Customer Reviews

Strange Brains and Genius: The Secret Lives Of Eccentric Scientists And Madmen

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Strange Brains and Genius is by far the best book I have read that catalogues numerous examples of the fine line between genius and frailty in a wide range of colorful and influential people. Nikola Tesla had a horror of women's pearl earrings. Oliver Heaviside, the father of modern electric-circuit design, painted his nails cherry pink. Renowned scholar Samuel Johnson had so many tics and quirks that some mistook him for an idiot. Jeremy Bentham, the British philosopher who promoted the idea, "the greatest good for the greatest number of people", fell in love with rats. He also advised rich people to plant embalmed corpses of their ancestors upright along highways. There apparently is a link between extreme genius and madness in certain individuals. Pickover also goes further and discusses the role of the brain in religious and alien abduction experiences.

Pickover points out that in repressive times, strange geniuses have been persecuted, but in more enlightened eras these nonconformists have had the freedom to make great contributions to science and society. Are their minds like our own, or are they so different that these geniuses should be viewed as entirely different beings? What do geniuses have in common, and how can we foster their continued emergence? Is their a link between their obsessions and their creativity?

This book is organized into three parts. In Part I, Pickover discusses several geniuses with obsessive-compulsive (and Asperger's) tendencies. Many of the individuals might have Asperger's syndrome (characterized by an impairment in social interaction and development of restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, and activities). Part II is smorgasbord of short subjects ranging from IQ to the influence of the brain's structure on behavior. Part III discusses how individuals were selected for this book and describes the effect of other disorders such as bipolar disorder and temporal-lobe epilepsy on creativity, religion, and even the alien abduction experience.

Buy this amazing book and go beyond "A Beautiful Mind"

This is a survey book of Eccentricity and Genius. The first 180 pages are organized into sections on Biographical Fact (Fact Files), Technical Contribution (Straight Dope), and Litany of Eccentricities (Strange Brain) for the following individuals: Nikola Tesla, Oliver Heaviside, Samuel Johnson, Richard Kirwan, Jeremy Bentham, Henry Cavendish, Francis Galton, Geoffrey Pyke, and (?!) Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski.

Pickover's premise is that the personal 'strangeness' of these individuals significantly contributed to their brilliance and accomplishments. If they had been 'less strange' they would have accomplished less.

He also provides 20 pages of mini-biographies of people who missed the first cut, including: Paul Erdos, Richard Feynman, Charles Darwin, Howard Hughes, Edward Leedskalnin, and others.

The shallower parts of this survey include rehashes on topics like Einstein's Brain, the 10% Brain Use Myth, and IQ. He meditates pointlessly on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (in all of it's varieties), Trichotilliomania, Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, and other aspects of Genius and Strangeness (including Autism, Homosexuality, and Schizophrenia).

There are also 2 other very weird parts of the book. The first is a 'Human Mind Questionnaire' which spends 25 pages reporting on an anonymous (and unscientific) survey which he conducted on the internet. In another part of the book, he spends a dozen pages on extracts from 'Science' and 'Science News' from 1995/1996 to show that neuroscience and psychological issues are topical.

The book has some lackluster footnotes, a skimpy biblography, and a Table of Contents.

Pickover has written some wonderful, insightful, original books and technical articles over the years. It's hard for me to believe that the same guy wrote this book. Perhaps he didn't ... it seems more like the work of a summer intern or inexperienced research assistant. If this book was 150 pages shorter and better edited, it could have been extraordinary.

It is hard to imagine that a book with such promising and interesting subject matter could be executed in a poorer fashion. Pickover repeatedly blows his credibility with unsubstantiated speculations and personal comments. He writes the book in a first person sense with frequent interjections of "I think..." and "What interests me...". Within the first few pages, not only are his research methods and facts called into question, but one starts to wonder if even his personal credentials are legitimate.

The content of the book, kindly refered to in the editorial review as "eclectic", is a scattershot collection of Pickover's ramblings as muddled as the books front cover. Apparently, the title "Strange Brains and Genius: The Secret Lives of Eccentric Scientists and Madmen" was neither vague nor general enough for Pickover who, midway through the book, drifts off into such varied subjects as cryonics and UFO abduction.

