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By not settling with one perspective, geniuses do not merely solve existing problems, like inventing an environmentally-friendly fuel. They identify new ones. It does not take a genius to analyze dreams; it required Freud to ask in the first place what meaning dreams carry from our psyche. The explosion of creativity in the Renaissance was intimately tied to the recording and conveying of a vast knowledge in a parallel language; a language of drawings, graphs and diagrams — as, for instance, in the renowned diagrams of daVinci and Galileo. Galileo revolutionized science by making his thought visible with diagrams, maps, and drawings while his contemporaries used conventional mathematical and verbal approaches.
Once geniuses obtain a certain minimal verbal facility, they seem to develop a skill in visual and spatial abilities which give them the flexibility to display information in different ways. When Einstein had thought through a problem, he always found it necessary to formulate his subject in as many different ways as possible, including diagrammatically. He had a very visual mind.
He thought in terms of visual and spatial forms, rather than thinking along purely mathematical or verbal lines of reasoning. In fact, he believed that words and numbers, as they are written or spoken, did not play a significant role in his thinking process. A distinguishing characteristic of genius is immense productivity.
Thomas Edison held 1, patents, still the record. He guaranteed productivity by giving himself and his assistants idea quotas. His own personal quota was one minor invention every 10 days and a major invention every six months. Bach wrote a cantata every week, even when he was sick or exhausted. Mozart produced more than six hundred pieces of music. Einstein is best known for his paper on relativity, but he published other papers. Elliot's numerous drafts of "The Waste Land" constitute a jumble of good and bad passages that eventually was turned into a masterpiece.
In a study of 2, scientists throughout history, Dean Kean Simonton of the University of California, Davis found that the most respected produced not only great works, but also more "bad" ones. Out of their massive quantity of work came quality. Geniuses produce. Dean Keith Simonton, in his book Scientific Genius suggests that geniuses are geniuses because they form more novel combinations than the merely talented.
His theory has etymology behind it: cogito — "I think — originally connoted "shake together": intelligo the root of "intelligence" means to "select among. Like the highly playful child with a pailful of Legos, a genius is constantly combining and recombining ideas, images and thoughts into different combinations in their conscious and subconscious minds. Einstein did not invent the concepts of energy, mass, or speed of light.
Rather, by combining these concepts in a novel way, he was able to look at the same world as everyone else and see something different. The laws of heredity on which the modern science of genetics is based are the results of Gregor Mendel who combined mathematics and biology to create a new science. If one particular style of thought stands out about creative genius, it is the ability to make juxtapositions between dissimilar subjects. Call it a facility to connect the unconnected that enables them to see things to which others are blind.
Leonardo daVinci forced a relationship between the sound of a bell and a stone hitting water. This enabled him to make the connection that sound travels in waves. In , F. Kekule' intuited the shape of the ring-like benzene molecule by forcing a relationship with a dream of a snake biting its tail. Samuel Morse was stumped trying to figure out how to produce a telegraphic signal b enough to be received coast to coast. One day he saw tied horses being exchanged at a relay station and forced a connection between relay stations for horses and b signals.
The solution was to give the traveling signal periodic boosts of power. Nickla Tesla forced a connection between the setting sun and a motor that made the AC motor possible by having the motor's magnetic field rotate inside the motor just as the sun from our perspective rotates.
You wonder what made Einstein and Mozart special and how they were able to create such works of genius. The difference lies in their ability. You don’t have to be Leonardo DaVinci or Albert Einstein to think like a genius. There are plenty of ways to hone your creativity and sharpen your critical thinking skills. Try letting your mind wander without judging your thoughts.
Physicist and philosopher David Bohm believed geniuses were able to think different thoughts because they could tolerate ambivalence between opposites or two incompatible subjects. Physicist Niels Bohr believed that if you held opposites together, then you suspend your thought and your mind moves to a new level. The suspension of thought allows an intelligence beyond thought to act and create a new form. The swirling of opposites creates the conditions for a new point of view to bubble freely from your mind. Bohr's ability to imagine light as both a particle and a wave led to his conception of the principle of complementarity.
Thomas Edison's invention of a practical system of lighting involved combining wiring in parallel circuits with high resistance filaments in his bulbs, two things that were not considered possible by conventional thinkers, in fact were not considered at all because of an assumed incompatibility. Because Edison could tolerate the ambivalence between two incompatible things, he could see the relationship that led to his breakthrough.
Aristotle considered metaphor a sign of genius, believing that the individual who had the capacity to perceive resemblances between two separate areas of existence and link them together was a person of special gifts.
