Polymath

A polymath (Greek: πολυμαθής, polymathēs, "having learned much") is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas; such a person is known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. The term was first used in the 17th century; the related term, polyhistor, is an ancient term with similar meaning.

The term is often used to describe great thinkers of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment who excelled at several fields in science and the arts. In the Italian Renaissance, the idea of the polymath was expressed by Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), in the statement that "a man can do all things if he will". Embodying a basic tenet of Renaissance humanism that humans are limitless in their capacity for development, the concept led to the notion that people should embrace all knowledge and develop their capacities as fully as possible. This was expressed in the term "Renaissance man" which is often applied to the gifted people of that age who sought to develop their abilities in all areas of accomplishment: intellectual, artistic, social and physical. This term entered the lexicon during the twentieth century and has now been applied to great thinkers living before and after the Renaissance.

Polymath (disambiguation)

A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas.

Polymath may also refer to:

Polymath (novel)

Polymath is a science fiction novel by John Brunner, first published in 1974 by DAW Books, an expansion of Castaways' World (Ace 1963).

Plot summary

A spacecraft filled with refugees from a cosmic catastrophe crash-lands on an unmapped planet. There the survivors must face the reality of their precarious situation; the ship was lost and little had been salvaged from it. Everything comes to depend on one bright young man accidentally among them, a trainee planet-builder ("polymath"). While it would have been his job to oversee all aspects of establishing a successful colony he faces major difficulties; not only is his education incomplete, he had been studying a vastly different planet.

Two ships escaped the catastrophe. One lands in the jungle in a mountainous area. The other, with the polymath, lands on water, allowing the passengers just enough time to escape the sinking ship. With his education incomplete, he is faced with an array of problems he needs to overcome, in order to ensure the survival, of not only the passengers from his ship, but those on the lost ship as well, who are under the control of a despotic captain determined to get back into space.