The Quirky Habits of Certified Science Geniuses (bbc.com)

dryriver shares a report from the BBC: Celebrated inventor and physicist Nikola Tesla swore by toe exercises -- every night, he'd repeatedly "squish" his toes, 100 times for each foot, according to the author Marc J Seifer. While it's not entirely clear exactly what that exercise involved, Tesla claimed it helped to stimulate his brain cells. The most prolific mathematician of the 20th Century, Paul Erdos, preferred a different kind of stimulant: amphetamine, which he used to fuel 20-hour number benders. When a friend bet him $500 that he couldn't stop for a month, he won but complained "You've set mathematics back a month." Newton, meanwhile, bragged about the benefits of celibacy. When he died in 1727, he had transformed our understanding of the natural world forever and left behind 10 million words of notes; he was also, by all accounts, still a virgin (Tesla was also celibate, though he later claimed he fell in love with a pigeon). It's common knowledge that sleep is good for your brain -- and Einstein took this advice more seriously than most. He reportedly slept for at least 10 hours per day -- nearly one and a half times as much as the average American today (6.8 hours). But can you really slumber your way to a sharper mind? Many of the world's most brilliant scientific minds were also fantastically weird. From Pythagoras' outright ban on beans to Benjamin Franklin's naked "air baths," the path to greatness is paved with some truly peculiar habits.

Comments

You don't have to crazy to be a genius

[Cryacin]

But it helps!

Re:You don't have to crazy to be a genius

[Wycliffe]

I remember taking a left brain / right brain test in high school and the teacher saying that the only people who scored equal on both sides tended to be either genius or mentally retarded. Whether it is autism, schizophrenia, creativity, or something else, if you want to "think outside the box" then being on the fringe is to your advantage. It doesn't surprise me that great thinkers were far outside the box. The trick is being far outside the box without being so far out that you're unstable. Many great thinkers, artists, etc.. were fairly unstable but still managed to hold it together well enough to give us some novel ideas.

On a somewhat related note, I have a personal theory that the spike in autism is being caused by smart people having children. If intelligence is "balancing on the brink of insanity", then two people on the brink who reproduce sometimes causes their offspring to be over the edge.

Re:You don't have to crazy to be a genius

[TheCastro1689]

Your personal theory is a published study. Mostly aspergers, but a prof looked into it and his theory is that since most people are marrying later, they are also marrying people in their fields. So instead of marrying a random girl from town, you're marrying someone that could also be intelligent and have low level autism. BUT there are studies that show autism stems from poor nutrition and especially LOW IRON. The more likely culprit is bad nutrient levels, especially since people are older and their body needs more work to maintain.

Re:You don't have to crazy to be a genius

[gtall]

I thought autism was caused by blond actresses who saw something on TV and then convinced like-minded dolts to stop vaccinating their sproggs.

Re:You don't have to crazy to be a genius

[conquistadorst]

I remember taking a left brain / right brain test in high school and the teacher saying that the only people who scored equal on both sides tended to be either genius or mentally retarded. Whether it is autism, schizophrenia, creativity, or something else, if you want to "think outside the box" then being on the fringe is to your advantage. It doesn't surprise me that great thinkers were far outside the box. The trick is being far outside the box without being so far out that you're unstable. Many great thinkers, artists, etc.. were fairly unstable but still managed to hold it together well enough to give us some novel ideas.

On a somewhat related note, I have a personal theory that the spike in autism is being caused by smart people having children. If intelligence is "balancing on the brink of insanity", then two people on the brink who reproduce sometimes causes their offspring to be over the edge.

I'd even take it a step further. It's their obsessiveness about that one thing. There are many people in this world that are dedicated to their work. They work hard, work all nighters, get stressed, study, etc... but there are very, very, very few people in this world so obsessed with a *SINGLE* topic that almost literally consumes them, all day, every day, for years and years. To the point they're not just neglecting themselves, they often consider their bodies a physical nuisance. They also shun everything else that doesn't seem important, like spending social time with others, what other people think, eating, cleaning, other mundane tasks. If you could free your mind of those things and spend every waking second on a single topic, then it should be no surprise one would argue that you already have clinical issues. Most of us are not wired to do that, we'd probably psychologically break down instead of thriving like these guys.

Re:You don't have to crazy to be a genius

[TWX]

No, that's what causes pandemics.

Re:You don't have to crazy to be a genius

[TWX]

Albert Einstein didn't speak till he was more than 5 years old either. There was nothing wrong with him.

Sure there was. He married his first-cousin. Hell, he left his wife for his first-cousin.

