In the book, “Subtle is the Lord”, the biography of Einstein written by physicist, Abraham Pais, the author comments on the genius of Albert Einstein. Dr. Pais writes, “Nor do I know a general and complete characterization of what genius is, except that it is more than an extreme form of talent and that the criteria for genius are not objective. I note with relief that the case for Einstein as a genius will cause even less of an argument than the case for Picasso and much less of an argument than the case for Woody Allen, and I do hereby declare that – in my opinion – Einstein was a genius.”
So what is a genius? Everyone seems to have a child or grandchild that is a genius. There are geniuses everywhere. I’m sorry to tell you, mom and dad, there is a 99.9 % chance what we have here is a smart kid, but not quite a genius. I’ve been there. In my opinion all of my children and my sole grandson are geniuses. Others might disagree. So be it. I was labeled as a genius when I was a student. Not my opinion, but that of some of my High School teachers and some school friends, who even today exaggerate some of my high school accomplishments.
During our engagement, the young lady I later married, was warned not to marry that man. One former teacher told my future wife that marrying a genius would be sure to lead to trouble. Everybody knows geniuses are weird; borderline insanity lurks there. Don’t go there. I have always been proud of being a little bit crazy. That is necessary to be another Feynman or Bohr. Fortunately, Bonnie decided to take a chance and continue with the engagement. I don’t think my wife-to-be, was impressed by the lady’s compliment to me and warning to her. I like to think that was a smart action by my wife-to-be. She was, and still is, a very smart lady with some high scores of her own. Maybe not a genius, but certainly, she is no dummy.
I understand why this nice teacher and lady told my future wife I was a genius. She meant her remark to be taken as a compliment. I thank her. I had done some work in mathematics and science above and beyond that expected of most High School students. I had scored very high on some tests. But those are just numbers, not guarantee of true brilliance. To me the term “genius” should be reserved for individuals who demonstrated some ability and exceptional accomplishments far above normal, whatever that is. I put in long hours on my study and so I was probably an over-achiever. Didn’t Edison say that genius is 99% work?
As noted by Abraham Pais, a man possibly a genius himself in the regard of many other brilliant people, genius is not well defined. There are some few brilliant people all will identify as geniuses: Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Isaac Newton, and Galileo among some other outstanding figures in science. There are writers, musicians and artists that probably qualify. But all such labels are opinions by admirers, not objective determinations, as Dr. Pais notes.
I have never been fond of the title for any one. I flinch when a neighbor or friend tells me about this individual they know that is a genius. Rather often this is a child that is bright, but sometimes it is an adult who performs mentally better than average. I have known many of these. When I was in graduate school we had a department picnic. During the picnic, another grad student introduced me to his son, aged nine or ten. He wanted me to talk to the child. I was puzzled, but I soon discovered the little boy was interested in astrophysics. Dad, a mathematics student, knew I had studied physics and astronomy besides mathematics. So we talked. He was an impressive child. Very intelligent and surprisingly informed about astronomy. We spoke for at least an hour and then said goodbye. Thankfully, dad did not ask if I thought his son was a genius. The child was one of the smartest ten year olds I had ever met. He was polite and a beautiful child. This child was very intelligent, and well read on the subject, but I would not label him as a genius. Simply because that is a meaningless term, in any absolute term.
How can I say that with such certainty? Genius is an undefined term. The term is used in a complimentary manner. We say to a friend, “You are a genius.” Meaning, I’m impressed with something he or she just did. In that sense I could say of the little boy I had just met. “He is a genius.” That is a meaningless statement, taken literally. I’m afraid such a remark would be misunderstood. Was he possibly another Einstein or Newton? I doubt it. Einsteins or Newtons are very, very rare. One per century. We have already had one this century. I think Wolfgang Pauli might qualify in my book. But I mean that only in a complimentary sense, an opinion.
