a genius to use both of those talents in harmony. Motherfucker was a master of organization and administration.
Actually, in a similar vein, I'll nominate Genghis Khan as well.
I would agree that Napoleon was a organizational, administrative, and political genius, but I don't think he was a great tactician. All he did was use his superior numbers and charge the shit out of the enemy line at hardpoints.
You are wrong.
Although: "lets invade Russia" was a bad move tactically. I don't see why Hitler thought it would be a good move either, I mean; for crying out loud, Napoleon tried it and failed, don't you learn from the past mistakes of others? It would seem not.
It wasn't a bad move, he just did it badly. He should have stayed in Moscow. There was no good reason to leave, he was just impatient.
The city being burned down was a good reason to leave.
While we're talking literary genius here, I can't go another post without a mention of Alexandre Dumas. How in the hell do you have more main characters than can be counted on one hand, with the added difficulty of the fact that one of them has six fucking aliases, make their stories riveting of their own accord (to say nothing of how all the lines dovetail beautifully) and do all of this without confusing the reader? :^:
That's a good call. I did get confused by that book the first time I read it (the abridged version, anyway), but I was also pretty young and had a really short attention span. Even so I thought it was great.
Has Napoleon been mentioned? I'm sure he has. Still, Napoleon. He was not only a military genius, not only a political genius, but he was enough of a genius to use both of those talents in harmony. Motherfucker was a master of organization and administration.
Actually, in a similar vein, I'll nominate Genghis Khan as well.
I would agree that Napoleon was a organizational, administrative, and political genius, but I don't think he was a great tactician. All he did was use his superior numbers and charge the shit out of the enemy line at hardpoints.
You are wrong.
Although: "lets invade Russia" was a bad move tactically. I don't see why Hitler thought it would be a good move either, I mean; for crying out loud, Napoleon tried it and failed, don't you learn from the past mistakes of others? It would seem not.
It wasn't a bad move, he just did it badly. He should have stayed in Moscow. There was no good reason to leave, he was just impatient.
The city being burned down was a good reason to leave.
It was a bad idea because of the way Napoleon handled his logistics. The average soldier in his army didn't carry more than a day's worth of food, and no tents. It let them move fast and light, kept them more flexible for most of Napoleons battles. In most of Europe, you can get away with this since it's generally pleasent weather, and you can take or buy what you need to eat. Russia is God's hellhole, especially in winter, where his traditional logistics could not, and did not work. It was only a matter of time before attrition nailed him to a wall, and sent him packing.
I'm not sure if anyone's bothered to mention him yet, but I'd like to put in a belated nomination for Nicola Tesla. In terms of impact on modern society, Tesla did a lot to bring the scientific community to a consensus on the nature and properties of electricity, as well as integrate it into modern life within his own time. It's hard to argue against the impact Alternating Current has had on, well, everything, not to mention the radio. Tesla was so successful, in fact, that Thomas Edison was forced to build much of his current fame on fucking him over.
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"I assure you, your distaste only reveals your ignorance."
It's still a salient point. I just happened to be thinking of Napoleon and Alexander the Great, then I remembered 10th Grade World History and thought, "Didn't that one Mongol guy do sort of the same thing?"
I think the reason people forget Eastern Asia is simple location bias. We haven't felt the impact of the great geniuses of the Orient because, here in the Occident, we're outside the range of their accomplishments.
Well, sort of. The Mongols got as far as Germany, right?
The accomplishments that these Asian thinkers had, however, don't matter anymore because western thought has become the way of thinking for the entire world. Up until the mid 1800s, yeah, most of these ideas made a difference for a large proportion of the world, but then Europeans came in and carved it up for themselves.
The reason history seems to have such a focus is not solely because of a bias: it's because they focus on what has the most effect on our lives right now. Sure Confucius' ideas defined Chinese and to some degree East Asian thought for over a millennia, but now the effects of people like Karl Marx and Josef Stalin are more influential in modern Chinese history, and explaining why they are where they are today.
I see what you're saying. With that in mind, how about we select a more recent influential figure... what about Mahatma Gandhi?