Re:You don't have to crazy to be a genius

[Angst Badger]

The problem with this argument is that some of the geniuses under discussion were polymath generalists, not specialists in one thing. And even with the specialists, people like Tesla and Erdos covered an enormous range of topics within their specialization. The common factor with most of them is an enormous amount of energy bordering on mania, coupled with enough intelligence to make productive use of it instead of repeatedly rearranging the dishes in the kitchen at 3am.

I suspect that our knowing about their weird habits is just a side-effect of self-confidence in some (Newton, Franklin), and an utter disregard for social convention (Tesla, Erdos) in others. Lots of people have weird habits -- and I'm looking at YOU, fellow Slashdot users -- but prefer to be discreet about them.

I'm not odd, I'm a genius!

[Opportunist]

But remember kids, you cannot omit that genius part. Without, carrying a blanket around and calling it your waifu only makes you a weirdo.

Re:I'm not odd, I'm a genius!

[JaredOfEuropa]

That also works for rich or otherwise successful people. The word for nutty rich or super-smart folks is "eccentric" I suspect that a great many ordinary people have pretty weird quirks and habits too; the difference is that we never hear about them.

Re:I'm not odd, I'm a genius!

[war4peace]

We're all eccentric, only nobody cares about investigating our eccentricities.

Re:I'm not odd, I'm a genius!

[XxtraLarGe]

But remember kids, you cannot omit that genius part. Without, carrying a blanket around and calling it your waifu only makes you a weirdo.

Everybody is somebody's weirdo.

The Search for the Philosopher's Stone

[Oxygen99]

I think it's a bit of stretch to call Newton's proclivities a 'quirky habit'.

Re:The Search for the Philosopher's Stone

[MangoCats]

Newton's fascination with mercury may have helped his insights - for a short time.

Favism

[dargaud]

Pythagoras ban's on fava beans can be traced back to his having favism.

Re:Favism

[dargaud]

Hmmm, isn't that Fauvism ?

Old hat

[king neckbeard]

In other words, a lot of geniuses were probably autistic or had other conditions we generally consider to be 'mental illness.' Individuals with exceptionally high intelligence don't tend to integrate fully into society, and society's reaction is largely to consider them broken. As a great philosopher once said, "Only shooting stars break the mold."

Re:Old hat

[Ol Olsoc]

There's a research psychiatrist (who I cannot remember now) who has been researching recovery. He is finding the best thing for a survivor for trauma is finding someone who is non-judgemental even tempered person and just hanging with them does wonders.

That's really interesting.

I wonder if that was gender based. I've read and listened to some work that while women are helped by talk, that men are best helped by something similar to what you note, hanging with some other guys, doing some stuff, maybe performing some sort of shared labor. It sounds odd, but I know that many men after some loss or trauma, will throw themselves into their work. The women in their lives often accuse them of not facing their grief, but it could possibly just be a mental difference between the two sexes.

Re:Old hat

[burningcpu]

Haha. Yes, we do tend to congregate in one place. Unfortunately, here you are as well.

Re:Old hat

[quantaman]

In other words, a lot of geniuses were probably autistic or had other conditions we generally consider to be 'mental illness.'

I'm sure a few were somewhere on the spectrum but I don't see any reason to think they had what we'd consider mental illnesses.

Individuals with exceptionally high intelligence don't tend to integrate fully into society, and society's reaction is largely to consider them broken. As a great philosopher once said, "Only shooting stars break the mold."

I think that's close, but misses the mark. Most of us have oddities and quirks, but we tend to suppress them because we want friends and jobs. A crazy hat is fine up until you realize the girl you like doesn't dig it.

But when you're successful enough everybody already wants to be your friend so there's no need to normalize, in fact those weird little habits just become part of your trademark.

Celebrities are a good example of this, in fact a great example is Donald Trump. He's obviously not a genius, but he has a lot of odd characteristics that would be big trouble for a person with less wealth and celebrity. Look at older videos from when he was starting out, he was a relatively ordinary person. I think most of his persona comes from his decades of outrageous wealth and celebrity leaving him with no motivation to keep his "quirks" in check.

Re:Old hat

[king neckbeard]

I'm sure a few were somewhere on the spectrum but I don't see any reason to think they had what we'd consider mental illnesses.

Well, autism itself is considered a mental illness by the DSM, and the incidence of things like schizophrenia and dyslexia is significantly higher in certain fields.

I think that's close, but misses the mark. Most of us have oddities and quirks, but we tend to suppress them because we want friends and jobs. A crazy hat is fine up until you realize the girl you like doesn't dig it.

And there's a fair bit of evidence that suppressing them is easier if you are less intelligent. Not dumb, just within one or two standard deviations of average. Misophonia, for example, correlates with high intelligence. Smart people don't have better hearing, but they may be processing more information or filtering less. This applies even to smart people who aren't successful, although success can certainly make it easier to not integrate.

