The Common Character Trait of Geniuses

Published on 10 Jan 2014

Geniuses like Isaac Newton and
Richard Feynman both had the ability to concentrate with a sort of
intensity that is hard for mortals to grasp.



Transcript -- I'm
tempted to say smart, creative people have no particularly different set
of character traits than the rest of us except for being smart and
creative, and those being character traits. Then, on the other hand, I
wrote a biography of Richard Feynman and a biography of Isaac Newton.
Now, there are two great scientific geniuses whose characters were in
some superficial ways completely different. Isaac Newton was solitary,
antisocial, I think unpleasant, bitter, fought with his friends as much
as with his enemies. Richard Feynman was gregarious, funny, a great
dancer, loved women. Isaac Newton, I believe, never had sex. Richard
Feynman, I believe, had plenty. So you can't generalize there.



On
the other hand, they were both, as I tried to get in their heads,
understand their minds, the nature of their genius, I sort of felt I was
seeing things that they had in common, and they were things that had to
do with aloneness. Newton was much more obviously alone than Feynman,
but Feynman didn't particularly work well with others. He was known as a
great teacher, but he wasn't a great teacher, I don't think, one on
one. I think he was a great lecturer. I think he was a great
communicator. But when it came time to make the great discoveries of
science, he was alone in his head. Now, when I say he, I mean both
Feynman and Newton, and this applies, also, I think, to the geniuses
that I write about in The Information, Charles Babbage, Alan Turing, Ada
Byron. 

They all had the ability to concentrate with a sort of
intensity that is hard for mortals like me to grasp, a kind of passion
for abstraction that doesn't lend itself to easy communication, I don't
think.