When the Romans laid siege against Syracuse in 213 BC, it took just one man in the entire populace (Archimedes) to delay the capture of the city so that many of the dwellers could escape. His “weapon” was merely a mathematical formula. This was seen as an evil magic by the Roman general (Marcus Claudius Marcellus). And so, upon the eventual fall of Syracuse, he decreed that Archimedes must be found and destroyed.
From antiquity to the present time and, spread across the world, are distinguished inventors, statesmen, scientists, writers, religious leaders, poets, musicians, architects, composers and numerous other rare, extraordinarily-gifted individuals. Without them, the world would have remained at a standstill since creation. They are the odd fellows.
Considered as odd because they are rarely popular in their communities and among peers. Rather, they are loathed and scorned for being weird, eccentric or simply different. This made Jonathan Swift to declare that "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign: the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” Such is the lot of the odd fellows.
17 comments:
What a great piece! Kudos. A friend recommended this blog to me. And seeing the contents, I'm impressed. Good job!
Awesome!
This is very deep. But am I surprised? No, because only the deep calls to the deep. I feel you brother!
Wow. You've never failed to make my day with your style of writing and your choice of subjects.
Outstanding! And that quote by Jonathan Swift gladdens my heart. By the way, I greet you sir!
Archimedes, the greatest mathematician in the antiquity. Good piece.
Unknown to many people all over the world, Archimedes was the original creator/inventor of the concave lens. It was the same great mathematician that designed some concave formula to destroy a ship carrying Roman soldiers. In fact, as at the time he was killed by the ruthlessly vengeful Romans, Archimedes was working on another mathematical formula. If he had been able to finish it, a catastrophic phenomenon would have happened to the invading Roman army. Thanks for this piece.
I greet you sir!
Wow. I'm speechless. This is a great piece. Please keep it up!
Simply awesome!
You have a way of writing about "strange" stuff that other bloggers rarely touch on. This is great.
This is so right. To the best of my knowledge, great nerdy inventors such as bill Gates, Steve Jobs and others were initially considered to be weird, crazy guys...lol.
I believe God has a way of creating these strange folks (odd fellows) for specific reasons but principally to advance the course of humanity. Guys like Albert Einstein, Madame Curie, John Nash and several others are examples. I could imagine how people around them felt while they were doing their strange things...they must have looked and acted terribly weird...lol.
“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign: the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” - Jonathan Swift.
This is an awesome quote.
From antiquity to date, Archimedes remains the greatest mathematician.
After reading through this beautiful piece, one thing remains stuck in my mind. The whole world once believed that the world was flat but Pythagoras and a very few other individuals dared to be different. They held on to their singular, empirical belief that the world was (and still) spherical. For holding on to their unpopular belief, one could imagine how the entire people of the world must have treated them with ignominy and as scums until they were finally proved right. That was a very tough and lonely stance to take....against the entire world!
I have been meditating on this piece since I read it a few minutes ago. This is an awesome testimony to the fact that one can choose to be different in his or her belief on any subject, even at the risk of being loathed and scorned. Kudos!
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