There's also evidence that society dumbs us down in a lot of ways, particularly creative thinking. Children do far better at creative thinking tests than most adults. because they are trained through school to fit into the kind of molds we set for industrial labor. Those unable to conform could be argued to be somewhat shielded from that kind of "brain damage." Granted, this is not directly equivalent to higher innate intelligence, but may end up with the same developmental results.

Celebrity and power are a bit of a different animal, although there may be some overlap. They are conditioned in a different manner than other people, and thus certain odd behaviors are reinforced, or at least not discouraged, as they would be in a more mundane setting. But this would support part of my argument, as a lot of Trump's success comes from being able to think outside of the DC bubble mindset. He's certainly not intelligent, but when he's not being handled, he occasionally spurts out the obvious things that are unthinkable to normal politicians and journalists, such as money buying policy.

Re:Old hat

[king neckbeard]

No, but the bell curve for nerds is probably shifted a bit. Nobody here has said 'all' except you and your whiny strawman. I'm saying 'statistically significant,' something that could be quickly supported by automated tests of writing levels of comment sections from various sites. The average Slashdot comment is stupid, but the average Youtube or Facebook comment is far below that.

The only difference...

[Anonymous Coward]

The only difference between brilliance and insanity is success.

Re:The only difference...

[gweihir]

Not at all. Most insanity is destructive. These people are/were not insane at all. They just did not give a damn what others think. The average human being, however, is so focused on what others think that they can regularly not even recognize clear nonsense. The critical characteristic needed for making mental breakthroughs is not high intelligence. That one, a lot of people have. It is the ability to use it independently and most people (even most highly intelligent ones) fail at that completely. Intelligence does not help if you do not use it.

Seems easily explainable without the genius tag

[TimothyHollins]

I see two distinct, yet likely, possibilities.

1. They were all autistic. Autists don't like change and tend to develop rituals and patterns, such as hammering your feet before bedtime or closing/opening the door 9 times before going through. Autists are sometimes also very sharp (though faaar from all of them) when they manage to focus their behavioral patterns on logical problems.

2. This is visibility bias. We are all quirky in some way, but not all of us invented relativity theory. I have a friend that sleeps 11+ hours a day, but she's not a genius, so no-one cares. I had a friend that only ate cereal, but she wasn't a genius so no-one cared. Looking back, most of my friends have had some quirk or other, and I'm guessing that if I spent some time digging I'd find that everyone has at least one. So, these geniuses aren't special on the quirk side, they are simply the ones we notice because they're 'famous'. I bet you all know of some unique quirk belonging to your favorite actor/actress, not because they're quirky, but because they're covered by the press 24/7 in detail.

Re:Seems easily explainable without the genius tag

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to sleep 10+ hours to be a genius. Take a look at my cousin. He sleeps 16 hours a day and don't know shit!

Re:Seems easily explainable without the genius tag

[Ol Olsoc]

Autism has nothing to do with celibacy, using meth, running around naked outside, sleeping 10 hours a night and not eating beans because nobody understands what glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency is

Maybe not directly, but Autism is strongly correlated with most of those things... except maybe the meth.

Have we reached the point where 100 percent of us are autistic yet?

"Certified Genius"

[Sir Holo]

So what earns a person certification in being a genius?

150+ on Stanford-Binet? 145+ on Wechsler? A life where one generates a great amount of new science/art/architecture/writing? A ton of Patents?

IQ is just a raw measure of the potential of a mind. The "mental velocity", as they call it. What one does with it. . . That is what really differentiates the geniuses.

Never declare anyone a genius until they are at least 35 years old. The truth is that you just can't tell which ones will bloom – so provide opportunities to all of the ones who exhibit high IQs or similar at a young age. Observe their progress and proclivities, and you might just be part of the formative years of a genius. (or you can quench it, as frequently happens)

Quirk

[The Evil Atheist]

There are more quirkly homeless people than quirky geniuses. We don't need to spread the myth about quirks being a fundamental particle of genius. We already have too much self-described geniuses on websites like Slashdot who are arseholes because they read a self-confirming article that many geniuses were arseholes.

Re:Quirk

[king neckbeard]

But we might want to spread the idea that if we are a little more accommodating to neurological differences, we might end up with more geniuses, and the products of their labor. You are also assuming that there aren't any homeless geniuses (or people who could be geniuses if they had appropriate care).

Re:Quirk

[110010001000]

Yep. Everyone is special here. Just like everyone else.

Amphetamines

[KozmoStevnNaut]

The use of amphetamines isn't a quirk, it's just common sense.

Re:easy

[rmdingler]

There must be at least one more step.

Population statistics

[sjbe]

There are more quirkly homeless people than quirky geniuses.

