Towering Giants

Towering Giants


By watching TV the viewer might get the impression that George Bush, Oprah, Paris Hilton, and the sports giant of the moment are leading figures in the development of mankind. It is imputed that they are worthy of objects adulation by the benighted millions. The reality is that they are passing glimpses of the trivial side of human existence and have no lasting impact. Our culture was created by people of greatness, the product of towering genius. They are towering because the few have had such a great impact on the many and genius because their achievements are so far out of reach of the common man that they require a measuring stick that is beyond our ability to measure.

Here are four figures of Towering Genius, in chronological order, that I consider most significant to our daily lives: Sir Isaac Newton, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Albert Einstein, and Ludwig von Mises. Their impact on modern life dwarfs those who shine in the sterile and pallid light of fleeting mass media celebrity

Isaac Newton was born a yeoman in England in 1642. He showed early signs of intellect and was sent to attend Cambridge University thanks to his mothers’ connections. While at Cambridge he invented the sciences of the Calculus, Optics, Mechanics and Gravitation, the core of physics, with little more than the power of his mind and whatever he could fabricate by his own hands. Newton single handedly brought mankind from the Age of Faith into the Age of Reason by proving that the scientific method can explain the natural world with far greater accuracy than acts of ancient faith.

Carl Friedrich Gauss was born the son of a stone mason in what is now Germany in 1777, one year after the American Revolution. Gauss also showed signs of genius at a young age by performing computations in his head while correcting his fathers’ payroll ledger when no one had taught him to count. His achievements in rigorous mathematical proof are the basis upon which all modern mathematics is founded. He invented the telegraph along with creating many techniques that are essential in modern physics and engineering. Non-Euclidean geometry, which he invented without publishing, is a leading topic in Cosmology on the structure and ultimate fate of the Universe.

Albert Einstein was born to a bourgeois family in 1879. He was a bright child, but did not display signs of genius until after his formal education. Between 1905 and 1915 he revolutionized physics with the quantum theory, special and general relativity. These theories have been proven true by a vast number of experiments conducted worldwide.

Einstein’s theories are so revolutionary because they broke the barrier between human intuition, human perception, and the underlying physical reality. Quantum theory because the world of the small (atomic scale and less) is vastly different from the macroscopic vista which human beings can perceive. Relativity broke another perceptual link between the world that we see, one of low mass and low velocity, with the actual Universe where mass increases with velocity, time is relative between observers, and the geometry of Space which is Gaussian, that is Non-Euclidean. The transistor, upon which digital electronic technology is based, was a direct result of the quantum theory, as is, nuclear weaponry. The Global Positioning System requires General Relativistic corrections for the mass of earth and sun for accuracy.

Ludwig von Mises was born in 1881 in what was then Austria-Hungary (now the Ukraine). It was a time of great upheaval in social ideology. The battlefront between socialist and classical liberal economic theory were forming between European countries that were embracing variations of each. His genius created two works that revolutionized the intellectual battlegrounds in this war. Socialism was published in 1922, just 5 years after the October Revolution that reverberated around the world. This book directly explained the how and why of the failure of this blight on human existence. He equated Socialism with death, accurately predicting the demise of 100 million souls that perished under Communism, which was socialism most fervid exponent.

In 1949 Human Action was published. This book used the power of deductive logic to provide a rigorous demonstration that the Austrian Theory of economics correctly describes human interplay in the market economy. Like the works of Newton, Gauss and Einstein, the impact of this work is immense and effects virtually all of humanity.

Modern governments throughout the world provide the framework for the prosperity of their citizens by the degree of their adherence to the principles of human action through economic activity that von Mises elucidated. Conversely the more these principles are refuted, ignored, or outlawed, the greater the poverty, misery and human degradation of that state’s subjects.

These scions of Towering Genius accomplishments will be felt by mankind for as long as it exists. They provide the foundation and framework of our modern society that allows billions via concerted human action to live safe, secure and prosperous lives. Most of us cannot fathom what is necessary for their creation but can only bathe in the products of their reflected glory.

Turn off the TV, and the false glorification of its’ trivial and sallow miscreants. You can join these noble souls, these intellectual giants in creating a more prosperous future for all of mankind. Bask in their glory for free at your public library.

Isaac Newton: Never at Rest

Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science

Albert Einstein: Subtle is the Lord