Great People

[Oxigen_Waste]

King Dennis Bergkamp I of Highbury

 

 

A truly great man, simply known by the people as God.

 

I'm fully aware how much football dictates my life.

 

How is he great? His achievements are meaningless and without purpose!!!!!

 

*hates the glorification of sports* (*but loves doing them*)

 

 

Anywho:

 

 

Yayayayay!!!

[Emasher]

...

 

I'll put it this way. I wasn't objecting to the people in question being in here because they were sports geniuses, it was more the fact that their contribution wasn't explained in the thread like the contributions before it, and you seem to have corrected that now.

[Jonnas]

Leonardo Da Vinci

 

 

I don't think I can list everything that Da Vinci worked on, so I'll let Wikipedia do that for me.

 

Honestly, I don't think there was ever a man so clearly ahead of his own time.

He may be one of the most famous painters in the world, but what fascinates me the most are his inventions. The man came up with concepts that took centuries to become a reality.

[Pit-Jr]

Kevin Butler

 

 

The current face of Playstation whos duties include

VP of Epic Footage, Family Activities Director (shown), VP of First-Person Shooter Relations, Director of Rumor Confirmation, Chief Weaponologist, and VP of Big Action Moments.

 

His contract with Sony is valid through 2010 and hopefully beyond

[Charlie]

I don't understand what you're asking? Every integer can.

 

 

5 = 3 + 1 + 1

11 = 10 + 1

27 = 21 + 6

89 = 78 + 10 + 1

 

etc etc

 

(I suppose number systems "higher" than integers can't, but it's implicit in the question that integers are being dealt with).

 

I must be missing something, but I don't see 1 as a triangular number...

 

. = not a triangle

-. = triangle

. .

 

 

 

 

How is he great? His achievements are meaningless and without purpose!!!!!

 

*hates the glorification of sports* (*but loves doing them*)

 

You obviously didn't read Ramar's post on the previous page. How can you say his achievements are meaningless and without purpose? I know a lot of people would think that comment to be extremely offensive!

[Fierce_LiNk]

You obviously didn't read Ramar's post on the previous page. How can you say his achievements are meaningless and without purpose? I know a lot of people would think that comment to be extremely offensive!

 

I'm guessing because Oxy and co. regard the Bergkamp as just a sportsperson, and not a genius. My answer to that would be to actually watch the guy play. An unbelieveably good player. Whenever the United games against Arsenal were coming, he was always the man I was worried about. Great vision. Many decent players can spot a great pass, and many are technically able to pull off such a pass but may not have the vision to see it. He had both, he had the vision to spot a pass and the ability to carry it out with ease, long, short, crossfield, a through-ball, he could do it all. Same thing can be said for Paul Scholes, in my opinion.

 

My great person is George Orwell. A great storyteller but at the same time he could do so much more than just simply tell a story. Not only that, but the influence he has had on literature, on films and even on music (The Manic Street Preachers take so much inspiration in their work from Orwell) is something I can only marvel at.

[Ashley]

Have you got a lifetime or two?

 

I sure hope so.

 

I'm guessing because Oxy and co. regard the Bergkamp as just a sportsperson, and not a genius. My answer to that would be to actually watch the guy play. An unbelieveably good player. Whenever the United games against Arsenal were coming, he was always the man I was worried about. Great vision. Many decent players can spot a great pass, and many are technically able to pull off such a pass but may not have the vision to see it. He had both, he had the vision to spot a pass and the ability to carry it out with ease, long, short, crossfield, a through-ball, he could do it all. Same thing can be said for Paul Scholes, in my opinion.

 

So now someone who can do a hobby well is suddenly elevated to the same status as some of the most profound thinkers of our existence. Warhol would be so proud.

[MoogleViper]

So now someone who can do a hobby well is suddenly elevated to the same status as some of the most profound thinkers of our existence. Warhol would be so proud.

 

 

It's a good program, you should watch it on iplayer.

 

As was said on there, (by a guy who could solve multiple digit multiplications sums in his head quicker than people can type on a calculator) what he does is a skill, a genius is creative and imaginative, and can create something out of nothing. (he put it better than I did, but I'm hungry and that guy is a genius very skilful person)

Edited February 22, 2010 by MoogleViper

[Happenstance]

Im still annoyed that my picture of Zordon was removed from this thread, dont see why he couldnt be thought of as a great person!

[Ashley]

He's a fictional head.

[Fierce_LiNk]

So now someone who can do a hobby well is suddenly elevated to the same status as some of the most profound thinkers of our existence. Warhol would be so proud.

 

Football is more than just a hobby. That's what it boils down to. To those of us who watch the sport and enjoy it, it enables players to show their creativity and expression. Bergkamp is a great expressionist with the ball. He's also matched that with a winning mentality, winning many individual and club awards in multiple countries. Not only that, but critically, he is one of the best of our time, and made the Fifa 100 list which was compiled by Pele, another great.