Just playing devil's advocate but is this actually true and what is the evidence for or against? Are you just assuming it to be true because it sounds right? We're talking about opposite ends of the spectrum in many cases but both tend to be some standard deviations outside the norm. It wouldn't actually surprise me if the number of crazy geniuses in total wasn't all that different from the number of crazy homeless people. I have no evidence for or against but it is an interesting question. (to me anyway...)

We already have too much self-described geniuses on websites like Slashdot who are arseholes because they read a self-confirming article that many geniuses were arseholes.

There's definitely a surviorship bias in play here.

Re:Population statistics

[The Evil Atheist]

There are more homeless people than there are geniuses. It's simply easier to become homeless than be a genius. Out of those groups, quirkiness would have to be much much more common in geniuses than in homeless people for there to be roughly similar numbers.

Re:Population statistics

[king neckbeard]

According to US stats, 85 out of 100,000 people in the US are homeless. That's 0.085% of the population. A Stanford-Bbinet score of 150 or higher would be present in 0.089% of the population. Depending on where you draw the line for genius, either one could be more prevalent. Yes, you can become homeless, while you can't become a genius, but the current distribution of the two groups are not as radically different as you claim.

Re:Population statistics

[king neckbeard]

Again, it depends on how you define genius, for which there is no hard rule. I personally don't conclude that 'genius' implies accomplishment, just ability that is a number of standard deviations away from the norm. A person can be a genius whose intellectual capacity far exceeds Einstein in intellectual capacity, yet spends their entire life as a janitor or sweatshop worker. In my view, not all genius have monumental accomplishments, but monumental accomplishments tend to be accomplished by geniuses.

I also recognize that IQ is not anywhere near a perfect metric. However, it's largest flaws in regards to detecting genius would be that it tends to underestimate those with less well-rounded skills. For example, a savant might score poorly to average on one section, and go far beyond the tests abilities in other areas, or make mistakes because they don't properly understand the questions.

Re:Population statistics

[The Evil Atheist]

I personally don't conclude that 'genius' implies accomplishment, just ability that is a number of standard deviations away from the norm.

Everyone who has been historically considered a genius had notable achievements to their name. Achievements, and peer recogntion, are undeniable criteria for being considered a genius.

Re:Population statistics

[king neckbeard]

Everyone who has been historically considered has had notable achievements because history doesn't record the unremarkable actions of unremarkable people.

Here are the dictionary definitions of genius: 1. exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability. 2. a person who is exceptionally intelligent or creative, either generally or in some particular respect.

Those don't include any kind of requirement of achievement. The etymology of 'genius' roughly translates to 'inborn' or 'innate,' although it was attributed to a spirit, and didn't come to exclusively refer to exceptional ability until later. You are simply moving the goalposts because your original post was statistically nonsense.

If it works and it is stupid, it aint stupid.

[houghi]

Many people do similar things. It is a bit of a self fulfilling prophesy. There are sports people who have to go on the field with the right foot first. Some will want to have a lucky number as shirtnumber.
A politician might want to have his tie done in a cerain way.
In programming: Some will use spaces instead of tabs.

The result is the same: It works. Now why is that? Because when you do it, you won't spend time thinking how you did NOT do it. That time can then be used for the task at hand. And when you need to be concentrated 100%, you will be better than using 1% thinking how something is a bit off.

We learn as kids that a kiss on the knee is the bestest way to stop a booboo.

And I am sure that everybody has things like this and that has nothing to do with autism or anything else. Just human behaviour.

Try using actual data

[sjbe]

There are more homeless people than there are geniuses

It depends on how you define genius. Approximately 2.2% of the population has an IQ above 140 which is the cutoff for MENSA membership. Approximately in the US is homeless. So if you are talking Newton or Tesla level geniuses you might be right but if you define genius as the smartest 1-2% of the population then there are at least as many geniuses as homeless people.

Basically you are simply assuming there are more homeless people than geniuses when in fact the data seems to show that probably isn't actually true, at least in the US and most other modern countries.

It's simply easier to become homeless than be a genius.

That is an assumption not an evidence based fact.

Out of those groups, quirkiness would have to be much much more common in geniuses than in homeless people for there to be roughly similar numbers.

See the data above which seems to disagree with you.

Re:easy

[rmdingler]

Sure, but doesn't ugly decrease the level of difficulty of at least one of the other prerequisites?

Re:"Tesla and Newton were celibate"

[Cmdln Daco]

Or, conversely, before it was trendy to post-mortem "identify" people as being gay, without any real evidence..

Re:"Tesla and Newton were celibate"

[iampiti]

When I was depressed I had no sex desire at all so, yes, certain mind "states" can lead to celibacy. I might be that whatever made them so intelligent also made them uninterested in sex