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“The Effects of Line Length on Reading Online News
By A. Dawn Shaikh

Summary: This study examined the effects of line length on reading speed, comprehension, and user satisfaction of online news articles. Twenty college-age students read news articles displayed in 35, 55, 75, or 95 characters per line (cpl) from a computer monitor. Results showed that passages formatted with 95 cpl resulted in faster reading speed. No effects of line length were found for comprehension or satisfaction, however, users indicated a strong preference for either the short or long line lengths.”

Even ‘the smartest person ever born’ (estimated IQ 250 – 300). See list of accomplishments below (from a quote dated 16 September1998 – Doug Renselle) got some C’s and B’s in college. Of course, he was 10 yrs old and at Harvard….

William James Sidis is arguably the brightest human who ever existed on our planet Earth.

Sidis’ extraordinary capabilities and accomplishments:

1. Given IQ is a purely anthropocentric means of assessing intelligence, Sidis’ IQ is crudely estimated at 250-300.
2. Infant Billy listened to Greek myths read to him by Sarah as bedtime stories.
3. Started feeding himself with a spoon at eight months (after two months of trial and error).
4. Cajoled by Boris, Billy learned to pronounce alphabetic syllables from blocks hanging in his crib.
5. At six months, Billy said, “Door.” A couple months later he told Mom he liked things, doors and people, that move.
6. At seven months he pointed to Earth’s moon and called it, “moon.” He wanted a ‘moon’ of his own.
7. Mastered higher mathematics and planetary revolutions by age 11.
8. Learned to spell efficiently by one year old.
9. Started reading The New York Times at 18 months.
10. Started typing at three. Used his high chair to reach a typewriter. First composed letter was an order for toys from Macy’s.
11. Read Caesar’s Gallic Wars, in Latin (self-taught), as a birthday present to his Father in Billy’s fourth year.
12. Learned Greek alphabet and read Homer in Greek in his fourth year.
13. Learned Aristotelian logic in his sixth year.
14. At six, Billy learned Russian, French, German, and Hebrew, and soon after, Turkish and Armenian.
15. Calculated mentally a day any date in history would fall at age six. Absolutely fascinated by calendars.
16. Learned Gray’s Anatomy at six. Could pass a student medical examination.
17. Billy started grammar school at six, in 3 days 3rd grade, graduated grammar school in 7 months.
18. At age 8, Billy surpassed his father (a genius) in mathematics.
19. Corrected E. V. Huntington’s mathematics text galleys at age of eight.
20. Total recall of everything he read.
21. Wrote four books between ages of four and eight. Two on anatomy and astronomy, lost.
22. Passed Harvard Medical School anatomy exam at age seven.
23. Passed MIT entrance exam at age eight.
24. Intellect surpassed best secondary school teachers.
25. At age 10, in one evening, corrected Harvard logic professor Josiah Royce’s book manuscript: citing, “wrong paragraphs.”
26. Attempted to enroll in Harvard at nine.
27. In 1909, became youngest student to ever enroll at Harvard at age 11.
28. In 1910, at age 11, lectured Harvard Mathematical Club on ‘Four-Dimensional Bodies.’
29. Billy graduated from Harvard, cum laude, on June 24, 1914, at age 16.
30. Billy entered Harvard Law School in 1916.
31. Billy could learn a whole language in one day!
32. Billy knew all the languages (approximately 200) of the world, and could translate among them instantly!
33. More recently, in late 2005, we commence recognition of Billy’s probable (perhaps only intuitive) adeptness in ancient Judaic Gematria and Hermetics. Doug – 8Dec2005. Again, refer Sam Rosenberg’s conjectures. Perhaps there is even more than Sam decrypted. Billy: quanton(Hyde,Jekyll).

Here is a partial list of known publications of William James Sidis:

