Slashdot Mirror
Marriage May Tame Genius
theodp writes "Here's one to share with the wife and kids. Using a database of the biographies of 280 great scientists, a psychologist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand has concluded that creative genius is turned off almost like a tap if a man gets married and has children, regardless of age."
And crime. The linked article says this happens to genus and crime in young men. Why leave that off the article? Only 10% of Slashdot readers ever read the articles, so leaving that key piece of information off is a little irresponsible, since we know the reader's habits now.
Of course, I don't know why the average Slashdot reader would need to know either fact.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
It did not take long to come up with a glaring exception: a man recognized as one of the top few composers of all time:
"Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was the most prolific of the great composers. In his 65 years he produced 1,200 musical works and 20 children. You can find his compositions listed in an encyclopedia."
(For the mathematically minded, that's 60 musical works per child. Isn't P.D.Q. #21 ?)
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Stephen Hawking? Hard to top his mind among living scientists. 3 children for him.
Einstein? Two sons there.
Frank Lloyd Wright? World's greatest architect (he said so himself, and not many argue with it). 6 children (or was it 7?)
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Leonhard Euler was married and had fourteen children. He was also stone blind for the last 17 years of his life. Despite this he made tremendous and lasting contributions to the field of mathematics.
One biography says of him:
"He was blind for the last 17 years of his life, and during that time his mathematical productivity actually increased. It was said that Euler had tremendous powers of concentration and that he was even able to do mathematics 'with a baby in his lap while the older children played all about him.'"
If the trend is that people become less creative after they marry, it is likely due to a lack of time rather than any suppresion of the creative instinct.
If the study had concentrated on people for whom creativity was essential to their livelihood I doubt there'd be a correlation between creativity and being married. Many artists and writers are married and still turn out works of genius. Some don't even become famous for their works until long after they're married, for example J.K. Rowlings (a woman, I know, and whether or not you like Harry Potter it is a great work), and Stephen King(one of the most prolific writers of our time).
Incidentally, Newton was a celibate. Amazing what a man can achieve when he takes his mind off sex, and unfortunately he's the model of a true geek: forever single. :(
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