Let’s not forget that Croatian guy Tesla (he was only Serbian when he created what’s-it’s-name-in-English) who fell on love with pigeon or whatever.
My favorite eccentric genius is Oliver Heaviside. Amongst his eccentricities include only wearing pink silk kimonos (with nothing underneath), and replacing all his furniture with granite blocks.
Yet, as wikipedia states, he:
adapted complex numbers to the study of electrical circuits, invented mathematical techniques for the solution of differential equations (equivalent to Laplace transforms), reformulated Maxwell’s field equations in terms of electric and magnetic forces and energy flux, and independently co-formulated vector analysis.
Indeed, when students learn Maxwell’s equations in the 21st century, they are actually learning “Heaviside’s formulation of Maxwell’s equations”. Personally, I like him so much that I refuse to call the usual step function by anything but its proper name, the Heaviside function.
I don’t agree there ever was a genius. Thats just a term by someone else seeing someone better then average and unduly impressed. I don’t agree there is mental illness.
I see thats its , for some, that their memory is triggered more. this leads in directions al skewed.
tesla was a great example. His memory gave him the ability to see in his “mind” how conduit operations could be used for better electricity etc He was a one trick pony.
It led him to attack Einsteins ideas and make a fool of himself.
in these things one sees people unduly focusing/memorizing , beyond free will, and one gets above average results and below average results.