The Genius in my Basement

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 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 …