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.
