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Comment by practicalpants | Hacker News Reader

Always in awe to read about assemblies of great minds like at Princeton's IAS.

Does another such assembly exist today? I don't think it does but want to know if others can point to one.

Did it happen then because the discoveries were "low hanging" enough that they would be found eventually, such that today we've basically exhausted the major discoverable parts of nature given human limitations, like a depleting orebody where what's left are marginally economic residuals? Or was there something in particular about Western societies a century or two ago that produced such brilliance (or even specifically the Habsburgs's HRE where von Neumann was from), which perhaps we can learn from to steer things today?

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Just reading the duties of his assistant makes you realize you should really reserve the word Genius for a few. And he certainly was one of them:

"The Duties of John von Neumann’s Assistant"

https://www.cantorsparadise.com/the-duties-of-john-von-neuma...

There have been attempts at this (new bell labs janelia farms) but I feel like the current academic system filters out the type of minds that work in such situations, and every attempt at a new bell lab recruits from the same system.

When new fields are being researched there’s a ton of low hanging fundamental work that can be done. Over the years all of the low hanging fundamental work is done and research gets more specialized and the amount required to learn increases dramatically.

I don’t think there’s any reason to think people like Gauss and von Neumann are much smarter than a modern day equivalent, say Terrence Tao. But Tao’s work, despite being across many fields, is very specialized and not as well publicized.

Reminds me of the comment made by JFK in 1962 when hosting the Nobel Prize winners at the White House: " I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

MicrosSoft Research and Google Labs have thrown obscene amounts of money at luminaries. But I am not aware of major discoveries or products made by them. Probably past their prime.

I’ve already linked it in this comment thread, but it seems related here as well (no affiliation):

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xPJKZyPCvap4Fven8/the-atomic...

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