Comments on: Tournament of Genius: The Winner Is…

By: Lionel V. Krueger

Lionel V. Krueger — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:53:51 +0000

I wish Pope Pio XII were in the contest
he was a crazy for studyes man. dont eat dont sleep to study! be sick for study 16H per day! Pio Pio Pio

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 02:31:33 +0000

funny that Michelangelo was a better painter (and sculpture and architect) than Leonardo but everybody equates Leonardo as the penultimate genius due to his various drawings of inventions which are more of an intellectual curiosity. Leonardo was first and foremost an artist and he seems in my opinion to lose that contest to Michelangelo. Compare the Sistine Chapel, the David, the Pieta, and St. Peter’s dome to the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, and the vitruvian man. Doesn’t seem like much of a contest.

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 02:26:00 +0000

Can we get pendants to hang in our offices with our favorite geniuses like some do with team or university names? Might be fun to have daVinci, Franklin and Edison pendants hanging overhead.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 22:16:00 +0000

I expected Einstein to win, but I voted for Da Vinci, so woohoo!

mental_floss should do a tournament of (fiction) authors and, during the contest, randomly give away books by the winning authors.

By: redhead girl

redhead girl — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:24:00 +0000

I am also a wee disappointed that there wasn’t a bigger fanfare over Leonardo’s victory. I expected banners at the top of the webpage, horns blowing when I look at the tournament…something! How about a top 10 of lesser known facts about our grand champion? Some kind of salute should be given besides just adding this victory to his long list of accomplishments.

By: Steve-O

Steve-O — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:46:00 +0000

Bravo Amber. You just killed an hour of my day by having me google vos Savant and then following that up with some flossing on the Monty Hall problem. I love the internet.

Leo’s a good call I think. His knowledge on multiple fields given the available resources and technology at the time I feel is unmatched.

By: Amber

Amber — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:44:00 +0000

YES! Einstein is great and all, but I was fully in support of Leonardo. But I am disappointed that Mental Floss isn’t making a bigger deal out of this announcement.

I would say that this wasn’t a contest of the greatest genius of all time as much as it was a study in how we define the term “genius.” There’s the standard definition of genius-level IQ, but we made the decision that IQ is not the deciding factor when we didn’t give Marilyn vos Savant the win in the first round. Then again, a google search for Leonardo’s IQ lead me to a site where they’ve estimated IQ’s of famous people, and they’ve guessed Leonardo’s to be 220 (and they only gave Einstein a 160). I’m assuming most people didn’t know that when they voted for Leonardo.

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:01:00 +0000

This is clearly not an authoritative contest, but it was fun. There was a definite Western slant to it though. Chinese scientists such as Zhang Heng or Shen Kuo deserved a spot. Talk about expertise in multiple fields. They probably would not have done well though, because people did not know them well enough to vote for them.

By: EMStoveken

EMStoveken — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:23:00 +0000

Okay, I gotta ask Joe. Who are your top 10?

I mean one can debate whether or not Leonardo is THE greatest genius of all time (though I thoroughly support this victory), but I can’t imagine not putting him in the top 10.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 07:23:00 +0000

daVinci deserves it. A lot of people, with enough effort and study, could become pretty amazingly smart in a single subject, but It takes a special kind of genius to be able to innovate in all those diverse fields simultaneously. This contest was a great idea.