But what about Max Planck, Bohr, Dirac, Schroedinger, Oppenheimer and all the other brilliant people we could name? Popularly speaking these are all geniuses, aren’t they? In the popular mind yes, but there really are no geniuses. Because, up to this moment the word geniuses has no precise meaning. Psychologists, neurosurgeons and other brain experts have tried to pin that term down and have failed to do that. To quote physicist Abraham Pais again, “Nor do I know a general and complete characterization of what genius is, except that it is more than an extreme form of talent and that the criteria for genius are not objective.” This means genius is an undefined, hence meaningless label.
Professional physicists and mathematicians do not apply the name genius to any living colleagues. Some, at times, speak of Einstein, Faraday, Bohr, Newton and some other brilliant legends in the history of science as geniuses. But it is a complimentary label, when it is used for living acquaintances. It is “forbotten” to speak of living physicists or mathematicians or other talented people still alive, as geniuses. Stephen Hawkins is an example. He is a wonderful man, I’ sure, much admired by many, a brilliant physicist but not a genius. Popular writers compare him with Einstein but Dr. Hawkins knows better than that, and I’m sure does not put himself in that class.
A very controversial man in this category, among brilliant physicists sometimes labeled as genius, is Richard Feynman. He was a truly unique physicist. Undoubtedly brilliant. When I was a young mathematical physicist the 1950’s and 60’s, Dr. Feynman was one of my idols. He was the kind of physicist we would like to be. Not a clone. Clones are nothing special. To be alike in the sense of that incredible ability to see and feel the physics in the problem. Many labeled him as a genius, but his biographers and those who knew him tell us Richard Feynman did not use the word genius, and abhorred it. He did not apply that term to anyone, especially himself. I’m sure he regarded a few like Einstein as geniuses, unofficially. A very few, if any qualified.
Nevertheless in the popular mind geniuses do exist. Who are they? How are they identified? What behavior marks them as genius? Can geniuses be identified as children? I speak of those in mathematics or physics, or at least science. I have no idea how one might provide criteria for identification of geniuses in other fields such as politics, history or economics.
Long ago, high IQ’s or other high test scores were ruled out as the distinguishing mark of geniuses. We know much more than that is needed. We have movie stars with reported IQ’s as high as 175. Does that IQ number mean that individual is a genius as an actor? I have read, that high scores on the original Stanford-Binet tests were designed to identify 12-year-old students with high academic ability. If an adult has an IQ of 150 or higher what does that mean? To many people, IQ over 150 means genius. Not true . Every year we have students that score very high on ACT and SAT tests. I have known students reported with perfect or near perfect scores on the SAT. They were not geniuses in my opinion. Their academic work was good, as expected. What then? In my opinion, more than that must be required to qualify as genius.
MENSA is an interesting group in this regard. To qualify for MENSA, so I am told, one must score in the highest two percent on some nationally recognized test. Most SAT scholarship winners place in the upper one percent or higher. All qualify. Are MENSA members geniuses? Some think so. My wife is a genius because of her SAT score. I qualified many times over on several different tests. I never applied to MENSA for membership, and have no intention doing that. I am not a genius. I disqualify myself. Neither is my wife, if she will pardon for saying so. I have children and grandchildren that qualify. But not geniuses.
To people who have known few brilliant people, then any exceptional mental ability by any individual qualifies them as a genius. In universities and research institutes, where there are so many brilliant and talented people, all would qualify as geniuses in the popular mind. But people who work every day along side men or women with exceptional talents, only men like Einstein or Feynman could even be considered as worth the label, genius. So the term is reserved for only very exceptional people, and then only in a complimentary mode.
So we see high IQ and exceptional talent have both been disqualified as distinguishing geniuses from non-geniuses. Might unusual thinking patterns be it? This has been investigated and might come closest to the right answer. People I might label as geniuses do not think like the rest of us. Feynman is again a perfect example. From his young years at Los Alamos on through the later years at Princeton, Columbia and Caltech he was very unique in his problem solving ability. While others were trying to find a way to attack the problem he came up with a solution. Unfortunately, his quick, first try at a solution was not always correct. But he had an exceptionally quick mind, even compared to men like Oppenheimer or Fermi. The other recognized genius, Albert Einstein, was more of a careful, thoughtful mind. He thought deep thoughts. Einstein and Feynmann used different thinking patterns. Yet, both got results. Comparisons with men like Karl Gauss and Isaac Newton show other different thinking patterns. There is definitely variety in the thinking of the great minds, possible geniuses.
