What Defines the Line Between Ordinary Genius and Magical Genius?

[rsq_a]

What are your thoughts on this quote:

There are two kinds of geniuses: the "ordinary" and the "magicians." An ordinary genius is a fellow whom you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what they've done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different with the magicians. Even after we understand what they have done it is completely dark. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest calibre.

Mark Kac
(in Physics Today)

 

[Nik_2213]

I must agree: I've worked with bona-fide 'ordinary' genius and, at a stretch, I could just about follow their work. The other variety re-make paradigms with disconcerting bounds...

 

[rsq_a]

Would someone with a PhD not seem like a magician to a 14-year old high school student? How does one distinguish in that case? Similarly, suppose you worked with someone who didn't have great communication skills. However, their inability to communicate their thought process (and empathize with other's lack of understanding) made their insights more mysterious than they might be, had someone who was better at explaining performed the same steps.

In that case, would you not be attributing a magician's status to an imposter?

 

[mathwonk]

I have been studying mathematics all my life, and have met many outstanding ones, but still the writings of Riemann remain so far beyond anything I have ever encountered, in terms of their being far, far ahead of their time, that this quote is meaningful to me. It's a little like the difference in someone who can run faster than me and someone who can soar in the air effortlessly, or teleport themselves.

 

[Ailrickson]

No such thing as magic!

 

[mathwonk]

buzzkill!

 

[DR13]

Would someone with a PhD not seem like a magician to a 14-year old high school student? How does one distinguish in that case? Similarly, suppose you worked with someone who didn't have great communication skills. However, their inability to communicate their thought process (and empathize with other's lack of understanding) made their insights more mysterious than they might be, had someone who was better at explaining performed the same steps.

In that case, would you not be attributing a magician's status to an imposter?

We aren't comparing a PhD with a 14 year old. We are comparing PhD's with PhD's. You are changing the question. Also, it has nothing to do with lack of communication skills. Einstein, Feyman, Reimann, etc could all communicate at the highest level.