How Darwin Managed His Inbox

An anonymous reader wrote to mention an MSNBC article on how Darwin and Einstein managed their inboxes. From the article: "A new study finds that the correspondence of Albert Einstein, as well as that of Charles Darwin, followed patterns similar to modern e-mail communication. Einstein sent more than 14,500 letters. But he received more than 16,200, and responded to only a quarter of them. Darwin mailed more than 7,500 letters. He responded to 32 percent of the roughly 6,530 letters he received."

Re:Spam?

[Pxtl]

Interesting gives karma, funny doesnt, hence people mod interesting instead of funny to approve of funny stuff. And that certainly deserves the honour - it kicked loads of ass.

Re:only?

[gilgongo]

> How many of those, though, were really just multiple parts of a 'conversation'?

Most I would think, but the length and content of them would probably read like miniature essays.

My great grandfather corresponded with Darwin about chicken breeding. They exchanged about ten letters on the subject. Darwin's replies are in my aunt's cupboard and she showed them to me a few years ago. What's striking about them is that they are so densely written. The syntax, the length of sentences and the overall style seemed to me to be very labour intensive given the fact Darwin was not corresponding with a fellow scientist, but an enthusiastic hobbyist in the form of my great grandfather.

I don't think you can simply look at the numbers of letters and make a conclusion about the time or effort expended per day writing. Reading them shows you what an immense amount of intellectual power went into producing them.