The greatest minds of our time

[R G Edwards]

I had to smile this morning when I read the ECF news email from Mark Jordan about Gibraltar in which he refers to the players as "some of the greatest minds of our time."

With the greatest respect, Mark, I think this is taking hyperbole a little far.

The greatest minds of our time are not devoting their lives to playing a board game. They are changing the course of humanity through the fields of artificial intelligence, computing, cosmology, aerospace, medicine, and sadly, investment banking. They're at MIT, Silicon Valley, Wall Street. They're not at a chess tournament in Gibraltar.

[Steven DuCharme]

Kudos on a fine first post

[Michael Farthing]

And there was me thinking they were at Bletchley Park.

[Jonathan Rogers]

I had to smile this morning when I read the ECF news email from Mark Jordan about Gibraltar in which he refers to the players as "some of the greatest minds of our time."

With the greatest respect, Mark, I think this is taking hyperbole a little far.

The greatest minds of our time are not devoting their lives to playing a board game. They are changing the course of humanity through the fields of artificial intelligence, computing, cosmology, aerospace, medicine, and sadly, investment banking. They're at MIT, Silicon Valley, Wall Street. They're not at a chess tournament in Gibraltar.

Well, he only said "some" of the best minds. No doubt most of them are making the most of their talents in the way that you suggest but it must be possible that some equally talented individuals just fell in love with chess and decided to devite themsellves to it, regardless of what they might else they might have done for humanity or indeed for themselves.

Suppose Demis Hassabis had decided to carry on playing chess? And had become the sort of GM who would play Gibraltar?

[Geoff Chandler]

I'm thinking that most of the '"greatest minds of our time." are locked up in nut houses.

The remiaining great minds on the outside are working on better and more efficient ways to kill us all.

[Steven DuCharme]

and the white house

[Matt Mackenzie]

and the white house

What "great minds" are there currently?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

and the white house

What "great minds" are there currently?

c.f. "locked up in nut houses" and "the white house" (but yeah, not a "great mind").

Several layers of sarcasm/irony are likely being missed, here.

[Colin Patterson]

A great mind from a Victorian time was featured on BBC4 tonight. If you know little or nothing about James Clerk Maxwell, then try to catch his documentary on i-player, and you will wonder why your school teachers weren't uttering his name with the same regularity as those of Newton and Einstein. A brilliant scientist who pioneered great advances in mathematics, astrophysics, electromagnetics, understanding light and colour ... just about everything!

[JustinHorton]

I saw the best minds of my generation...

[Chris Rice]

Stephen Hawking vs Ant Man - Quantum Chess, Gibraltar 2716. Keanu Reeves commentates. What happens if the Black King can be in two places at the same time? Or pieces can somehow pass through each other? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi0BzqV_b44

[Chris Rice]

I had to smile this morning when I read the ECF news email from Mark Jordan about Gibraltar in which he refers to the players as "some of the greatest minds of our time."

With the greatest respect, Mark, I think this is taking hyperbole a little far.

The greatest minds of our time are not devoting their lives to playing a board game. They are changing the course of humanity through the fields of artificial intelligence, computing, cosmology, aerospace, medicine, and sadly, investment banking. They're at MIT, Silicon Valley, Wall Street. They're not at a chess tournament in Gibraltar.

"A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages. Why should we regret this? it may be asked. We answer, chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while at the same time it affords no benefit whatever to the body.

Newton, Shakspeare and Milton were never good at chess and look what they've accomplished. Famous chess players, on the other hand, seem to have been endowed with a peculiar intuitive faculty for making the right moves, while at the same time they seem to have possessed very ordinary faculties for other purposes.

A game of chess does not add a single new fact to the mind; it does not excite a single beautiful thought; nor does it serve a single purpose for polishing and improving the nobler faculties."

Scientific American July 2,1859

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new ... 180953281/

[Jonathan Bryant]

"Famous chess players, on the other hand, seem to have been endowed with a peculiar intuitive faculty for making the right moves, while at the same time they seem to have possessed very ordinary faculties for other purposes."

Gazza won’t like that.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Famous chess players, on the other hand, seem to have been endowed with a peculiar intuitive faculty for making the right moves, while at the same time they seem to have possessed very ordinary faculties for other purposes."

At the time it was written, they had probably only heard of Morphy (and maybe Stanley and Turner). Having said that, surely most people who really excel at something are rarely great at something else? Sticking with chess, Botwinnik was talented elsewhere.

On the other hand,

"A game of chess does not add a single new fact to the mind; it does not excite a single beautiful thought; nor does it serve a single purpose for polishing and improving the nobler faculties."

is complete nonsense.

[Matt Mackenzie]

On the other hand,

"A game of chess does not add a single new fact to the mind; it does not excite a single beautiful thought; nor does it serve a single purpose for polishing and improving the nobler faculties."

is complete nonsense.

Oh, it certainly is.

There are few things surer than that the person who wrote that did not possess more than the most rudimentary understanding of the game.