If unlike things are really alike in some ways, perhaps, they are so in others. Alexander Graham Bell observed the comparison between the inner workings of the ear and the movement of a stout piece of membrane to move steel and conceived the telephone. Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, in one day, after developing an analogy between a toy funnel and the motions of a paper man and sound vibrations.
Underwater construction was made possible by observing how shipworms tunnel into timber by first constructing tubes. Einstein derived and explained many of his abstract principles by drawing analogies with everyday occurrences such as rowing a boat or standing on a platform while a train passed by. Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end up doing something else. As simplistic as this statement may seem, it is the first principle of creative accident.
We may ask ourselves why we have failed to do what we intended, and this is the reasonable, expected thing to do. But the creative accident provokes a different question: What have we done? Answering that question in a novel, unexpected way is the essential creative act. It is not luck, but creative insight of the highest order.
Alexander Fleming was not the first physician to notice the mold formed on an exposed culture while studying deadly bacteria. A less gifted physician would have trashed this seemingly irrelevant event but Fleming noted it as "interesting" and wondered if it had potential. This "interesting" observation led to penicillin which has saved millions of lives. Thomas Edison, while pondering how to make a carbon filament, was mindlessly toying with a piece of putty, turning and twisting it in his fingers, when he looked down at his hands, the answer hit him between the eyes: twist the carbon, like rope.
Second, use play. Playing helps us to get interested in something and it helps us to build curiosity. For instance, one man who worked at a potato chip factory used play to help him in his job of making sure potato chips were aesthetically pleasing.
But children like Tom are different. Maye Musk tells Natasha Loder how she produced a family of entrepreneurs. On the one hand they are able to master material sooner and more rapidly than their peers. She disagreed with home-schooling on principle — surely it would exacerbate his feeling of isolation. Studying for an entire day might make you feel good, but this could actually end up to be counterproductive. A genius is a person who displays exceptional intellectual ability, creative productivity, universality in genres or originality , typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of new advances in a domain of knowledge.
He looked for chips that resembled faces, such as Elvis or Marilyn Monroe, and his eye for catching ill-formed chips became so good that you could consider him a genius at his job! Information definitely helps add to your data bank in your mind, but there is no book that will teach you how to be a genius in your area. Only action will teach you how to be a genius through successes, failures, and learning how you best approach things. I knew a man who mined for gold. He had the information to mine for gold. He understood the mechanics of panning for gold.
And with that information he spent a lot of time creating a machine that would make the process much easier for him and his friends when they went back to their claim in the summer. The rule of thumb according to experts is to spend one third of your time studying while spending two thirds of your time doing.
Therefore, if you have twelve hours in your day, spend 4 hours reading and 8 hours doing. Keep in mind, this is not a definite rule. Do what feels comfortable to you. Just make sure that you focus on taking time doing. There will be times that you will want to give up.
Too many failures, too may naysayers, and too much doubt can all make you want to give up and just be average in your field. But, if you have the goal to be exceptional, then you have the power to be exceptional, you just have to commit to never giving up.
You will find that the commitment is what will help you do what you need to do to excel. Therefore, write it down and create some serious genius goals for yourself. Share it with your friends, family, and anyone who will listen to help you stay committed.
Make a YouTube channel or create a blog to document your progress and stay accountable. You are more likely to keep with it if everyone is keeping an eye on how successful you really will be. You can also use play to commit to your goal. Just by simply adding a few rules and goals, and attempting to overcome obstacles, you can turn anything into a game.
For instance, if you want to become a genius at playing the piano and create your own songs, make a game out of it. Make it a competition between your left and right hand as you learn the music.
Let them develop a rhythm of their own and see which hand can become stronger at hitting the right keys and even hitting some surprise keys in the process. Give each hand a score for the day and congratulate them on overcoming any weaknesses they had. Sleeping helps you rejuvenate your energy and feel refreshed to tackle problems and see things from a new perspective. In addition, sleeping is where your subconscious brain works out ideas and struggles that you are going through in life. If you can become a master of recalling your dreams, then you can get a visual of how your brain is working through things that really matter in your life.
For instance, a dream is how Elias Howe figured out how to make his sewing machine work. He noticed as he was being stabbed in a dream that the spears had holes in them, and that led to his idea of putting a hole in the tip of the needle for his sewing machine. Geniuses, sleep, naps, and dreams go hand in hand so make sure you get enough sleep.
If you are tired, take a break. And if you can remember your dreams — or even better, lucid dream — then take advantage of your power!