NP interesting post re Chomsky

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/9/02 12:18:06 AM, millison at online-journalist.com writes:

<< I always tell my students that in my 45+ years in academia I've met only 
one
true Einstein-style genius, and that was Noam.  As a colleague here described
him, he's the only person my colleague could think of who has made major, even
revolutionary, contributions to two fields, in his case, linguistics and left
politics. >>

Linus Pauling? But even with Pauling it was evident that genius can be
quirky and not necessarily generalizable to other areas. 

Timing, luck and chutzpah or moxie also seem to play a role in the
confirmation of "genius."

A good fictional case study of the perilous seas of genius-hood 
might be Mann's Leverkuhn. I'm sure there are other examples.