Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

People Explain Which Geniuses Alive Today Would Qualify As A Modern-Day Einstein

People Explain Which Geniuses Alive Today Would Qualify As A Modern-Day Einstein
Photo by rosario janza on Unsplash

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the smartest of them all?

Who is today's best and brightest?

Are they in charge of Mensa?

There are a lot of brilliant people in the world.

But if we can compare; who measures up to the greats?

Two words: Albert Einstein.

The new generation.


Redditor jumpjoom wanted to hear some thoughts on who everyone thought might be today's greatest smarty pants.

So they asked:

"Who is the closest person alive to a modern-day Einstein?"

I know I'm not on this list. So easy place to start.

The Unknown

excited genius GIFGiphy

"We probably don't know about them. They're probably buried in some pharma, rocket science, technology company and are content to do their thing."

believeTheError

"I know this absolute child prodigy genius of a mathematician that went to Harvard and was easily one of the best there. He’s currently a professor of a 3rd tier state college."

gigawort

Just as good...

"Even at the time Einstein was alive, it wasn't that he had the most powerful brain or best math ability (many surpassed him here). He worked on and solved some of the most outstanding problems in physics at the time. The late 19th/early 20th century was a special time for physics; classical physics was failing apart but how to fix it wasn't known - Einstein (amongst others) offered some ways to fix things."

"Tons and tons of people are just as 'bright' as Einstein by almost any metric but their work essentially can't as impactful. We're too many decimals deep into measurements now."

Jorrissss

"Emmy Noether comes to mind as a contemporary of Einstein who was easily a better mathematician than he was."

CoastingUphill

Impossible

"I’m going to give a weird answer: John Carmack."

"Just go read some of the things he has done and is doing. From inventing some of the math and programming that gave us the modern computer gaming revolution (this is the guy behind the original doom), to running a rocket company trying to achieve orbit and complete propulsive landings similar to what Space X does today, to dropping everything to create the future of VR."

"Now he’s immersed in AI research on top of everything else. The guy is a walking talking genius who sees things on a whole different level. He spent his whole career doing 'impossible' things in software and hardware. Whether you know his name or not, his work has had a real effect on all of our lives, and likely will be even more impactful in the future as we move toward a more virtually-centered life."

Exodi

Advanced Study in Princeton...

"Ed Witten..."

"American mathematician and theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He received his Ph.D. in physics in 1976 from Princeton University. He has made landmark contributions to string theory from the 1980's to the present day, most notably the development of M-theory in 1995. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1990 for his contributions to mathematics and mathematical physics"

Heap_Good_Firewater

It's all Relative

Good Witch Smile GIF by Hallmark ChannelGiphy

"Thomas Einstein, Albert Einsteins great grandson."

XRomaniaIsInSomaliaX

"That dude is a doctor. Imagine living your life having people refer to you as 'Dr. Einstein.' I'd develop a superiority complex."

blue4029

Those Einsteins. They should do a sitcom.

Math Guy

Confused Thinking GIF by JKGiphy

"Grigori Perelman the Russian mathematician?"

OverLurking

"My man solved the Poincaré Conjecture and just dipped. I love math and I tried to read his paper and I did not understand a single word. The surgery thing seems like magic to me."

Lufernaal

Tao

"Terrence Tao."

david_rohan

"Apparently a strategy, if you're stuck on a problem at higher level maths is to get Tao interested in what you're working on."

JVM_

"From his Wiki. His research topics include 'harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, algebraic combinatorics, arithmetic combinatorics, geometric combinatorics, probability theory, compressed sensing and analytic number theory.' Just look down the rabbit hole of any one of those theories or topics and your mind will explode."

KardelSharpeyes

And the family...

"All of the Tao siblings are terrifyingly intelligent. I had the pleasure of playing a concert alongside Terence's brother, Trevor. I perform my set and am feeling pretty good about myself, and then Trevor gets up and performs gymnopedie no 1, which is a pretty difficult piece, but the dude did it while solving a Rubik's cube. Needless i say, I, and all the other performers that day, felt quite upstaged."

