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Just to complement your post, Richard Feynman's quote on the topic:

“I was an ordinary person who studied hard. There are no miracle people. It happens they get interested in this thing and they learn all this stuff, but they’re just people.”

― Richard Feynman

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I dunno man but I always believed Feynman was expressing a very “aw shucks” everyman type of sensibility to motivate his students but really he’s a genius who just never saw himself on par with the other genius demigod scientists of his time but still far removed from common people like me for example. Or he knew he was exceptional but he just liked to distinguish himself from the more square academic types by appealing to the regular people.

Either way, I never bought his claim that he was not exceptional.

I think Feynman was bullshitting you, sorry to say. This is just a manifestly crazy claim from a guy who scored literally #1 on the Putnam.

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