Frazz by Jef Mallett for September 15, 2020

Is the school open for classes or not? Trying to have it both ways, are we? Not even so much as a mask.

Many people knew more about other things than Einstein, but he did know a lot about math.

I suspect Professor Hawking could have given him a run for his money. By the time you get brains of that stratospheric level, small differences become academic.

Newton. he invented a new science and a new math to explain it.

Hey, lad, you’re on fire!

Einstein was advanced in knowledge, using his imagination he took that knowledge to an astonishing level!

Imagination allows the mind to explore possibilities that aren’t covered in normal education. Connections are made. New concepts evolve.

Zeppo, and perhaps Harpo or Chico too, but definetely Groucho. Not Gummo, though.

I love the teachable moment that includes an ad for a cigarette lighter!!! ;-)

You can bottle knowledge in an encyclopedia. You cannot contain someone’s imagination.

Clever

Remember when a group of young boys were able to head off a horrible terrorist attack in Colorado?

A Leopold “Butters” Stotch directly intervened in stopping the terrorist bombing, aided by the residents of Imaginationland and providing reinforcements, logistical and strategic support.

His friends Stan Marsh, Kyle Brozolfski and Kenny McCormick aided the US Military enter imaginationland using a portal similar to Stargate.

Or was that just in my imagination?

In this case, numbers may be less crucial than variety.

Both imagination and knowledge can be used in the service of great evil. Think of what Hitler imagined and how he used his knowledge to bring it about. Never think about human capacities with examining the associated goals.

Mr. Tesla has my vote for most imaginative.

Yeah, sure – ol’ Al did OK; but for the imagination/knowledge champ, he may have to take a back seat to Nicola Tesla. Einstein did mind-blowing, ground-breaking work in one very important area (Steven Hawking as well). The breadth of Tesla’s genius was closer to Leonardo.

I’m imagining Harpo or Groucho. Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck. Whoops! Wrong stooges!

The one that jumps out to me is DaVinci. His imagination covered multiple disciplines at the same time instead of drilling down with a limited scope.

The amazing thing about Einstein wasn’t that he was smart (IQ barely genius level) but that he had a remarkable ability to visualize; so imagination was more important to him than knowledge. When Einstein’s brain was examined with modern techniques, it was discovered that his brain was unusual for a male because the connections between his brain hemispheres were as intact as a woman’s when, for most males, those cross-connections are largely broken when the unborn male brain is flooded with testosterone.

Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Gene Roddenberry, Isaac Asimov, to name a few

For a moment I thought Zippo was the fat Marx brother, then I realized it was a little lighter.

Zeppo was a Marx brother

Jef Mallett’s Blog Posts

Frazz13 hrs · There’s a pretty famous story about Albert Einstein in which a colleague asks him for his phone number, and Einstein proceeds to find a telephone book and look it up. (Note to the kiddies: There was a time when people generally had just one phone number, and kept that phone number for a long time. Also, phone books.) The logic was simple: Why clutter your mind with something you can so easily look up? It’s a brilliant take on the economy of knowledge.

But Einstein said imagination was more important. And I wonder: Wouldn’t it be nice to have that same kind of discipline with your imagination? To somehow be able not to imagine the things that were unproductive, useless or problematic to imagine? Wouldn’t it? Or would it? I’ll sure never know. I’m way too guilty of imagining way too much, way too many useless or problematic things, and I consider it a small price to pay for the worthwhile things I imagine. And in any case, I don’t think I could control my imagination. The best I can do is to try not to believe everything I imagine.

I remember reading more than one account about Albert Einstein needing help from his first wife with the mathematics of the General Theory of Relativity.

There are probably many people more imaginative than Einstein. His big gift was having both a strong imagination and scientific discipline to go with it.

I can think of several for a start.