# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/william-james-sidis
# Generated: 2026-08-31T13:51:03.824Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/william-james-sidis"
name: "William James Sidis"
slug: "william-james-sidis"
description: "The boy who lectured Harvard on four-dimensional geometry at twelve, then spent the rest of his life trying to disappear. Sidis became the defining case study in what happens when extreme intellectual precocity meets the world's gaze — and then rejects it."
tagline: "American child prodigy (1898-1944)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/William_James_Sidis_1914.jpg?width=1200"
gender: "male"
country:
  name: "United States"
  isoCode: "US"
category:
  name: "Academics"
  slug: "academics"
profileType:
  name: "Academic"
  slug: "academic"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1898-04-01"
deathDate: "1944-07-17"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           57.87
  momentum:             0
  historical:           24.125512
  currentAttention:     12.39285714285714
  sourceConfidence:     65
  profileCompleteness:  75
  trendDirection:       "FALLING"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: null
tags:
  - name: "Academics"
    slug: "academics"
  - name: "Academic"
    slug: "academic"
  - name: "Mathematics"
    slug: "mathematics"
  - name: "History"
    slug: "history"
  - name: "Literature"
    slug: "literature"
  - name: "United States"
    slug: "united-states"
  - name: "Americas"
    slug: "americas"
  - name: "20th Century"
    slug: "20th-century"
platforms:
  - platform:  "WEBSITE"
    url:       "https://www.sidis.net/"
sources:
  - url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "Wikipedia"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q313603"
    title: "Wikidata"
    type:  "WIKIDATA"
  - url: "https://pantheon.world/profile/person/William%20James%20Sidis"
    title: "Pantheon 2.0"
    type:  "DATABASE"
  - url: "https://az.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilyam_Ceyms_Sidis"
    title: "Vilyam Ceyms Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://br.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "William James Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "William James Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ckb.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%DB%8C%D9%84%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%85_%D8%AC%DB%95%DB%8C%D9%85%D8%B2_%D8%B3%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%B3"
    title: "ویلیام جەیمز سایدیس"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "William James Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "William James Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "William James Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "William James Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "William James Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "William James Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://eu.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "William James Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%DB%8C%D9%84%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%85_%D8%AC%DB%8C%D9%85%D8%B2_%D8%B3%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%B3"
    title: "ویلیام جیمز سایدیس"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "William James Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "William James Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "威廉·詹姆士·西迪斯"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "William James Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%95%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%90%D7%9D_%D7%92'%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9E%D7%A1_%D7%A1%D7%99%D7%93%D7%99%D7%A1"
    title: "ויליאם ג'יימס סידיס"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "William James Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://hy.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D5%8E%D5%AB%D5%AC%D5%B5%D5%A1%D5%B4_%D5%8B%D5%A5%D5%B5%D5%B4%D5%BD_%D5%8D%D5%AB%D5%A4%D5%AB%D5%BD"
    title: "Վիլյամ Ջեյմս Սիդիս"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "William James Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis"
    title: "William James Sidis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A6%E3%82%A3%E3%83%AA%E3%82%A2%E3%83%A0%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B8%E3%82%A7%E3%82%A4%E3%83%A0%E3%82%BA%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B5%E3%82%A4%E3%83%87%E3%82%A3%E3%82%BA"
    title: "ウィリアム・ジェイムズ・サイディズ"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%85_%D8%AC%D9%8A%D9%85%D8%B3_%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%B3"
    title: "وليام جيمس سيديس"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://arz.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%85_%D8%AC%D9%8A%D9%85%D8%B3_%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%B3"
    title: "وليام جيمس سيديس"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"

# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Born in 1898 to a psychiatrist father and physician mother, William James Sidis showed extraordinary intellectual capability from infancy. He entered Harvard at eleven and graduated cum laude at sixteen, but the publicity that followed his teenage lecture on four-dimensional geometry became a burden he would spend his adult life trying to escape. Imprisoned during the First Red Scare, he withdrew entirely from public view and worked anonymous jobs while writing extensively under pseudonyms — on cosmology, mathematics, Native American history, urban transit systems. When The New Yorker tracked him down in the 1930s, his unsuccessful privacy lawsuit set precedents that outlasted his reputation. He died in 1944 at forty-six, having turned his formidable intellect toward obscurity as deliberately as he'd once been steered toward fame.