Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

It’s Hard To Be Smart

The Cult of Genius | Cosmic Variance
During high school or college, many aspiring physicists latch onto Feynman or Einstein or Hawking as representing all they hope to become. The problem is, the vast majority of us are just not that smart. Oh sure, we’re plenty clever, and are whizzes at figuring out the tip when the check comes due, but we’re not Feynman-Einstein-Hawking smart. We go through a phase where we hope that we are, and then reality sets in, and we either (1) deal, (2) spend the rest of our career trying to hide the fact that we’re not, or (3) drop out.

Julianne at Cosmic Variance has an interesting take on that article about praising bright kids that I wrote about a few days ago.

The most interesting part is the follow-up comments. Cosmic Variance tends to draw a rather smarter-than-you kind of readership and many of the people who’ve commented are, themselves, people with advanced degrees in the sciences.