1. First book ? a grammar, The Reader.
2. Second book ? a new language, Book of Vendergood, Vendergood is simpler than Esperanto.
3. First Book on Calendars ? only a first part (how to make a calendar) of his book survives.
4. The Hesperia Constitution ? Billy’s own code of behavior, available from Harvard Archives.
5. ‘Unconscious Intelligence’ ? Appendix IV to Boris’ book, Symptomatology, Psychognosis and Diagnosis of Psychopathic Diseases ? in this essay, Billy proved subconscious is conscious (using SOM’s universal truth ? Pirsig would find this incredible, because Billy preconceived one universal truth, but you can see here Pirsig on Sidis’ man vs. monkey/squirrel philosophical logic, Pirsig saw similar logic as relative, not absolute ? an example of MoQ’s many truths. Sidis viewed monkey logic and human logic as, “two theories whose consequences are, and must be the same” via his assumption of isomorphism.) See pp. 105-6 of The Prodigy, 1st edition.
6. A book on an Ouija board.
7. Sidis’ first published book on physics, The Animate and the Inanimate. His unique, totally self-conceived, masterwork. A 1920 effort published in 1925 . In this book he predicts black holes before anyone even thought of them. Amy Wallace’s coverage here (reversibility, non-classical thermodynamics, etc.) is superb. See chapter 11 of The Prodigy. Also, see Pirsig discovers Sidis, nearby.
8. An article, ‘A Remark on the Occurrence of Revolution,’ published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. His article basically says that oppressed people revolt.
9. A novel on lost Atlantis ? never published, apparently lost.
10. Sidis’ second and last published book (1926), Notes on the Collection of Transfers.
11. The Transfer Guide to the District of Columbia, The Transit Guide to the Northeast Suburbs of Boston, etc. Note that no guides of this sort were in existence when he wrote them. They were useful. Note too, he had them all memorized!
12. The Peridromophile, a monthly Sidis publication, starting in September of 1926, 10 cents per issue or $1 per year.
13. Part I: The Tribes and the States, and Part II: The Peace Paths, Sidis’ 1200 page magnum opus, a revisionist history of USA. Only Part I and first page of Part II survive.
14. The Penacook Courier, an apparently ruse newspaper used by Sidis to promote his legend-history of the USA.
15. Continuity News, successor to The Penacook Courier, published under Sidis’ favorite pen name: Parker Greene.
16. The Orarch, successor to Continuity News, motto: ‘Grant to Others All Rights You Would Have Others Grant to You.’ When he started this publication, he started a Liberty War Objectors Association. LWOA was an organization advocating conscientious objection and objection to war and production activities supporting war.
17. The Libertarian, started in February, 1944 after a stint with Julius Eichel’s, The Absolutist. His motto of The Libertarian was a Jeffersonian quote, “That Government Is Best Which Governs Least.”

Here is a partial list of William James Sidis’ idiosyncratic and acultural behaviors:

1. Utter disregard of sports and physical activities ? learned from his father.
2. Utter disregard of things monetary ? learned from his father.
3. Utter disregard for academia, academicians, academic bureaucracy and their ‘titles.’
4. Collected street car transfers. Knew most details of most routes in USA.
5. Rabid atheist by age six. (His father, Boris, was too, but intensely studied great religious works.)
6. His only fear was dogs.
7. Learned to hate mathematics in grammar school; later at 7.5 years he started a life long love of math.
8. Avid interest in politics.
9. Dressed in Russian peasant clothes as a minor.
10. On hearing a Bible read aloud, declared he didn’t believe in that and didn’t want to hear it.
11. In school, only worked problems to which he didn’t know answers.
12. After 3 months in high school, parents withdrew him; teachers were relieved.
13. Thinking was his chosen refuge from media antagonists.
14. Essence of Billy Sidis: On page 106, of The Prodigy, Amy Wallace quotes Billy on his view of the perfect life, “I want to live the perfect life. The only way to live the perfect life is to live it in seclusion. I have always hated crowds.” These sentences, in your reviewer’s opinion, are an excellent micro-biography of mankind’s finest known intellect.
15. Celibate: Vowed never to marry. (One of his 154 rules for life.) “Women do not appeal to me.” See Pirsig’s comments on this below ? Pirsig on Sidis’ celibacy
16. Considered traditional classrooms, ‘stifling.’
17. Billy was a pacifist, anti-war, conscientious objector. (See our research link at top of page.)
18. He was a reformed communist/socialist ? eventually found both intellectually disgusting.
19. Paradoxes were his logical specialty.

…”

Albert Einstein is generally remembered as a “warm and fuzzy”, congenial teddy bear of a man, who also happened to be an off the charts genius. The popular perception of the “absent minded Professor” also fits this stereotype. However, another stereotype is that of the autistic, aloof, introverted, socially inept but brilliant geek who generally dislikes people, and avoids contact with them. Some studies of “techies” have confirmed a high incidence of Asperger’s syndrome, suggesting that perhaps the latter stereotype is more apt to be correct.

It has long been my experience that, at least in the world of surgery, a “nice” surgeon would have a relatively equal likelihood of being “good”: i.e., technically skilled, well read, efficient, and generally skillful. However, surgeons who most people would consider “jerks” i.e. unfriendly, short tempered, and generally lacking a good bedside manner, have a much higher chance of being “good surgeons”. The rationale proffered for this is that if an incompetent surgeon is a pleasant fellow; nice, easy to get along with, well liked, then his or her incompetence will be “put up with” or at least tolerated by associates, underlings, et cetera. However, if a generally nasty person is also incompetent; coworkers, associates, underlings, will have a much lower threshold for tolerating the person, and would be likely to complain, censure, etc. this individual. Although obvious, this is not an argument in favor of surgeons or anyone else acting like a jerk. Recalling basic logic 101, if 99% of people who are 6’5″ tall are men, it does not follow that all men are 6’5″ tall.