I think one can make a strong case for Muhammad's genius.
Anyone who can, with relatively little blood, unite Arabia, a land so deeply fragmented by tribal lines that since his death rarely has any real political stability, has 'mad skillz'.
Not to mention orchestrating the biggest comeback in history. He was almost murdered on several occasions, only his uncle's protection saved him, and fled for his life practically penniless. A few years later all of arabia was under his control and he had went from powerless to having extraordinary power. His military tactics were very unorthodox for the society he lived in, and his successes were near miraculous in nature. I think there is little doubt that he had political genius.
I mean, within a generation after his death his followers controlled a vast empire from morrocco to pakistan. pretty crazy stuff.
I'm not sure if anyone's bothered to mention him yet, but I'd like to put in a belated nomination for Nicola Tesla. In terms of impact on modern society, Tesla did a lot to bring the scientific community to a consensus on the nature and properties of electricity, as well as integrate it into modern life within his own time. It's hard to argue against the impact Alternating Current has had on, well, everything, not to mention the radio. Tesla was so successful, in fact, that Thomas Edison was forced to build much of his current fame on fucking him over.
The Greatest Genius of all time (if being a genius means leaving behind the greatest legacy) would probably be whoever first utilized basic ancient agricultural principles to form the first village.
Unless you define being genius as having a high innate intelligence, in which case it is impossible to find the greatest genius and he/she may not even be all that significant.
I would enjoy seeing more comparisons, Beethoven vs. Napoleon. Genghis Kahn vs. Ghandi, and etc. The goal of the thread is to find the greatest genius after all...
I'm going to go with Newton. Not just for Calculus, although that was cool. Not just for Gravity, although that was okay too. Not just for his work in optics or for hanging out in bars hunting counterfeiters. Not just for being a brilliant innovator and also able to reconcile his work with a belief in the literal truth of the bible (talk about holding simultaneous contradictory ideas in one's head).
But for being able to do all of this in a time which was actively and systemically hostile to the theories he came up with. And for being good enough at it all to the point that by the end of his life the times had actually changed because of him.
I don't mean to rain on your parade, but Newton didn't really have to fight that hard to promote his theories. The publication of his Principia made him widely popular and was accepted very quickly. He was knighted by England, and the Church actually used his ideas to reinforce Christianity, rather than attack his ideas. Hell, apart from Liebniz, I can't think of anyone who was all that angry at Newton.
Just saying, he was a genius, but maverick might be an unfair characterization.
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Poe is more talented and more emo in my opinion.
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God, I hate Aristotle
There's a great book about this called Loving Little Egypt.
Actually, in a similar vein, I'll nominate Genghis Khan as well.
I would agree that Napoleon was a organizational, administrative, and political genius, but I don't think he was a great tactician. All he did was use his superior numbers and charge the shit out of the enemy line at hardpoints.
Um, 16 million years ago. Someone didn't pay attention in Karkatan History 101!
Nah, but Doodman did bring up a good point. People are bringing up all of these dead European and American dudes, but there's virtually no mention of Eastern Asia. C'mon, what about Confucius, Qin Shi Huang, Sun Tzu and Toyotomi Hideyoshi? Admittedly, not the best choices, either... oi, it's been a while.
EDIT: Gah, Genghis Khan too. Dang it Harrier, there goes my point...
I think the reason people forget Eastern Asia is simple location bias. We haven't felt the impact of the great geniuses of the Orient because, here in the Occident, we're outside the range of their accomplishments.
Well, sort of. The Mongols got as far as Germany, right?
The Mongolian empire was pretty much the biggest empire for a long fucking time. Maybe ever.
The Genrō during the Meiji period of japan were pretty fucking smart, not to mention badass.
Nonetheless, thanks to the way most idiots don't understand the scientific method, the free energy community has more or less latched onto Tesla as their savior and cites his early inventions as proof that clearly his later ideas like wireless power transmission, the plasma cannon and for some reason a weird idea about holography must be bulletproof and he just died before he invented them. Frankly, I'm glad no one decided to give him money at that point because the man fortunately ran out of it all while trying to build what was essentially a 60m high spark-gap generator.
