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And in a way, it just doesn't matter."Įven though Norton has all but abandoned academics, Masters chafes at the suggestion that he's failed.

"I think it would be very hard to tell whether genius is what he suffers from or autism is what he suffers from. "He might be autistic or he might not be autistic," Masters concludes. At 15, he was solving the types of problems professors puzzle over. "If you're born with this degree of genius, this degree of capacity, you're going to grow up a bit weird."Īt 5, Norton was doing high school-level mathematics. "It seems to me, you take Simon as Simon is," Masters explains. But the author didn't want to bring this question into the book, and readers won't find the word "autism" anywhere in it. I think that's magical."Īuthor and screenwriter Alexander Masters (left) sits with his downstairs neighbor, mathematical prodigy Simon Norton.Īs for whether Norton has autism, "Everyone thinks about that the instant they see him," Masters says. He doesn't feel a sense of loss, he constantly feels a sense of purpose. "He has had this extraordinary capacity, he has enjoyed it, he is now enjoying something else, which is the desire to battle for better public transport in this country and around the world," Masters says. Since leaving academics, Norton has become fixated on public transportation, and he believes he can make it more efficient.

"And now he is a person who wanders around on trains and buses, whom some people will cross the street in order to avoid." "Here he was, this extraordinary genius, the envy of everyone around him," Masters says.

Their time together is documented in Masters' new book, Simon: The Genius in My Basement. The two men developed a kind of friendship, and they even traveled together. Actually, Simon Norton was Masters' landlord. He worked on a hyper-dimensional math problem so complex it was called "The Monster." But then things fell apart for Norton, and he ended up in a dingy basement packed with bulging plastic bags and piles of bus timetables.Īnd he may have remained there in obscurity if it weren't for his upstairs neighbor in Cambridge, England: biographer Alexander Masters. In the mid-1980s, Simon Norton was considered one of the great mathematical prodigies of the 20th century. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Simon Subtitle The Genius In My Basement Author Alexander Masters