Friday, September 18, 2026
Struck by the Power of the Word
"Arthur Gibson, philosopher who rose from poverty to become the cleverest man in Britain," The Telegraph (18 Sept. 2026):
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Professor Arthur Gibson, who has died aged 83, was a polymath widely recognised as one of the last century’s greatest minds and, measured by IQ, the cleverest man in Britain, despite growing up in poverty in Bradford and dropping out of school aged 14.Hat tip: Eric Thomson, who also quotes Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), The Man of Genius (London: Walter Scott, 1891), p. 8:
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It was in this climate that Gibson stubbornly developed intellectual passions: for maths — despite his father stubbing out cigarettes on his hand when he got answers wrong — and for books, although he once received a Bible to the head after being caught reading it by his anti-literate father.
The dyslexic Gibson read everything he could — Bradford Library became a refuge — but he could not translate his instinctive passions into formal academic success. He left school at 14, with no O-levels and unable to recite the alphabet beyond the letter L.
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His friend and fellow Cambridge mathematician Imre Leader recalled that: "If you quoted a passage from the Bible, Gibson could tell you exactly where it was from, and also which other verses shared the same words."
Cranium and Brain.—Lesions of the head and brain are very frequent among men of genius. The celebrated Australian novelist, Marcus Clarke, when a child, received a blow from a horse’s hoof which crushed his skull. The same is told of Vico, Gratry, Clement VI., Malebranche, and Cornelius, hence called a Lapide. The last three are said to have acquired their genius as a result of the accident, having been unintelligent before..Related posts:
