The Genius in my Basement

by Alexander Masters (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2011

  $3.30

  An intimate portrait of an everyday genius.

  As Aristotle understood it, `there is no great genius without a mixture of madness' and he may well have had a point: Einstein routinely forgot his way home when out walking the streets of Vienna, Nietzsche wound up in an insane asylum and Bobby Fischer, the chess prodigy, now scrambles around the world, seeking residency in any country reckless enough to let him through immigration.

  Simon Philips Norton, the subject of `The Genius in my Basement', is not mad - not by a long shot - but he is certainly mixed up. At one time he was considered one of the greatest prodigies of contemporary mathematics, his breakthrough work on a group of numbers nicknamed the 'Monster' inspired, and was acclaimed by, the international maths community for many years. These days he spends most of his time colouring in road atlases, tracing the paths of bus routes he has travelled upon all over the country, sheltering amongst a tower of unwashed pans and eating smoked kippers straight from a tin in his 'messy' (as Simon calls it) basement flat in Cambridge.

  In `The Genius in my Basement', Alexander Masters, the award-winning and best-selling author of `Stuart: A Life Backwards', offers a tender, humorous and intimate portrait of genius at its most ordinary and at its most blurred. He enters us into the extraordinary life of one of the would-be contenders - an everyday mastermind - and in doing so, reveals the cruel burdens, as well as the glorious rewards, of a life marked by brilliance.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2011

  $3.30

  An intimate portrait of an everyday genius. Alexander Masters tripped over his first subject on a Cambridge pavement, and the result was the multi-award-winning bestseller Stuart: A Life Backwards. The second, he's found under his floorboards. One of the greatest mathematical prodigies of the twentieth century stomps around the basement in semi-darkness, dodging between stalagmites of bus timetables and engorged plastic bags. He eats tinned kippers stirred into packets of Bombay Mix. Simon is exploring a theoretical puzzle so complex and critical to our understanding of the universe, that it is known as the Monster. It looks like a sudoku table - except a sudoku table has nine columns of numbers. The Monster has 808017424794512875886459904961710757005754368000000000. But Simon's also up to something else. What's inside the decaying sports bag he never lets out of his clutches? Why does he hurtle out of the house in the middle of the night? And - Good God! - what is that noxious smell that creeps up the stairwell? The Genius in my Basement is the grumpy, poignant, comical story - more intimate than either the author or his subject intended - about the frailty of brilliance, Britain's most uncooperative egghead, and a happy man.