Aeronauts and Wittgenstein, Ludwig

[Mark Kohut]

As LW, a profound TRP influence as we know, finished 
high school, he read a book by Boltzmann, a leading Viennese
physicist, who wrote that the new science of aerodynamics
would need "hero-geniuses". Heroes to try out the flight ideas
of the engineering genuises. This is 1906. 

Hero-genius, either, both, held great appeal to young Ludwig.
He wrote him asking if he could study physics with him.

Before he heard back, Boltzmann was dead: another suicide in that
intense time and place. 

So, Wittgenstein went to a school in Berlin for a year AND STUDIED
HOT AIR BALLOONS! 

Later, when badgering "Mad Dog'  Bertie Russell mercilessly---he was like
that guy in one of Roth's Zuckerman novels who won't go away; but far worse, threatening suicide---
he asked Russell to tell him "whether he should stay in Philosophy or go back to balloons"!