Haverwolf

"Trevor Tao is also an international chess master and is one of Australia’s top players."

Askyourdaughter

Thought

"Miguel Nicolelis. He created the theory and proofs of the brain net, basically telepathy. Thanks to this he managed to create a machine that a quadriplegic could walk using the power of thought. And it worked. The power of thought From someone else for this quadriplegic to relearn how to think about walking."

DELAIZ

The One and Only

albert einstein GIF by US National ArchivesGiphy

"In some fields, science can be so complex and multi-disciplinary that 100s of people have contributed to e.g. gene therapy, CO2 capture or other major contributions to society. So major discoveries can't be attributed to a single person. And most of this science, if published, generally needs affiliations to academia to be taken seriously."

"Einstein was truly one-of-a-kind from his multitude of publications in 1905. I'm 90 percent sure that he wasn't even affiliated with any university at the time. He did it solo, out of nowhere. This makes his discoveries even more impressive! Einstein experts, please confirm that he did in fact not work at a university in 1905. I believe he worked at a patent office."

TheGhettoKidd

I'm not smart enough for this thread but we applaud this next generation of geniuses!

Do you have anyone you'd like to add? Let us know in the comments below.

More from Trending/best-of-reddit

Elmo; New York Knicks
Paul Zimmerman/WireImage; Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

Elmo Hit With Hilarious Backlash From New Yorkers After Tweeting Well-Wishes To Both The Knicks And The Spurs

Sesame Street may be set on a fictional street in a Manhattan neighborhood, but only a select few characters have that New York attitude.

Lovable, cuddly little Elmo is definitely not one of them, and it recently got him in a bit of trouble with fans of the New York Knicks.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donald Trump
Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Trump Plans To Attend The NBA Finals In New York—And Knicks Fans Are Having None Of It

The New York Knicks lead the NBA finals best of seven series against the San Antonio Spurs 2-0 going into game three at Madison Square Garden (MSG) in New York City on Monday night.

It will be the first finals game played at the historic venue in 27 years. Should the Knicks prevail in the series, it will be the team's first championship since 1973.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshot of Hillary Clinton in 2016; Donald Trump
C-SPAN; Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Hillary Clinton's 2016 Speech Predicting How Trump Would Behave As President Just Resurfaced—And Wow

People can't help but nod their heads after one of former Secretary of State and then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's speeches from 2016 warning about how Donald Trump would act if elected president resurfaced and proved more relevant than ever.

The footage resurfaced as public sentiment has soured on the economy; recent surveys show that roughly two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump's economic stewardship, while a majority say their personal financial situation is deteriorating.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshot of James Talarico; Donald Trump; Ken Paxton
@jamestalarico/X; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Ron Jenkins/Getty Images

James Talarico Epically Blasts Trump And Senate Opponent Over What It Means To Be A 'Real Man'

Texas Senate candidate James Talarico criticized his opponent in November's election, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, as well as President Donald Trump in a speech about what it means to be a "real man" after facing regular attacks on his masculinity.

Trump has described Talarico as “a weird—a weird—candidate,” a line that was quickly incorporated into an advertisement from Paxton, who argued that that Talarico is unfit to represent Texans partly because of his supposed veganism. Members of the right-wing have followed suit and described Talarico as an “effeminate, estrogenetic, catty, and totally embarrassing” candidate.

Keep ReadingShow less
Jennifer Aniston (right) and Lisa Kudrow (left) discuss a potential Friends spinoff.
Variety/YouTub

Jennifer Aniston And Lisa Kudrow's Idea For A 'Friends' Spinoff Is Going Viral For All The Wrong Reasons

For decades, critics have argued that Friends benefited from a television landscape that often overlooked Black-led sitcoms telling similar stories. So when Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow recently floated the idea of a Friends spinoff called Girlfriends, many viewers saw it as yet another example of Black television history being left out of the conversation.

During Variety's Actors on Actors, Aniston and Kudrow discussed what a potential Friends revival could look like more than 20 years after the sitcom ended its original run.

Keep ReadingShow less