Tag: Genius
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Discovering genius: The neurobiological substrate of intelligence
Helena LjuljZagreb, Croatia “It is by the shape and size of the forehead that we are to judge of the extent of a man’s understanding… When the frontal vein appears distinctly in the midst of a forehead, open, uniform, and regularly arched, it announces extraordinary talent.”1 According to the eighteenth century physiognomist Johann Caspar Lavater,…
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What makes a polymath, a genius, or a man who knows everything?
JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom The question posed in this title is of course imponderable and ridiculous, but nevertheless fascinating. Until the Enlightenment (c. 1750–1800), an intellectual “Renaissance man” could have read most of the important books printed. He might well have known most of the medical, scientific, and mathematical facts of the day, and…