 

Of course, this will mean very little to you unless you are a lover of football. But, this thread was about great people, and some of us here believe that he is a great person. As Ramar correctly posted, he has changed Arsenal Football Club, changed the Premier League with his style of play and will be remembered for many, many years to come. What isn't great about that? To some, football is just a bunch of men kicking a ball around a field. In its simplest form, that is true. However, in its simplest form, poetry or a novel, or a thesis are merely words written on paper.

[Happenstance]

He's a fictional head.

 

Thats your opinion......plus how many people can you think of who could create a mighty morphin team of teenagers to protect the planet with just a head???

[Chris the great]

 

So now someone who can do a hobby well is suddenly elevated to the same status as some of the most profound thinkers of our existence. Warhol would be so proud.

 

see, i agree with your sentiment (footballers not deserving the accolade of "great people") but if my hobby was science and i perfected cold fusion that would make me great, or if my hobby was writting, and i penned a magnificent book that explores the very nature of what it is to be human, again, id arguably be a great person.

 

i suppose i can see the argument for sportsmen being great, but thier impact on the world is limited, in 1000 years time, we wont rember them. they make a difference to a few, but globaly speaking, most of them are as insignificant as the rest of us

[Daft]

I'd argue he is less a great person and more a great footballer. lol

[Nolan]

I'd argue he is less a great person and more a great footballer. lol

 

Soooo Footballers are not people? Good to know.

[Daft]

Yeah, that's exactly what I said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dipshit. Double lol

[The Bard]

 

Friedrich Nietzsche: nobody understood the inherent contradictions in humanity better than this man. Hell, he embodied them himself. Showed us how things originate in their antithesis. How all good things were once bad things. The transvaluation of values, the transcience of moralities. A very intuitive psychologist, and a man whose mind was more capacious than anyone I can think of. Maybe =p. Our postmodern values of opinion and free thought and perspectivism can all be extrapolated from the thought of Nietzsche.

 

Existence presupposes essence. Our existence dictates who we are, there is no individual and presupposed essence that encapsulates our being. Every day we life, we give birth to ourselves anew and thus we cannot be defined. Only that which has no history can be defined.

Edited February 22, 2010 by The Bard

[Nolan]

Yeah, that's exactly what I said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dipshit. Double lol

 

Well, I thought that's what you meant but figured I should get it cleared up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

triple lol?

[chairdriver]

I must be missing something, but I don't see 1 as a triangular number...

 

. = not a triangle

-. = triangle

. .

 

Well it's the same thing as the fact that any number raised to the power of 0 is 1; it doesn't make sense when you look at it from the angle of "we'll times this number by itself however many times" (how can you multiply something by itself 0 times?), but is true.

 

In order to acknowledge 1 as a triangle number (which it is), you have to depart yourself from the facile parameter that "these are the numbers that can be arranged into a nice triangle".

 

The nth triangle number is formulated by:

 

1 + 2 + 3 + ... + (n-1) + n = n(n+1)/2 (this, coincidentally, was first found by Gauss in primary school)

 

So for the 1st triangle numer, you do 1(1+1)/2, which is equal to 1.

 

n(n+1)/2 is also equal to (n+1)C(2), which counts the number of distinct pairs you can choose from (n+1) distinct objects, which is analogous to the "Handshake Problem"; there's n+1 people in a room, and you want to find out the total number of handshakes if everyone shakes hands with everyone else in the room once.

 

Therefore, if there's 3 people in the room, you look for the second triangle number, which is 3. If there's 5 people in the room, you look for the 4th triangle number, which is 10.

 

This is all intertwined with Pascal's triangle, where the triangle numbers form the 3rd diagonal row:

 

And that is the beauty of maths - everything ties together in a stunning knot.

Edited February 22, 2010 by chairdriver

[Ashley]

Football is more than just a hobby. That's what it boils down to. To those of us who watch the sport and enjoy it, it enables players to show their creativity and expression. Bergkamp is a great expressionist with the ball. He's also matched that with a winning mentality, winning many individual and club awards in multiple countries. Not only that, but critically, he is one of the best of our time, and made the Fifa 100 list which was compiled by Pele, another great.

 

Of course, this will mean very little to you unless you are a lover of football. But, this thread was about great people, and some of us here believe that he is a great person. As Ramar correctly posted, he has changed Arsenal Football Club, changed the Premier League with his style of play and will be remembered for many, many years to come. What isn't great about that? To some, football is just a bunch of men kicking a ball around a field. In its simplest form, that is true. However, in its simplest form, poetry or a novel, or a thesis are merely words written on paper.

