Since all are off-topic now, I have a question.

Stefan, how about the release of a new issue of your magazine Kaissiber in the near future? I think the last appeared a year or so ago...

Markovich wrote on 06/18/11 at 20:06:09:

So I suppose your earlier incarnation was killed by Godzilla because your chess game did not go to well. He wanted to start with the mate for sure.

Anyone know the height of Pillsbury. He did operate the chess playing machine Ajeeb. So he really cant have been very tall.

By the way Steinitz height was given as barely 5 feet, so he might have been even shorter that Morphy.

Before the trolls take over (my own fault, I guess), I'll give my [intended] solution. The members have done a fairly good job, correctly identifying Paul Morphy as the "winner". A bit surprising that Napoleon Bonaparte got more votes. The so-called "Napoleon Complex" must still resonate with many. It seems that (see Wikipedia & elsewhere) it was part of the British propaganda that Napoleon was a small man. 

Napoleon had about the same height as Karpov: 1.70m, or five feet seven inches. The earlier confusion (French "feet" differered from the English; the autopsy was done by a French doctor, on English territory) was settled when his body was exhumed. The dead Kaiser was measured as 1.68m, and so the younger Napoleon must have been as tall as Karpov. With 1.70 he was just average for his time. Contemporary sources are saying that he was worried more about his weight than about height. 

Paul Morphy was shorter. The American Phrenological Journal and Repository of Science 1859 gives the following as part of a longer article:

Quote:

(Height highlighted by me in bold type; Daniel Webster was an American politician and Foreign Minister.)

So it seems sure that Morphy was somewhat shorter than the other two; those feet and inches translate to 1.67 or 1.68m. According to Edge, Paul Morphy was even 5 cm shorter. But I am inclined to trust the "scientists" more. Whatever you think about phrenology, they were used to measure bodies.

Gambit wrote on 06/18/11 at 15:55:16:


Too bad he was reincarnated as Divine:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uD5M4xUR5fw/TVIUhj...

P.S. Who the hell are you to say who got reincarnated as who?  Who the f--k appointed you the High Priest of Reincarnation?  Does Krishna whisper in your ear or something?  In fact, Divine appeared to me in a dream and told me "she" was Morphy reincarnated.  So there!  Morphy always was a little light-footed, you know?  Boyish face, too. So it stands to reason.  I'll bet he and old Uncle Ernest played some games besides chess together. 

Further I can assure you that Morphy wasn't in Heaven between 1884 and 1945 (the year of Divine's birth).  During that time he went through several incarnations as jellyfish, sea slugs and the like.  For a while he was even Woodrow Wilson's tapeworm.  It's strange to think that in that form, he probably did more than any other living creature to cause World War II.

Now me, I'm the reincarnation of King Ghidorah.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.cinemastrikesback.com/news/films/...

After Godzilla killed me in 1965, I went to heaven and travelled back in time (actually, all monsters continually travel back in time; everything they seem to do, they actually do in reverse -- but that can be the subject of another post) I was reincarnated as myself in 1947.  I then began to travel forward in time and watch myself in several interesting Japanese movies, notably, Monster Zero and Destroy All Monsters.  It was terribly disorienting to watch my monster self in what seemed to me to be reverse motion, though.  I could go on and on about my former lives, but I'll save it for later.

TalJechin wrote on 06/18/11 at 15:39:27:

That wiki-page also covers "height in sports". Strangely, chess is missing.

MNb wrote on 06/18/11 at 15:29:32:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height#Average_height_around_the_world

Isn't the Massai in Africa supposed to be the tallest people?

I thought the Swiss were even taller on average than the Dutch.