Obviously this is a very tangential issue, but when you say
There may only be a single word in our language that triggers the thought of one specific person: genius.
I can’t agree. I bet there are plenty of people, who when they hear “genius”, think first of other people besides Einstein. Even within physics, I bet the fact that there’s a biography of Feynman called “Genius” encourages some to think of him rather than Einstein. And there will be plenty of people who will pick, say, Dante or Gauss instead.
Other possibly better candidate words:
Names of schools of thought etc. Presumably we shouldn’t allow terms like “Marxism” or “Euclidean”, but how about e.g. “objectivism” → Rand, “communism” → Marx, “cyberpunk” → Gibson, “cubism” → Picasso.
Words that happen to be names of famous works, or near to them. “utopia” → More, “wasteland” → Eliot (even though his poem’s name isn’t exactly that), “tempest” → Shakespeare, etc.
Words closely associated with super-duper-famous people. If you want to make people think of Einstein, I suspect “relativity” does better than “genius”. If you want to make people think of Jesus and “Christianity” is cheating, “gospel” and “resurrection” probably work well.
I’m pretty sure all of these work better than (“genius”, Einstein) if the question is “if asked to associate a person with this word, what fraction of people will pick the person I have in mind?”. I think some of them also work better if the question is “if you just say this word, what fraction of people will immediately think of the person I have in mind?”.
You’re right, that may be an over-editorialized comment to make … it was more for narrative impact but I do think there is a uniquely strong connection from that word to one person in popular vernacular.
Obviously this is a very tangential issue, but when you say
I can’t agree. I bet there are plenty of people, who when they hear “genius”, think first of other people besides Einstein. Even within physics, I bet the fact that there’s a biography of Feynman called “Genius” encourages some to think of him rather than Einstein. And there will be plenty of people who will pick, say, Dante or Gauss instead.
Other possibly better candidate words:
Names of schools of thought etc. Presumably we shouldn’t allow terms like “Marxism” or “Euclidean”, but how about e.g. “objectivism” → Rand, “communism” → Marx, “cyberpunk” → Gibson, “cubism” → Picasso.
Words that happen to be names of famous works, or near to them. “utopia” → More, “wasteland” → Eliot (even though his poem’s name isn’t exactly that), “tempest” → Shakespeare, etc.
Words closely associated with super-duper-famous people. If you want to make people think of Einstein, I suspect “relativity” does better than “genius”. If you want to make people think of Jesus and “Christianity” is cheating, “gospel” and “resurrection” probably work well.
I’m pretty sure all of these work better than (“genius”, Einstein) if the question is “if asked to associate a person with this word, what fraction of people will pick the person I have in mind?”. I think some of them also work better if the question is “if you just say this word, what fraction of people will immediately think of the person I have in mind?”.
You’re right, that may be an over-editorialized comment to make … it was more for narrative impact but I do think there is a uniquely strong connection from that word to one person in popular vernacular.