 

Which is why I didn't delete it (as I did with ReZ and Happens), but I merely personally contested it.

 

Most of the other people in this thread have affected the majority of our lives and thinkings in some way.

 

Some bloke who kicks around a ball affects only those who are interested, and even so its ephemeral.

 

I dunno, maybe its just reading the first post I interpreted this as more "great thinkers/social figures". We certainly won't be talking about the footballers of the world in several hundred years time (and nothing wrong with that, just...seeing some footballer killed my threxpectations.

[Ramar]

I must admit my initial post was tongue-in-cheek, but when I was called out on it so to speak, I thought I'd at least make a semi-decent point. Though the little debate that has sprung from it is interesting to say the least.

[chairdriver]

Which is why I didn't delete it (as I did with ReZ and Happens), but I merely personally contested it.

 

Most of the other people in this thread have affected the majority of our lives and thinkings in some way.

 

Some bloke who kicks around a ball affects only those who are interested, and even so its ephemeral.

 

I dunno, maybe its just reading the first post I interpreted this as more "great thinkers/social figures". We certainly won't be talking about the footballers of the world in several hundred years time (and nothing wrong with that, just...seeing some footballer killed my threxpectations.

 

Yeah the bolded was my intention.

 

To place footballers in the same category in Gauss, Marx, Freud, Einstein, Newton, Darwin and Da Vinci - all of whom thought in a way no-one had ever previously thought - just detracts from their colossally monumental achievements.

 

Without Newton, I can't even begin to explain how primitive we'd be. The man invented calculus.

[dazzybee]

Grea, great thread idea. Ruined by people trying to be funny....

 

And dirty, dirty gooners!!

[Fierce_LiNk]

Which is why I didn't delete it (as I did with ReZ and Happens), but I merely personally contested it.

 

Most of the other people in this thread have affected the majority of our lives and thinkings in some way.

 

Some bloke who kicks around a ball affects only those who are interested, and even so its ephemeral.

 

I dunno, maybe its just reading the first post I interpreted this as more "great thinkers/social figures". We certainly won't be talking about the footballers of the world in several hundred years time (and nothing wrong with that, just...seeing some footballer killed my threxpectations.

 

That's really the issue for most posters in this thread. Like I mentioned earlier, Dennis Bergkamp was magical with the ball. If you watch him play, you will find that he really finds a way to express himself that very, very few other footballers ever have done. Football isn't just about kicking a ball around a field. On the most basic level, it is. But, what he does is much more than that. What he does is genius. Read my earlier post about having the vision to spot a pass, and then having the technique, the grace, the calmness and the confidence to actually carry out such a move.

 

Football is very similar to dancing in that your movement is very important. Being in the right place at the right moment, being able to change your rhythm by quickly adjusting your feet. But, absolutely none of this is possible, none of it at all if you do not possess the ability to process information quickly, having that footballing brain. It is much, much more than simply kicking a ball around a field. What he does uses technique, requires endurance, requires natural intelligence and passion.

 

As for the argument about not talking about these footballers in so many years, I don't believe that one bit. There are certain pioneers of the sport who will remain legends and will be talked about for many, many years. Football in its current form of club football has its history and lore already, yet it has only been around for a whisper. Are you telling me that you haven't heard of the greats such as Pele, Ronaldo, Sir Geoff Hurst, Sir Bobby Charlton, Marco Van Basten or Paolo Maldini? These are players that are now part of the history of the sport, and they are known by people outside of the sport. These are also national and international icons. Football is a very important part of our culture, and is also an important part of many other cultures. I remember being told by my Geography teacher that to the Italians, football was like a religion to them.

 

I think you are really underestimating the value of football. Taken from wikipedia: "The 2006 World Cup stands as one of the most watched events in television history, garnering an estimated 26.29 billion non-unique viewers, compiled over the course of the tournament. The final attracted an estimated audience of 715.1 million people."

 

I have gone overboard, but this is something I do feel passionate about. In his own way, Bergkamp is a genius, as are the other great pioneers of the sport that I mentioned. They're all artists. The field is their canvas.

Edited February 22, 2010 by Fierce_LiNk

[Ramar]

Yeah the bolded was my intention.

 

To place footballers in the same category in Gauss, Marx, Freud, Einstein, Newton, Darwin and Da Vinci - all of whom thought in a way no-one had ever previously thought - just detracts from their colossally monumental achievements.

 

Without Newton, I can't even begin to explain how primitive we'd be. The man invented calculus.

 

I genuinely wouldn't put Bergkamp in with those people either, but I guess if we think that way we'll probably only have between 25-50 truly epic geniuses to post about and very little room for discussion other than something similar to your last paragraph.

 

BTW I mad impressed with Flink's postage.