On a related note, Garry Kasparov comes off as a very reasonable man (or at least he did in a few of his TV interviews I saw), but a few years ago, I was shocked to find out that he has some extremely bizarre crackpot ideas about history. Specifically, he appears to have a serious interest in the theories of Anatoly Fomenko), and although he’s not a full supporter of Fomenko’s “New Chronology,” he does believe that the conventional chronology of historical events is completely wrong, and the mainstream historians are naive for believing it. There has even been some direct collaboration between the two: Kasparov wrote a friendly preface to one of Fomenko’s books, and Fomenko credits him for “valuable discussion.”
For what that’s worth, Fomenko himself appears to be an accomplished academic mathematician in his day job.
You heard it well.
On a related note, Garry Kasparov comes off as a very reasonable man (or at least he did in a few of his TV interviews I saw), but a few years ago, I was shocked to find out that he has some extremely bizarre crackpot ideas about history. Specifically, he appears to have a serious interest in the theories of Anatoly Fomenko), and although he’s not a full supporter of Fomenko’s “New Chronology,” he does believe that the conventional chronology of historical events is completely wrong, and the mainstream historians are naive for believing it. There has even been some direct collaboration between the two: Kasparov wrote a friendly preface to one of Fomenko’s books, and Fomenko credits him for “valuable discussion.”
For what that’s worth, Fomenko himself appears to be an accomplished academic mathematician in his day job.