William James Sidis
| William James Sidis | |
|---|---|
William James Sidis at his Harvard graduation (1914)
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| Born |
April 1, 1898 New York City, New York, United States |
| Died | July 17, 1944 (aged 46) South Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
| Alma mater |
Harvard University Rice University |
William James Sidis (/ˈsaɪ dɪs/; April 1, 1898 – July 17, 1944) was an American child prodigy with exceptional mathematical abilities and a claimed mastery of many languages. After his death, his sister made the unverifiable claim that his IQ was "the very highest that had ever been obtained", but any records of any IQ testing that Sidis actually took have been lost to history. He entered Harvard at age 11 and, as an adult, was claimed to be conversant in over 40 languages and dialects. It was later acknowledged, however, that some of the claims made were exaggerations, with a researcher stating "I have been researching the veracity of primary sources of various subjects for about twenty-eight years, and never before have I found a topic so satiated with lies, myths, half-truths, exaggerations, and other forms of misinformation as is in the history behind William Sidis". Sidis became famous first for his precocity and later for his eccentricity and withdrawal from public life. Eventually, he avoided mathematics altogether, writing on other subjects under a number of pseudonyms.
William James Sidis was born to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine on April 1, 1898, in New York City. His father, Boris Sidis, Ph.D., M.D., had emigrated in 1887 to escape political persecution. His mother, Sarah (Mandelbaum) Sidis, M.D., and her family had fled the pogroms in 1889. Sarah attended Boston University and graduated from its School of Medicine in 1897.
William was named after his godfather, Boris' friend and colleague, the American philosopher William James. Boris was a psychiatrist and published numerous books and articles, performing pioneering work in abnormal psychology. Boris was a polyglot, and his son William would become one at a young age.
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