Thomas Edison's genius

Thomas Edison is known for saying that genius is 1% Inspiration and 99% perspiration (among other things). As I am perspiring studying, I come to think is this really true. If we were to study really hard, would we really become geniuses, or are some people just born smarter than others.

I had always been a firm believer that hard work pays off, (maybe that’s why I work so hard... (That was a joke I'm actually super lazy)). However, while talking to my friend I found out that in South Korea most school students keep studying after school and only go home at 8pm.(he might have been exaggerating about the 8pm) I then asked him why aren't people in South Korea super smart then? He said 'Quantity is not better than quality' to which I replied: So people in SK (South Korea) just pretend to study but really they are waffling around messing on their blogs while really they should be studying (ok I didn’t really say the bit about the blog but I thought it would be appropriate here)'. He told me that some people just don't become smart no matter how much they study. Although I had accepted this for learning disabled people I hadn't really thought the same for normal people (I had disregarded people telling me how they measure a different scale of intelligence for people from west brom, which would suggest that intelligence is hereditary). This would bring the question to people in SK whose minds are saturated (or so I have deduced from the evidence given) "What is the point of studying? “In all seriousness the reality isn't quite as clear cut there are probably both 'nature' and 'nurture' factors in this.

My personal theory is that the brain is not like a computer hard drive where there is a fixed limit in which once you have reached it you can't fit any more illegal movies on there (just a random example), but instead it is infinite (maybe like the internet) which means that no matter how much you study you will never saturate it (ok that was kinda lame because the internet is stored in various hard drives/servers but i suppose it kinda works because as long as people keep making hard drives its (the internet's) size is infinite). Also I think people can have various levels of potential, but no one will ever reach their full potential and the difference in potential between people can be made up by hard work. An extension on the theory could be that when people fill up there brains (imagine it’s a hard drive) they get diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Back to tommo's quote,

The irony in this whole thing is that Thomas Edison was a famous inventor yet he claims that inspiration is only 1% of genius. Without that inspiration, regardless of the 99% of perspiration, he would have been nothing and I would be typing this blog in the dark (ok that's a lie because it's day time) (also that's a lie because someone else would have invented it)

This brings me to another point, Why do people say things like 'if it weren't for Alexander Graham Bell we wouldn't have telephones, (if this was an episode of QI the buzzer would have gone off, but screw Stephen fry for now), because in reality if Alexander Graham Bell hadn't invented the telephone someone else would have invented it. Another example would be :'if Pythagoras hadn't discovered Pythagoras' theorem we would still be measuring all 3 sides of a right handed triangle to find its perimeter'.

Anyway I need to get studying now.

Building Blocks

Every subject worth studying is made up of 'building blocks'

For example,

The building blocks of computing are 1s and 0s
The building blocks of maths are numbers
The building blocks of physics are quarks and leptons ( and some other things)
The building blocks of biology are nucleotide bases
The building blocks of chemistry are atoms/elements

This lead me to wonder what are the building blocks for the following subjects:

History
Geography
Art
PE

After a bit of head scratching I could find no answer which caused me to conclude that these subjects are not worth studying (because they aren't made from building blocks)

Every man is equal

The quote 'all men were created equal' is directly lifted from some American constitution thing (and then said again by MLK in his 'I have a dream' speech), and most people believe it to be true. However, I think that this notion is not so true.

Firstly, consider the fact that every person is unique in their own way. How is it that if everyone is different to one another that we can all be equal. Surely, someone who is brilliant at everything is not equal to someone who sucks at everything and a murderer is not equal to Jesus. (can't be bothered to expand point). Another way of looking at the problem however is in terms of value. Consider in my wallet I have 2 x 10p coins. One of the coins is shiny and new while other one is dirty old and worse in every way you could possibly think about yet still both coins are worth the same amount of money.

It would appear that our problem is solved, however, this opens up a new problem. Although we try and fool ourselves into believing that everyone is equal, in society we already acknowledge that everyone is not equal. Consider situations such as receiving medical help, children are normally tended to first. Alternatively on the titanic where women and children got to go on the life boats first (okay that was a shit example but i can't think of anything at the moment and I'm quite tired).

What actually inspired me to write about this? I have no idea (just answered my own question) (that was also a lie) Recently I have been revising for an exam and it has lots logic questions in it for example:

Jimmy is a human. Johnny is also a human. Both Jimmy and Johnny are awesome.

Which of the following statements aren't true from the information given above choose all that apply:

Humans are all awesome

Humans can be awesome

Jimmy = Johnny

Every Man is equal

Ok this isn't the actual question but sometimes when you are studying and you get really bored you start thinking up random stuff and this is it. Also I realise that I may have 'stolen' the idea that all people aren't equal from George Orwell's quote from animal farm, and all the animals were equal but some more equal than others (or summit like that). Anyway, I actually worked quite hard on this post but I couldn't be bothered to spell check it so just hope its all grammatically correct.

The Restaurant/Hunger Effect

The restaurant hunger effect is the phenomena where someone who goes into town, or an area in which there are food outlets cause people to become very hungry irrespective of how much the person has eaten before. For example, I go to my friends house to eat lunch, then after I have eaten lunch I go to town to buy some clothes and as I walk past McDonald's I become very hungry.

The Glass Is Never Half Empty

Often in order to determine whether you are an optimist or a pessimist, someone may take a glass and fill it with water till it is half full and ask you if you see the glass as half full or half empty.

If you see the glass as half full you are said to be an optimist

If you see the glass as half empty you are said to be a pessimist

However, as a pessimist, I feel that the glass is always half full and cannot be half empty. My logic for this can be explained through the following:

Consider a glass that is full of water

Now halve the amount of water in the glass. The Glass is now half full.

Consider a glass that is empty

If you try and halve the amount of water in the glass it is still empty. Therefore, a half empty glass is the same as an empty glass. Hence, the glass is always half full, and never half empty irrespective of whether or not you are considered to be a pessimist or an optimist.