3.3. ODD CHARACTERISTICS OF INVENTORS AND INNOVATORS

Rosovsky (1987) raised the question, Is there any substance to the theory that a significant proportion of scholars possess difficult and childish personalities—that is, the Amadeus problem? While it is not prudent to generalize on personality traits, many R&D managers would agree with this assertion. In the film Amadeus, Mozart was characterized as infantile and fundamentally boorish. While his behavior was atrocious, his musical gifts were divine. A manager may have to deal with the Amadeus problem or complex when a researcher displays exceptional scientific talent but is a difficult, inconsiderate, and unpleasant person to work with.

Some inventors and innovators—men and women of science—are the essence of modesty and kindness. Many of them, however, are not likely to be so characterized. Few have the fine human qualities of Einstein or Sir Hermann Bondi (a distinguished physicist whom Jain knew while a Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge University). Many inventors and innovators have well-developed egos and incredible hubris. Some cases described below will give the reader a better understanding of the problem.

Let us take the case of Wolfgang Pauli at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University. Pauli, of course, was a brilliant physicist, discoverer of the "Pauli Particle," and inventor of the "Exclusion Principle," which is one of the pillars of new physics. Pauli used to put people down at physics conferences whenever presenters were not being clear or correct according to his own thinking. This once happened to Robert Oppenheimer at a seminar in Ann Arbor, Michigan (Regis, 1987, p. 196). While Oppenheimer was lecturing he covered the blackboard with equations. All of a sudden, Pauli jumped up, grabbed an eraser, and cleaned the whole blackboard off, saying it was all nonsense!

Pauli's uncontrolled behavior continued 20 years later when Frank Yang was lecturing at the Institute for Advanced Study on the topic of gauge invariance (Regis, 1987, p. 196). Yang, a Nobel laureate, had barely started when Pauli interrupted him with a question: "What is the mass of this particle?" Yang replied that it was a complicated problem and that he had not come up with a definite answer yet. Pauli retorted that this was not a sufficient excuse. Yang, who was a model of politeness and reserve, was so stunned that he had to sit down and collect himself (Regis, 1987, p. 196). Pauli did not feel that he had done anything wrong; instead he thought that it was Yang who was not responding appropriately. Pauli left a note in Yang's mailbox suggesting that Yang had made it almost impossible for Pauli to talk to him after the seminar.

Pauli was not a modest person. He often complained to his colleagues that he was having a hard time finding new physics problems to work on, because he knew too much (Regis, 1987, p. 196).

There is also the case of Kurt Godel, the brilliant logician, probably the greatest since Aristotle, who was also at the Institute for Advanced Study. Godel published his work on general relativity in 1949 and at the Institute he was regarded as utterly profound and inexpressively deep (Regis, 1987, pp. 47 and 63). This great logician and mathematician, however, believed that his food was being poisoned and that his doctors were trying to kill him. He died of malnutrition.

Edward Wilson, a world renowned evolutionary biologist, wrote about his experiences with James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. Wilson stated that when Watson was a young man in the 1960s, "I found him the most unpleasant human being I had ever met." And at the biology department meetings at Harvard, "Watson radiated contempt in all directions" (Wilson, 1994, p. 42). Wilson further commented that Watson did not acknowledge his presence as they passed in the hallways and Watson was "supremely self-possessed and theatrically condescending" (Wilson, 1994, p. 43). Wilson praised Watson for his great discovery and his brilliance and credited Watson's unpleasant and hostile behavior toward him as responsible for redoubling his own energies in the evolutionary area.