Great emphasis has been placed on creativity and imagination as hallmarks of geniuses. Feynman was strong on that count. He produced radical methods for solving problems. His famous Feynman Diagrams are an example. Different from anything any one ever thought of. Is this man an alien? So different, even among the smartest of smart, few could understand his explanations of his diagrams when he first introduced his idea. Is this brilliant work or nonsense? Eventually, the light broke through, and his method was declared brilliant. Others understood Einstein’s first paper on relativity, although they might disagree with the results claimed.
Long ago, in a study of brilliant thinkers, it was noticed that many of the men who produced radical new ideas had an interesting wrinkle in their thinking. Some very logical thinkers excel in linear thinking typical of mathematics: A implies B implies C implies D, etc. like following a straight road. These thinkers know where they want to go and lay out a straight road as they go taking us to the destination. They see the end point ahead and the steps along the way. In other cases we see a thinker wandering along, with many curves to the left and then to the right, until some how miraculously arrive at the destination. Usually the solution of a problem. So we have straight road and curved road thinkers. Both seem to work. But for different kinds of problems.
Those of us trained to think mathematically follow the straight line to solutions. We need to know where we are going sufficiently well we can also see the markers on the road. If we cannot see the way, we are helpless. Certain genius candidates seem to be able to find there way through the dark, like crawling through a rainstorm, unperturbed by the thunder and lightening all around. At times taking shelter from rain or lightening bolts. Then the storm clears, and a last few yards ahead the goal appears. Then the thinker announces, “Aha, I see how to get there.”
Newton seemed to think both ways, as needed. Feynman seemed to prefer the curved road because the straight road does not work for the excursions into the unknown, his preferred type of problem. Neils Bohr, like Feynman, enjoyed exploring new territory. Straight roads work best when traveling through parts of reasonably well-known territory, preferably flat, allowing a view of the territory ahead. Territory mostly already explored needing one new road. Curved roads must be used in exploring unknown territory. There is no straight road and the territory is too rough.
Straight road thinkers are admirable, but those who can follow the curved paths, where there really are no roads, and reach the destination safely, those are the people I would nominate as geniuses. Most of us cannot decide how to start the path. Some find a starting point and soon become hopelessly lost in the wilderness. Some try to get there faster by driving or flying, known as quick thinking, ending as crashed or piled up against a tree in the path. Taking the curved road requires bravery, also known as guts.
Let those who enjoy labeling their favorite scientist or favorite grandchild as genius, continue to do so. I prefer to abandon the myth of genius, as a recognizable, identifiable type of thinker. Despite knowing that, in my own mind Einstein, Newton and Feynman were geniuses, meaning exceptionally brilliant men, who have contributed greatly to the world of thought we call physics. We eagerly await the advent of the next such “genius”.
(Copyright 2011 Benjamin F. Plybon. All rights reserved.)
I never liked the idea of people calling young children geniuses. I prefer to have them be talented (in a specific activity) or gifted (have the potential for great achievement), and be given every opportunity to exercise those talents or gifts without being held back in their progress.
I have never taken those tests and do not qualify for Mensa or being defined as highly intelligent. However, I have solved problems both linearly and from outside the box. The genius (from my high school class with considerable accomplishments, yet a very humble attitude), in my opinion, who I recently helped review his memoir including how he helped save the United States from nuclear war (twice), wrote me with the line, Ron, you are a genius. Only because I came up with a simple way to highlight minor corrections in his almost flawless manuscript. I considered it a compliment, and nothing more.
Keep on enlightening us.
Ron