Insightology

Richard Feynman was one of the pre-eminent physicists of the 20^th century. The leader of the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer, had described him as the most brilliant young physicist, even among the elite group that came together to work on the bomb. While his primary contribution was to help physicists understand and think about physics in a new way, he also had several other noteworthy contributions such as pioneering the thinking on superconductivity and nanotechnology. Ultimately what made him famous to people outside physics were exploits in a wide range of fields and a quirkily unconventional personality. Considering the other things he has dabbled in, contributed to or mastered, it is very hard to imagine that he was also a Nobel prize-winning physicist for whom the word genius was considered acceptable even in the rarified air of particle physics. Two very different books provide insight into the personality and science of Richard Feynman. If you want an easy, funny read, go with "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman!" that he himself wrote. For a much more comprehensive immersion into the Feynman biography it's hard to beat James Gleick's account Genius - The Life and Science of Richard Feynman.

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Susan Polgar is a chess pioneer as the first female chess Grandmaster in the world. Born in Hungary, she and her sisters have been a force in the world of chess for more than two decades.

Less known is that her father was a psychologist who believed that genius could be developed, and used his children in a real life experiment to prove that. This National Geographic video shows how her brain

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