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What does "genius" mean, to me?
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I think there are many brilliant people
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in the world, many people who are very, very intelligent.
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So I think it has to do with a line of dialogue
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that I think we have in the first episode, which is
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"A genius is not just answering questions but asking questions
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that nobody else thought to ask."
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You don't need to raise your hand to speak here, Albert.
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There's a particular thing that happens to you when
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you watch people do something that they're
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really, really good at.
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It's a sensation.
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It's like a-- it can be a six-year-old kid drawing
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something, or it can be a painter,
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like, applying wall color, but they're just very, very good.
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You kind of know whenever you witness somebody being really,
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really excellent at something.
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It's a profound experience to be able to be around it, you know?
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And I think that, to me, really, is--
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watching somebody doing something special.
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Unless we can define time--
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Most people would agree that, whoever the geniuses are--
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and you could say it's the people that can combine ideas
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that are staring everyone else in the face,
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but they somehow connect something that no one's even thought about.
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Like Mozart's metronome.
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GEOFFREY RUSH: I found the quote that Schopenhauer made.
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He has this great quote where he says "Talent hits a target that no one else can hit.
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Genius hits a target that no one else can see."
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Close your eyes.
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And then, if you apply that to someone
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like Einstein, he would engage in what he
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called "thought experiments."
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He'd just let his mind wander and drift off and speculate
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about what in them.
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He was always obsessed, right from his youth--
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what if I could travel as fast as the speed of light?
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What would light look like, next to me?
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Now, I'm imagining that the ball
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is traveling in deep space.
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The most elegant answer to the question of "what is a genius"
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was given to me by Ron Howard.
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Scientists, they live in the light of knowledge.
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They're working, and they're refining their knowledge,
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and they're testing things, all the time.
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Some scientists operate at the edge of the light,
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where the dark is, which--
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nobody knows what's in the dark.
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But a tiny number of scientists jump right into the dark
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and create their own light, around them.
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It's a combination of vision and absolute determination
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that you're right, that you're totally
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convinced that this leap into the dark that you've made
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is right.
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And Einstein definitely qualifies.
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And that--
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--to the sun!
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--to me, is genius.
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I have another question.