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September 26th: Norbert Wiener

2007-09-26 · John · watch on YouTube · History & curiosities · curiosity idea

John is thrilled to find the MIT hotel's reading room named after his favourite child prodigy, Norbert Wiener, and contrasts Wiener, who became an adult genius and founded cybernetics, with William James Sidis, whose early promise faded.

What is said

00:00:00 — Short shoot; the nerdy MIT hotel in Boston: circuit-board lights, AI-lab robots, corner of Sydney and Green

  • ★ John has unusually little time to shoot and edit today, so the video is 'built for speed, not built for comfort'. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ John finds his Boston hotel at MIT even more nerdfighterly than he knew: circuit-board light fixtures and robots from MIT's artificial intelligence lab in the lobby. — 00:00:00 · Boston

00:00:39 — Discovering the Norbert Wiener Room on the way to meet M. T. Anderson

  • ★★★ Leaving the hotel's reading room to meet M. T. Anderson, John sees it is named the Norbert Wiener Room. — 00:00:39
  • ★★★ John says he is a huge Norbert Wiener fan; Wiener is his favourite child prodigy of all time. — 00:00:39

00:01:08 — Why John loves Norbert Wiener: child prodigies, William James Sidis, cybernetics; Chris Crocker comparison

  • ★★ John first learned of Norbert Wiener while researching his second book, An Abundance of Katherines. — 00:01:08 · An Abundance of Katherines
  • ★★★ John says child prodigies often fail to continue their intellectual growth into adulthood, and many famous ones become miserable, solipsistic adults. — 00:01:08
  • ★★ John says Wiener was at Harvard as a child alongside William James Sidis, who was even smarter and lectured in astrophysics at Harvard at 13. — 00:01:08
    • number check: 13 — doubtful
  • ★★ John says Sidis as an adult turned to railroad traffic signals, spent about 30 years writing an 8,000-page manuscript on them while working as a bookkeeper, and died alone. — 00:01:50
    • number check: like 30 — doubtful
    • number check: like 8,000 — doubtful
  • ★★★ John says Wiener escaped that fate and became an adult genius: he invented the field of cybernetics and is a hugely important applied mathematician. — 00:02:19

00:02:55 — Wiener at the MTV awards and his Colonel Sanders look; thanks for the They Might Be Giants concert; Hank's high-school British accent; Richmond talk

  • ★★ John thanks Hank for 'sneaking us into' the They Might Be Giants concert and says the band was, as always, awesome. — 00:02:55 · They Might Be Giants
  • ★★ Hank's previous video reminds John of the months in high school when Hank always spoke with a fake British accent as if it were real. (playful) — 00:02:55
  • ★★ John tells nerdfighters in or around Richmond, Virginia, that he will speak at the University of Richmond tomorrow at 7 p.m. (hedged) — 00:02:55 · Nerdfighteria

Humor (significant)

  • The MIT hotel stands at the corner of Sydney and Green streets, their mother's name. — 00:00:00 > «Hank, it's Mom!»
  • Finding the Norbert Wiener Room, John cannot contain himself. — 00:00:39 > «Hank, I don't want to get all fangirly on you, but I am a huge Norbert Wiener fan!»
  • John tries to convey how much he loves Norbert Wiener. — 00:02:19 > «John Green is to Norbert Wiener as Chris Crocker is to Britney Spears.»
  • John saves one more really cool fact about Norbert Wiener for last. — 00:02:55 > «He looked a lot like Colonel Sanders.»

Threads in this video

Replies to

  • September 25th: TMBG and NYT — «your video yesterday reminded me of all those months when you were in high school when you always spoke with a fake British accent»

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