I think the Mongol Empire was the biggest contiguous land empire ever.
Napoleon was a brilliant tactician. Brilliant. He mastered intricate troop movements, logistical control, and found a way to use heavy calvary in ways unheard of at the time. He re-invented field artillery tactics, a premise that's still used today by modern artillerymen.
His superior numbers tactic you deride was at the time, unheard of. Most armies moved in smaller numbers. Napoleon kept his army together, utilized skirmishers and flanking parties, and re-organized his divisions to meet whatever army they faced. He re-invented warfare for western civilizaiton. If that's not genius, then I don't know what is.
More than a few hundred. That's how much of a genius he was. These days it takes barely a century before everyone stops slurping long enough to point out all the flaws in your work.
This one?
Not that I'm actually indignant about this. Okay, well, maybe I am... it sort of baffles me that we still laud Edison as a great scientist in children's stories, and that Tesla remains an eccentric and mysterious figure.
The accomplishments that these Asian thinkers had, however, don't matter anymore because western thought has become the way of thinking for the entire world. Up until the mid 1800s, yeah, most of these ideas made a difference for a large proportion of the world, but then Europeans came in and carved it up for themselves.
The reason history seems to have such a focus is not solely because of a bias: it's because they focus on what has the most effect on our lives right now. Sure Confucius' ideas defined Chinese and to some degree East Asian thought for over a millennia, but now the effects of people like Karl Marx and Josef Stalin are more influential in modern Chinese history, and explaining why they are where they are today.
You are wrong.
Yeah. It isn't a brilliant book, but it's really fun and though it isn't specifically about Tesla and Edison they play a big part as the main character befriends Tesla.
Although: "lets invade Russia" was a bad move tactically. I don't see why Hitler thought it would be a good move either, I mean; for crying out loud, Napoleon tried it and failed, don't you learn from the past mistakes of others? It would seem not.
Sounds like a fun read. :P
It wasn't a bad move, he just did it badly. He should have stayed in Moscow. There was no good reason to leave, he was just impatient.
If you've never read The Importance of Being Earnest, do yourself a favor and read one of a handful of comedies that has influenced all dramatic and comedic plays since it's creation.
I will also end with my favorite quote of his, "Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't the slightest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die."
Edison/ Tesla slashfic?
The city being burned down was a good reason to leave.
That's a good call. I did get confused by that book the first time I read it (the abridged version, anyway), but I was also pretty young and had a really short attention span. Even so I thought it was great.
It was a bad idea because of the way Napoleon handled his logistics. The average soldier in his army didn't carry more than a day's worth of food, and no tents. It let them move fast and light, kept them more flexible for most of Napoleons battles. In most of Europe, you can get away with this since it's generally pleasent weather, and you can take or buy what you need to eat. Russia is God's hellhole, especially in winter, where his traditional logistics could not, and did not work. It was only a matter of time before attrition nailed him to a wall, and sent him packing.
I see what you're saying. With that in mind, how about we select a more recent influential figure... what about Mahatma Gandhi?
Anyone who can, with relatively little blood, unite Arabia, a land so deeply fragmented by tribal lines that since his death rarely has any real political stability, has 'mad skillz'.
Not to mention orchestrating the biggest comeback in history. He was almost murdered on several occasions, only his uncle's protection saved him, and fled for his life practically penniless. A few years later all of arabia was under his control and he had went from powerless to having extraordinary power. His military tactics were very unorthodox for the society he lived in, and his successes were near miraculous in nature. I think there is little doubt that he had political genius.
I mean, within a generation after his death his followers controlled a vast empire from morrocco to pakistan. pretty crazy stuff.
see previous page
Unless you define being genius as having a high innate intelligence, in which case it is impossible to find the greatest genius and he/she may not even be all that significant.
I would enjoy seeing more comparisons, Beethoven vs. Napoleon. Genghis Kahn vs. Ghandi, and etc. The goal of the thread is to find the greatest genius after all...
Just saying, he was a genius, but maverick might be an unfair characterization.
Because I am pretty high up there.