William James Sidis is considered the most intelligent American child prodigy and one of the most controversial phenomena in the history of 20th-century education and psychology. His extraordinary intellectual achievements and difficult personal life remain a subject of debate, both as an example of the possibilities of the human mind and as a warning about the consequences of excessive expectations placed on a child.
Phenomenal Start in Life
He came into the world on April 1, 1898, in Boston as the son of doctors and scientists. His parents believed in a radical educational method based on intensive mental stimulation from the first months of life. The results exceeded the boldest expectations, though they brought unexpected consequences.
At eighteen months, William read New York daily newspapers without adult help. At four, a typewriter was enough for him to create his first original book.
At age six, he applied to high school, and as an eight-year-old he wrote an anatomical monograph and constructed his own language, Vendergood, based on four European languages with original grammar. The press proclaimed him the smartest child in the world, though the title itself tormented him.
Harvard at Age Eleven
Harvard University rejected his application when he was nine years old. The administration deemed the boy emotionally immature despite his obvious intellectual abilities.
Two years later, the situation changed and the eleven-year-old was admitted first as a special listener. The twelve-year-old delivered a lecture on four dimensions at the Harvard Mathematical Club, arousing astonishment among mathematics professors. He completed his studies with distinction in 1914 as a sixteen-year-old.
His academic career began swiftly at Rice Institute in Houston, where the seventeen-year-old took a lecturer position. A year later, he resigned from it, feeling socially isolated and ill-suited to the environment.
Breakdown and Escape from the World of Science
Genius did not go hand in hand with emotional balance or social skills. As a teenager, he suffered a nervous breakdown, and his relationship with his parents deteriorated dramatically. After completing his law studies at Harvard in 1919, he abandoned academia for political activism.
He identified with socialism and participated in a pacifist street demonstration in Boston. Arrest and an eighteen-month prison sentence were suspended thanks to his parents’ intervention.
He spent a year in a sanatorium in New Hampshire on forced convalescence, then went to California under family supervision. After this experience, he broke off all contact with his relatives and chose a life in the shadows.
Hidden Life and Private Research
He spent the following decades as an anonymous clerk in modest material conditions, completely separated from the scientific community. Privately, however, he continued research and wrote books, often publishing them under pseudonyms.
In 1925, he published „The Animate and the Inanimate,” in which he combined cosmology with thermodynamics and formulated theses ahead of their time. Buckminster Fuller recognized scientific precursorship and mathematical imagination in his work that surpassed contemporary scholars.
Sidis also wrote about languages and the history of Native Americans, never revealing his own identity under the publications. In 1930, he patented a rotary perpetual calendar, the fruit of his fascination with time systems.
Lawsuit Against The New Yorker
In 1937, The New Yorker magazine published an article „April Fool!” presenting him as an eccentric loner collecting transit tickets.
The text deeply humiliated Sidis and violated his right to privacy, so he filed a lawsuit against the editorial office. The case ended in a settlement and became a precedent in American press law concerning former celebrities.
After this incident, Sidis avoided contact with the media and the scientific world even more. All subsequent publications and lectures were carried out exclusively under pseudonyms.
The Loneliness of Genius and Death in Oblivion
He commanded over a dozen languages and engaged in astronomy, physics, linguistics, history, and urban transportation. His abilities in abstract thinking and creativity astound to this day, though contemporary scientists never fully appreciated his achievements.
He did not start a family or establish a permanent intimate relationship. He did not participate in social life and declared celibacy, rejecting traditional social roles. He died on July 17, 1944, in the Brookline neighborhood of Boston from a cerebral hemorrhage. He left behind unpublished manuscripts, private notes, and unresolved questions about the limits of human adaptation.
The myth of an intelligence quotient of 250-300 points has no basis in medical documentation or credible research. No standardized test was conducted in his case, and only anecdotal reports transmitted by his sister after his death are known. Contemporary psychometrics considers such values impossible to measure with the methods of that time. Sidis was outstandingly intelligent, but the exact level was never tested.Retry