The unforgivable disgrace of this book comes from Pickover's reduction of intellectual giants to "Strange Brains" as he revels in the dirty little details of great scientist's lives. Frequently the narrative takes the tone of mocking these men and women of history for their personal habits. Pickover writes in the schoolyard manner (and quality) of singling people out because of their differences and ridiculing them. This vice is then combined with a tabloid sense of sensationalism and sold behind a glossy cover.

If, after reading these reviews, you are still set on buying this book - more power to you. If you are interested in a more scholarly and objective examination of creativity and genius, however, consider "Creating Minds" by Howard Gardner

This was a book I had high expectations for, and it didn't meet them. After coming off of reading several books on creativity in artists and manic-depression (bipolar disorder), reading about John Nash, and Oliver Sack's interesting boyhood...I was very intrigued by the thought of reading about strange scientists. I'd met so many that almost fit that category just at my university, who were obsessive about their science (especially the 'fly' guys! and the computer/artificial intelligence/robot geeks), that in reading this book I recognized more of this behavior than I thought existed originally. The book has great information, but I was extremely disappointed over the organization of the book. It's like someone did all this research on individuals and the things that intrigued him about intelligence, then just pasted in the chapters with no thought to how the book should be organized.

Most other books give an explanation or definition of the conditions he is talking about...kind of a guideline of what to look for first before dealing with individuals. Or they look at specific disorders and bring up individuals who went overboard in these areas. When you start reading the book, you think "Oh...this is individual chapters about men with scientific genius (no women included...why?), and then the author tells you in the middle of his chapters that he will explain more about particular problems/disorders in Chapter so-and-so. It's like he doesn't have enough confidence you will read to the end, so he kind of puts a carrot in front of the audience. Not smart to treat your potential audience as maybe being less than intelligent!

The setup of the chapters were annoying. The author would give "The Straight Dope"--info on what these men accomplished, and then a section on "Strange Brains", the idiosyncracies and eccentricities of their lives. I guess I should have been more prepared for this by the rather odd choice for the frontpiece of the book. Though I was not expecting a textbook, I did think it was a serious topic. Yet, it seems to be written for mass consumption along the lines of a celebrity tell-all that you would find in some hokey magazine.

Most of these men were geniuses who magnified their callings in this world to the point of hurting themselves emotionally and socially. They couldn't help it because they lived in times where their disorder was not treatable as a physical disorder of the brain. If it were treatable, the question always arises...would their genius be altered because their obsession could be controlled? This is the current bioethical question on medicating even for things such as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD) to make children come into the norms of society and the control of teachers.

I really questioned the addition of the Unabomber in comparison to the other entries. The rest did magnificent things, and their compulsions hurt themselves, but rarely others. Kaczynski on the other hand never achieved anything useable, and created things leading to havoc and death. Regardless of his supposed 'braininess', the Unabomber leaves the area of obsession-compulsions, and enters serious mental illness with his persecution complex and his psychotic behavior. A very large difference between him and the others in this book...and not one I would want my students to read about in classrooms.

The rest of the chapters are haphazardly put together on IQ and other aspects of intelligence, information gleaned from web browsing and apparently, chat rooms on psychiatry....

Strange Brains and Genius reviews the lives of profound people who also suffer from (or should we say, are enabled by) disorders such as OCD. I was afraid I would find this book offensive, but Pickover's treatment of these individuals is very kind and affectionate. He doesn't ridicule their eccentricities but rather marvels at them, and points out that if they had been treated with the current pharmaceuticals available, the world might have missed out on their achievements. I found this book to be quite readable, and one can skip around easily to find chapters of interest. A definite read!

I liked this book. It makes sense to delve into the minds of individuals who've made considerable contributions to society to find out "how they tick." While this book does little to get to the core of the subjects with each chapter, in Pickover's defense, he's not a psychologist; merely a social observer with a few more resources than the average reader.

That's pretty much my short impression of this book.

