Non-Musical Brilliance

[Greta]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btc4wEjhPDk

Gehry in the Simpsons

Hahah I love this one..

"Don't leave now, the next piece is an atonal melody by Philip Glass!!"  And the whole audience runs out, followed by the orchestra! Haha! Priceless.

[Kullervo]

Philip Guston
Robert Bresson
Marcel Proust
Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki
T.E. Lawrence
all cats
my mother

[Bonehelm]

Philip Guston
Robert Bresson
Marcel Proust
Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki
T.E. Lawrence
all cats
my mother

Who's that in your avatar?

[PSmith08]

Was Patton really more brilliant than another WW2 commander, General Mikhail N. Tukhachevsky? Honestly, can you say that??? Sorry, but... dang.

Tukhachevsky? Really? He died in 1937, as part of Stalin's purges, so I don't know if you can call him a "WW2 commander." In any event, I'd say Zhukov and Kon(i)ev were at least as brilliant as Patton - all things considered. However, it's hard to compare Soviet command style and tactics (especially under Stalin, Mekhlis, Voroshilov, and the rest of the political "commanders") with any American command of the same time.

In any event, to answer the question:

Évariste Galois (1811-1832). At the age of 21, the night before he received a fatal wound in a duel, he revolutionized algebra. S_n wouldn't be the same. 

Thomas A. J. McGinn (c. 1956). This one is for archaeologists and classicists, and the geekily specialized at that, but the man single-handedly provided the best refutation of Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Ray Laurence, and their moral zoning program (in Pompeii and elsewhere). When I did my work on the subject last year, McGinn's brilliance really just shone through the fog.

[lukeottevanger]

Who's that in your avatar?

It's not my avatar you are referring to, but Kullervo's av is of Alban Berg.

[Kullervo]

It's not my avatar you are referring to, but Kullervo's av is of Alban Berg.

You are correct, sir!

[techniquest]

Stephen Fry. Not just a very clever man, but also a gentleman.

[Lethevich]

Roger Federer

[Shrunk]

Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud

Two men who irrevocably changed the way mankind views itself, and whose ideas still remain dangerous after over a century.

[m_gigena]

Euler, Gauss, Riemann, Cauchy, etc.

The Bernoullis ! !.

...

And John Maynard Keynes.

[lukeottevanger]

Stephen Fry. Not just a very clever man, but also a gentleman.

Very true. He once stopped to help my wife out of a door with a pram. 

[Maciek]

He once stopped to help my wife out of a door with a pram. 

The man is a genius, I declare! I'm adding him to my Non-Musical Brilliance list right this instant!

(No, seriously! That's not something you see people do often enough, especially the Stephen Fries of this world...)

[PSmith08]

Very true. He once stopped to help my wife out of a door with a pram. 

Wow. That is the definition of "polite."