An alternative explanation was recently noted in an article about extremely high IQ individuals. The article pointed out that, if the average IQs is 100 “by definition”, and a mildly retarded person (IQ of 75 to 80) interact for long periods of time, the person of average intelligence is likely to become frustrated, and to not have much in common with the mildly retarded individual. This is not to say that the person of average intelligence would have some underlying prejudice against the other person, or would necessarily treat them badly. The idea is simply that a person of average intelligence, if forced to interact 8 to 12 hours a day with people who were mildly to moderately retarded, would likely find it in a difficult and frustrating experience. Therefore, if a person with an IQ of 150 – 160 is exposed on a daily basis to “normal” people (IQ of 100 – 120) they also would likely find it a difficult and frustrating experience, since the difference between their level of intelligence and normal people, and the difference between the normals and retarded individuals (at least in terms of IQ points – a debatable and hotly contested topic) is similar. This argument is used to explain the putative antisocial personality characteristics of the introverted intelligentsia.

Interesting Sci Am article on becoming an expert. Much of the available data is based on the study of chess grandmasters (GM) – the ‘fruit fly’ of this arena.
” I see only one move ahead, but it is always the correct one.” (Jose Capablanca, chess GM from early 1900′s) Just the first few seconds of thought separates the newbie from the expert. Article quote (AQ) – “This rapid, knowledge-guided perception, sometimes called apperception, can be seen in experts in other fields as well. Just as a master can recall all the moves in a game he has played, socan an accomplished musician often reconstruct the score to a sonataheard just once. And just as the chess master often finds the best movein a flash, an expert physician can sometimes make an accuratediagnosis within moments of laying eyes on a patient.”

“Alfred Binet, the co-inventor of the first intelligence test, askedchess masters to describe how they played such games. He began with thehypothesis that they achieved an almost photographic image of theboard, but he soon concluded that the visualization was much moreabstract. He does not have to remember every detail at all times, because he canreconstruct any particular detail whenever he wishes by tapping awell-organized system of connections.”

The key appears to be ‘possession of such intricately structured knowledge‘. In studying GM vs Masters – they analyzed about the same number of moves ahead, but the GM’s appeared to ‘look at’ better moves, not more. “a weaker player may calculate for half an hour, often looking manymoves ahead, yet miss the right continuation, whereas a grandmastersees the move immediately, without consciously analyzing anything atall. Other fields – computer programming, bridge, music – have shown similar results, leading to the conclusion:”experts rely more on structured knowledge than on analysis“. Reconstruction of chess positions by GM was much better when the positions ‘made sense’ – ie, were non-random positions. This is felt to be due to ‘chunking’ – use of meaningful patterns. There are some questions about this theory’s ability to explain some aspects of expertise: specifically, the ability of experts to perform well with distractions / blindfolds (in chess example). Also “… brain-imaging studies done in 2001 at the University of Konstanz inGermany provide support for the theory by showing that expert chessplayers activate long-term memory much more than novices do.”

“By measuring the time it takes to commit a new chunk to memory and thenumber of hours a player must study chess before reaching grandmasterstrength, Simon estimated that a typical grandmaster has access toroughly 50,000 to 100,000 chunks of chess information. A grandmastercan retrieve any of these chunks from memory simply by looking at achess position, in the same way that most native English speakers canrecite the poem “Mary had a little lamb” after hearing just the firstfew words.”

The 10 year rule

“The one thing that all expertise theorists agree on is that it takesenormous effort to build these structures in the mind. Simon coined apsychological law of his own, the 10-year rule, which states that ittakes approximately a decade of heavy labor to master any field.”

Effortful study

“Ericsson argues that what matters is not experience per se but”effortful study,” which entails continually tackling challenges thatlie just beyond one’s competence. That is why it is possible forenthusiasts to spend tens of thousands of hours playing chess or golfor a musical instrument without ever advancing beyond the amateur leveland why a properly trained student can overtake them in a relativelyshort time. It is interesting to note that time spent playing chess,even in tournaments, appears to contribute less than such study to aplayer’s progress; the main training value of such games is to point upweaknesses for future study.” This last bit is used to explain why the learning curve is steep at first for novices – ie you learn quickly . You then reach an acceptable level of performance, and perform more ‘automatically’, with little or no improvement
Nature v Nuture

“Although nobody has yet been able to predict who will become a greatexpert in any field, a notable experiment has shown the possibility ofdeliberately creating one. László Polgár, an educator in Hungary,homeschooled his three daughters in chess, assigning as much as sixhours of work a day, producing one international master and twograndmasters–the strongest chess-playing siblings in history. Theyoungest Polgár, 30-year-old Judit, is now ranked 14th in the world. The Polgár experiment proved two things: that grandmasters can bereared and that women can be grandmasters. It is no coincidence thatthe incidence of chess prodigies multiplied after László Polgárpublished a book on chess education. The number of musical prodigiesunderwent a similar increase after Mozart’s father did the equivalenttwo centuries earlier.”
The experts conclude that “motivation appears to be a more important factor than innate ability. The preponderance of psychological evidence indicates that experts aremade, not born. What is more, the demonstrated ability to turn a childquickly into an expert–in chess, music and a host of othersubjects–sets a clear challenge before the schools.”

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: The Expert Mind — [ PSYCHOLOGY AND BRAIN SCIENCE ] — Studies of the mental processes of chess grandmasters have revealed clues to how people become experts in other fields as well