Genius
The term genius is originally a derivation of 'genii'; a term from Roman mythology referring to spirit, either the internal driving force within all living things, or a specific spirit, or demon with supernatural powers. A similar term from Arabic legend is jinnee.
In modern usage, a 'genius' is a person with distinguished mental prowess. This can manifest either as a formost intellect, or as a creative talent. The term also applies to one who is a polymath, or someone skilled in many mental areas. The term does specifically apply to mental rather than athletic skills, although it is also used to denote the possession of a superior talent in any field; eg, one may be said to have a genius for golf.
A genius is someone whose mental faculties are recognised to be so extraordinary that they go far beyond what a non-genius is capable of. They make huge original leaps in their field, rather than just extending the previous body of work in that field. Their faculties include a rich power of invention, a talent for creation, and an insight from which novel ideas flow in streams. A genius is one who can direct this peculiar gift towards a specific employment, whether in the intellectual fields or creative arts.
Some of those widely called geniuses are:
- Archimedes (mathematician)
- Johann Sebastian Bach (composer)
- Ludwig van Beethoven (composer)
- JosÃÂé RaÃÂúl Capablanca (chess master)
- Noam Chomsky (Linguist, philosopher, psychologist and U.S foreign policy critic.)
- Charles Darwin (biologist)
- RenÃÂé Descartes (mathematician and philosopher)
- Thomas Alva Edison (inventor)
- Albert Einstein (theoretical physicist)
- Paul ErdÃÂös (mathematician)
- Bobby Fischer (chess master)
- Benjamin Franklin (inventor, diplomat, political scientist)
- Sigmund Freud (psychologist)
- Buckminster Fuller (philosopher, architect, inventor)
- Evariste Galois (mathematician)
- Carl Friedrich Gauss (mathematician)
- Murray Gell-Mann (physicist)
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (writer and poet)
- Vincent van Gogh (painter)
- Stephen Hawking (cosmologist)
- Thomas Jefferson, (statesman, philospher)
- James Joyce (writer)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (composer)
- John Forbes Nash (mathematician)
- John von Neumann (physicist,mathematician and computer scientist)
- Isaac Newton (physicist)
- Blaise Pascal (mathematician and philosopher)
- Plato (philosopher)
- Srinivasa Ramanujan (mathematician)
- William James Sidis (physicist), (mathematician), (cosmologist)
- William Shakespeare (playwright)
- Nikola Tesla (electrical engineer and physicist)
- Alan Turing (mathematician)
- Leonardo da Vinci (inventor and artist)
- Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosopher)
- Frank Lloyd Wright (architect)
References