Justin Roff-Marsh
Sep 7, 2018 · 1 min read

I’m not sure it’s possible (or wise) to choose to be a polymath, at least in the sense that John Von Neumann was.

I suspect the classical polymaths had mastery over only a single domain, from their perspectives. It’s just that this domain was so fundamental that it manifested as mastery over multiple domains from the perspectives of mere mortals.

What’s truly amazing about Von Neumann is not that he mastered game theory, cellular automata, quantum mechanics and computing architecture. It’s that he had such mastery over his domain that, from his frame of reference, these were all members of the same problem set!

Justin Roff-Marsh

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Founder: Ballistix. Developer: Sales Process Engineering. TOC expert. Author: The Machine. Tennis player, skiier. Gym junkie.