However, I thought I'd point out something that struck me as odd. When I came across the first chapter about Nikola Tesla, Pickover briefly mentions that Tesla had created a music notation system. I wanted to know more about it so I decided to contact Mr. Pickover about it and he didn't seem to have much more information on this subject. I asked him what his resources were on this statement and he replied that he got it from a scholar who was an 'authority' on Tesla. He gave me his name and address and suggested I contact him on it. I did, and this individual said he wasn't aware of Tesla's involvement of music at all. Hmm... I then tried to contact Pickover again on this matter, only to get no response this time. I then contacted the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade; a place that houses almost all of his major documents. The manager of the museum, Prof. Dr. Aleksandar Marin'i', replied that he knows nothing of Tesla's involvement of musical notation either. What an odd thing to happen. If it's in his book, you'd think Pickover would have an explanation of this statement. If it's simply not true, why would he make that up?

This might not have bearing on your decision to purchase this book, but I thought I'd bring this to people's attention as a rather odd footnote for your reference. I still found the book a good read, true or not.

The chapter on Nicola Tesla provides a superb example of the excellence in this book - both fun to read and profound. Every day computers users turn on their beloved machines to perform technical calculations, process words, and to create e-mail, all made possible in part by Tesla and his contributions to electricity - especially alternating currents. Today his name lives on as the unit for magnetic flux density and as the name of a heavy metal rock band. Here was a man who for several decades engaged in vast numbers of scientific experiments which brought him fame and fortune, and yet in his later years his memories consisted mainly of events from childhood, and he spent his time brooding over pigeons in the New York City hotel rooms in which he lived. Dr. Pickover's account of Tesla's feud with Thomas Edison - another strange brain - certainly reveals some unusual cranial activity on the part of Edison.

Throughout the book we have serious scholarship in the material on temporal lobe epilepsy, sertonin, bipolar disorder (manic depression), and the recently developed biochemistry of schizophrenia along with chronicles of the brilliant achievements of these strange brains. Appropriately, Pickover devotes an entire chapter to mathematician and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.

"Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light." Maybe it's true. Maybe genius and creativity are closely related to madness. If you read "Strange Brains and Genius" you will have a lot of fun and a lot to think about.

Dennis W. Gordon Madison, WI END

This is a fun book.It is a worthy companion to the scores of books written about genius-eccentrics -- savants who listen to very different drummers. I don't recommend it as a cover-to-cover read unless your OC switch is on; it should be left somewhere like a night stand, bathroom shelf, or by the computer where one has a few free minutes. Judging from the many other books Pickover has written, this appears to be a syncretic collection of research notes assembled in a fairly logical collection of mini-biographies. And, contrary to other reviews, there are enough references and citations for further readings about a particular person. I also suspect he was researching information relating to himself -- as a multi-talented genius (and not a madman). If so, I would support that he qualifies for this distinction.
Well worth the price.

Overall the book was about Tesla with brief references to the scat others the author knew of and admired. Dr. Pickford wrote from the romantic assumption that eccentricity was somehow tolerated during earlier times and that geniuses of today are being suppressed due to societal intolerances. He seems to ignore that except for those geniuses that became hermits, the other members of his Strange Brain Club for Men were wealthy or had wealth in their upbringing. As enjoyable as the book is for the most part, I find this narrow approach to strange brains and genius rather limited. It should have been titled "Eccentric Upper Class Men."

The basic premise of Strange Brains and Genius seems to be that real creativity, whether in science or art requires that brain are working at the limits of their stability. Many famous scientists were therefore very odd people as compared to mainstream humanity, from unskilled labourers to lawyers, accountants and so on. The lives of several are given a potted biography. Without these eccentrics, modern civilisation would not exist - we would still be in the age of the horse and cart and mud huts, or even caves.

In addition, Dr Pickover suggests that most religious leaders and innovators seemed to have been suffering from temporal lobe epilepsy. (TLE) St Paul, for example, had obvious symptoms of this disease as seen by his own writing. If there had existed a simple widely known herbal remedy for TLE, the world's religions would be unlikely to exist, together with many great works of art, architecture, literature and music. This links to claims made by some "spiritual leaders" that they have "special organs of spirituality".

It mentions cryonics once or twice, and includes a follow-up links section to this topic, albeit with a few out of date addresses. But presumably forwarding systems are in place by the cryonics organisations to deal with this perennial problem. Also included are previous inventions aimed at preserving dead people for future reanimation.