1. The secret of genius

Thomas Edison, inventor of electric light, said genius was 99% respiration, 1% inspiration.

For years people have said that geniuses are born with a special talent. New Research challenges that view.

She looks like any other little girl in her first year at school: a smart uniform, a happy smile and a bag of books. But Dineshi, a five-year-old from west London is so clever that she seems almost unreal. With an IQ of 160, Dineshi knew the alphabet, the days of the weeks and the months of the year when she was one and a half. She started reading just before her second birthday and writing just after it. “When she was a baby, I realized she was exceptionally bright,” says Dineshi’s mother, “So I tried to provide an environment to help her develop intellectually. I started giving her lessons and she enjoyed them.”

Mr. and Mrs. Yusov from Coventry know all about creating an environment that encourages intellectual development. Mr. Yusov gave up his job to educate their children at home. They were encouraged to read books from an early age and they watched television only occasionally, usually for educational programmes. Sufiah, the eldest daughter, went to university when she was 13. Her brother started his university studies at 12. Their mother said: “You must have the correct environment – the schooling, the family, the support, they must all come together.”

By comparison with others, such children seem incredibly intelligent. But according to Professor Michael Howe, a psychologist at Exeter University, they do not have an inborn superhuman talent. Their remarkable achievements are the result of practice, persistence and an encouraging environment. Would these children have achieved so much if their parents hadn’t given them so much attention? Professor Howe doesn’t think so. The case of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart seems to support Professor Howe’s theory. Mozart was composing music by the age of five, and at six or seven he was giving professional concert around Europe. Most people believe this was the result of inborn genius. But Professor Howe claims that Mozart’s childhood compositions are largely arrangements of other composers’ works. Most importantly, according to Professor Howe, his father was an extremely ambitious music teacher who made his son practice more than three hours a day. By the time he was six, he had probably spent 3,500 hours studying music.

Are geniuses happy? As a child in the early 1900s, Billy Sidis was described as ‘the most remarkable boy in the United States’. Brilliant at languages, he taught himself Latin at four and could read and speak eight languages when he was six. At eleven, he gave a lecture to the University of Harvard Mathematical Club. He was a genius until everything began to go wrong. His parents had pushed him to develop his exceptional intelligence, but had totally neglected other important skills. For example, Sidis did not know how to dress himself properly even by the time he was an adolescent. Finally he suffered a breakdown.

There are plenty of people who have high IQs but never achieved anything great. They are bright, but they lack the drive to get on: motivation. Thomas Edison, inventor of electric light, said genius was 99% respiration, 1% inspiration. According to Professor Howe, we should all be able to excel if we try hard enough. The following anecdote illustrates his point. A famous gold champion had produced some amazingly good shots. “I wish I had been as lucky as you were,” said one of his opponents at the end of the day. “It’s funny,” said the golf champion, “the harder I practice, the luckier I get.”

IQ – Intelligence Quotient: a measure of intelligence