How Geniuses Work Without a doubt, Einstein was a genius. So was Isaac Newton, who invented Physics. He also played a big role in the development of Calculus (微积分学), which some people have trouble comprehending even after extensive classroom study. Another genius, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, started composing music when he was 5 years old. Mozart wrote hundreds of pieces before his death in 1760 at age 35. The understanding of genius According to conventional wisdom, geniuses are different from everyone else. They can think faster and better than other people. In addition, many people think that all that extra brainpower leads to strange behavior. And although geniuses are fairly easy to spot, defining exactly what makes one person a genius is a little trickier. Figuring out how that person became a genius is harder still. There are two big things that make it difficult to study genius. First, the genius label is subjective. Some people insist that anyone with an intelligence quotient (IQ) higher than a certain value be a genius. Others feel that IQ tests measure only a limited part of a person's total intelligence. Some believe high test scores have little to do with real genius. Second, genius is a big picture concept. Most scientific and medical inquiries, on the other hand, examine details. A concept as subjective as genius isn't easy to quantify, analyze or study. So, when exploring how geniuses work, it's a good idea to start by defining precisely what a genius is. A genius isn't simply someone with an exceptionally high IQ. Instead, a genius is an extraordinarily intelligent person who breaks new ground with discoveries, inventions or works of art. Usually, a genius' work changes the way people view the world or the field in which the work took place. In other words, a genius must be both intelligent and able to use that intelligence in a productive or impressive way. Genius and the brain The cerebral cortex (大脑皮层), the outermost part of your brain, is where thought and reasoning happen. These are your brain's higher functions, which relate to basic survival, take place deeper in the brain. Your cerebral cortex is the largest part of your brain, and it's full of wrinkles and folds. If you removed and stretched out an adult human's cerebral cortex, it would be about as large as a few pages of a newspaper. It's divided into several lobes (圆形的突起), and different regions within these lobes handle specific tasks related to how you think. Researchers have so far only figured out a few things about how the brain affects intelligence. A 2004 study at the University of California found that the volume of gray matter in parts of the cerebral cortex had a greater impact on intelligence than the brain's total volume. The findings suggest that the physical attributes of many parts of the brain determine how smart a person is. A 2006 paper in the journal Nature theorized that the way the brain develops is more important than the size of the brain itself. A person's cerebral cortex gets thicker during childhood and thinner during youth, According to the study, the brains of children with higher IQs thickened faster than those of other children. Studies also suggest that, to some extent, children inherit intelligence from their parents. Some researchers theorize that this is because the physical structure of the brain can be an inherited trait. In addition, the process of becoming really good at something both requires and encourages your brain to wire itself to handle that particular task better. Genius and intelligence Like genius, intelligence can be difficult to quantify. Psychologists study intelligence extensively. An entire field of study, known as psychometrics (心理测验学), is devoted to studying and measuring intelligence. But even within that field, experts don't always agree on exactly what it is or how be