My take. Knowledge for its own sake; taken to monkish extremes. The path he chose, living in squalor, ignoring even the most basic self imposed societal pressures to conform as it turned out formed his unique apptitude that allowed him like microsurgery to focus on a problem that mathematicians who took a different path couldn't. He didn't even recognize the need to remove the cockroaches -- at the expense of all else. Surely he was aware of them but he decided riding his home of them wasn't a priority that was worthy of his attention; he could live with it, not important enough; if it even crossed his stream of consciousness. Then its interesting to apply the question, nature or nurture? I'd like to know the hours he kept and duration on the problem.
We have had charity for a long time and it has yet to solve any problems it aims to tackle. Again donating money is such a capitalistic approach. I once took a Calculus class in college. Most students were Eastern European, Chinese, a sprinkle of other and 1 American who dropped out. BTW I do not blame him, with his education prior to this class he had no chance.
howev No I am praising the system because I: 1. Visited the USSR and saw firsthand how they educate. 2. Went to university with Russian students and saw what they were capable of. 3. Lectured Russian students for over 13 years All that combined with over 20 years experience with US education have helped me shape my views on education here as well as abroad. As for "genoius" thing - never met one, however I did meet a couple folk who were pretty smart. Also, I met many who were under the impression of being "genoiuses" yet had difficulty writing a simple paper.
That's what I was thinking. First I thought it might have been the work of Commissar Mark Brown, but he is occupied by drywall.