Adam Smith

1723–1790 · Scottish · Enlightenment

Known for: Father of economics who wrote about the invisible hand while being so absent-minded he once walked 15 miles in his dressing gown

Absent-minded, eccentric, and intellectually systematic. He walked 15 miles in his dressing gown while lost in thought. His Wealth of Nations founded modern economics.

Deeply moral—his first work, Theory of Moral Sentiments, argued sympathy is the basis of ethics. He was generous, secretive about charity, and burned most manuscripts before death.

What Adam Smith would be watching

The “if they lived today” Q&A on this page gives Adam Smith The Big Short (2015) as a favourite film. Their reason: “They turned my invisible hand into a very visible fist. I'm... not proud.” Rankquant scores it above 81% of films, drawn from 635 IMDb reviewers individually re-centred rather than averaged raw. The full film & TV rankings are built the same way.

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