William Sidis’s father pushed him to write four books before he was eight, but he couldn’t go to Harvard until he was eleven.
William Sidis passed away on July 17, 1944. He was 46 years old.
Sidis was already well-known when he went to Harvard College at age 11. A year later, he talked to the math club at school about “four-dimensional properties.”
Bill Sidis had outstanding skills that his parents used to get him involved in what they thought would be helpful academic activities from a young age. His sister may have exaggerated when she said that he had the highest IQ ever measured in a test after his death.
On the other hand, Sidis didn’t handle the huge amount of attention well. Even though he did well in school as a child, keeping his anonymity was more important. As an adult, he avoided things that were too hard for him.
William James Sidis was born in New York on April 1, 1898. His name is Sy-dis.
On April 1, 1898, William James Sidis was born in New York. His name is Sy-dis. Boris Sidis’s Ukrainian-born father served a two-year sentence in czarist Russia for teaching peasants how to read. In 1887, he moved to the United States.
Abnormal Psychology And High IQ
Sarah Mandelbaum, his mother, was also born in Russia. She moved to the United States when she was 13 years old, after living through a pogrom.
Both of my parents were smarter and more ambitious than I was. Boris went to Harvard University and got his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in three years. Then, after his medical degree, he worked as a psychiatrist specializing in abnormal psychology.
When he taught English, he met Sarah for the first time. He convinced Sarah to attend medical school at Boston University, where she was one of the first women to do so.
William, named after the psychologist William James because James was a friend of his father’s, could do strange things when he was young. At six months old, he said his first word, and at one and a half years old, he could read the New York Times.
By the time he was three and could write, he had already sent a letter to Macy’s to buy toys. By the time he was eight years old, he knew how to speak Latin, Greek, German, Russian, Hebrew, Turkish, French, and Armenian. He had also made his own virtual language, which he called Vendergood.
Between 6 and 8, he wrote and published four books. They were about anatomy, astronomy, and grammar for Vendergood.
He did all this with the help of his father, who wanted to prove that a child’s intelligence could be grown.
Boris wanted his son to start college when he was only eight years old, even though Harvard would have let him in as a special student at that age.
The Perfect Life
Sidis made the mistake of telling reporters after he graduated in 1914 cum laude that he wanted to live the “perfect life,” which he said would include being celibate because he had no interest in women.
After Sidis had a terrible year as a graduate math student and teacher at the Rice Institute (later Rice University) in Houston, he did fall in love. They went to Harvard Law School for almost three years before leaving unexpectedly when they were almost done.
He chose Martha Foley, a young woman who was full of life. When they were both in jail in 1919, they met at a socialist march on May Day.
After they moved to New York together, he kept in touch with Martha for a while.
After they moved to New York together, he kept in touch with Martha for a while. Still, she married Will Burnett in the end. He was the editor she had worked with to start Story magazine. You may remember Will from yesterday’s piece about J.D. Salinger’s writing career if you read this column often.
Sidis worked as a bookkeeper in Boston and New York for the rest of his life. He changed jobs whenever someone recognized him from when he was a famous child prodigy. He sued The New Yorker for invasion of privacy after they found him and wrote a “Where Are They Now?” piece about him, but the case was thrown out.
He wrote many books about astronomy, streetcar transfers, and the history of people colonizing the Americas, which he found especially interesting.
In 1923, when he was 56 years old, his father died of a brain haemorrhage, and in 1944, on the same day, so did he.