Michio Kaku: The Supergenius | Big Think
Michio Kaku: The Supergenius
New videos DAILY: https://bigth.ink
Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers: https://bigth.ink/Edge
———————————————————————————-
Michio Kaku on what makes a supergenius.
———————————————————————————-
MICHIO KAKU:
Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, as well as New York University (NYU).
———————————————————————————-
TRANSCRIPT:
Michio Kaku: If you watch the “Big Bang Theory” on CBS television you see these clueless nerds who are doormats when it comes to the opposite sex, right. And you realize is there any basis in reality? First of all none of my friends are like that and all my friends are physicists, right.
Well there is a kernel of truth and that is some of these individuals may suffer from something called Asperger’s Syndrome which is a mild form of autism. These people are clueless when it comes to social interactions. They don’t look you in the eye, for example. And yet they have fantastic mental and mathematical capabilities. We think, for example, that Isaac Newton had Asperger’s. The greatest scientist of all time was very strange. He had no friends to speak of. He could not carry a decent conversation and yet here he was spitting out some of the greatest theories in the history of science. Calculus. The Universal Law of Gravitation. The Theory of Optics. And we think he had Asperger’s Syndrome.
Now Asperger’s Syndrome is a mild form of autism and in autism we have what are called savants. That is people that have an IQ of maybe 80 but have incredible mathematical and musical abilities. In fact, some of these individuals can hear one symphony and just play it by memory on a piano. Other people could be in a helicopter, have a helicopter ride over Manhattan, see the entire New York harbor and then from memory sketch the entire harbor. In fact, if you want to see it go to JFK Airport in New York City and you will see it as you enter the international terminal. So what is it about these people? Well, first of all a lot of them had injuries to the left temporal lobe. One individual had a bullet as a child go right through the left temporal lobe. Another person dove into a swimming pool and injured very badly the left temporal lobe. And these people wound up with incredible mathematical abilities as a consequence. And so what is it about their brains?
Well Einstein’s brain has actually been preserved. Einstein when he died had an autopsy in which case the pathologist stole the brain without permission of the family. He just realized that he was sitting next to something historic, took the brain, took it home with him, and it was sitting in a jar in his home for decades. He even drove across the country with the jar inside his trunk. And there’s even a TV special where you can actually see the cut up brain of Albert Einstein. And you realize first of all the brain is a little bit different. You can’t tell by looking at it that it’s so remarkably different but you realize that the connections between the prefontal cortex and the parietal lobe – a connection that is accentuated in people that do abstract reasoning is thickened. So there definitely is a difference in the brain of Einstein. But the question is did it make Einstein or did Einstein make this change of the brain?
Are champions born or are they made? That still is not known because people who exercise mental abilities, mathematical abilities, they can thicken that part of the brain themselves. So we know that people who do well in mathematics, brain scans clearly show that their brains are slightly different from the average brain. So in conclusion, we’re still children with regards to understanding how this process takes place. Tonight don’t go home and bang yourself on the left temporal lobe. We don’t know how it works. We just know that in a tiny fraction of these cases people with injury to the left temporal lobe, some of the become super geniuses.
Directed/Produced by Jonathan Fowler and Dillon Fitton
@bigthink
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Want to get Smarter, Fasterâ„¢?
Subscribe for DAILY videos: https://bigth.ink/SmarterFaster
@Alchemilla82
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Einstein ist sauer, dass das Hirn gestohlen wurde.
@gdog18
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Is it weird to not want to look everyone in the eye? is it weird to stay silent in social places? is it weird to want to involve others in what you're doing other than alone? is it weird for man to not UNDERSTAND A WOMAN'S INTENTIONS? Think for YOURSELF my brothers and sisters. And god bless you!
@AbdullahDeveloper-nw9cu
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Thats why our teacher slap us on face to make us genius.
@JoePizzi-i3d
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
They stole his brain 🧠why in the hell did they cut his brain
@charlespackwood2055
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Gee, I thought this was gonna be about me.
@controlfreak1963
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Speaking as someone that suffers for a light version of Asperger's, I agree with everything he says. I can fake social interactions fairly well after 60 years but it's an effort for me. My wife figured this out many years ago and understands my lack of interest in hanging out with other people. I am not a super genius but I am smarter than your average bear.
@jahmetry
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
This video changed my life. I had an injury to my left side and I was great at mathematics.
@jahmetry
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Praise Jesus
@janeayre96
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
We don’t use Asperger’s and you of all people should know better. It’s a slur. It was never in our PDR. It’s a European word coined by Himmler. Furthermore, autism is nog mild or harsh. It’s a spectrum of behaviors.
@needlepark212
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
3:05 you sure it isnt because of incest?
@pablomacias7393
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
So the superhero accident is a real thing,I had a feeling it it held some weight,a lot of things in superhero comics are related to real life,I had this happen when I was a kid,had some head issues so I’m not surprised that something weird came from it,I was definitely a lab experiment for a while. 😅
@pulledtoworkout2833
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
😂 you heard him punch me in the left side of the head ? 😮😂
@JayakrishnanNairOmana
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
"Jonnie, why did you hit little Tommie's head with a baseball bat?"
"I was just making him smarter, I was following Dr. Kaku's scientific advice"
@Groundedrootshealing
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
There is nothing mild about Aspergers.
@muhammadshafeeque9264
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Hello David mind-blowing 👌 noledge zabardast
@youngjezy23
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
There not clueless
@Cad3ncee
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Can confirm, got hit in the head and now I am also a super genious
@MizanHIT
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Im training my brain back due to the injury
@MizanHIT
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Im thinking that as weird but idk
@solinvito
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Love how michio kaku explained it
@towerofresonance4877
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
There is nothing to be exercised about mental or mathematical abilities but rather, these abilities come from a brain that is formed from a subconscious reality that existed beforehand.. the Subconscious lays in other lives we lived before…thus..reincarnation..
@KAHHHH8548
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
He really is talking very basically, and in fact is spreading alot of what I'd say is misinformation. That pertains to one of his comments which I noticed about how two of those people seemed only to have these superior capabilities because they had brain damage WHILE having aspergers, that it was not the aspergers itself which was at the root of thier genuis, like he appears to be suggesting? Thats completely wrong. In fact alot of the genetics alleles associated with autism are the same genetic alleles that are responsible for HIGH intelligence, ironically contradicting the naive stereotype you people seem to have hammered in your brain that people with autism 'tend' to have a lower iq? Lol. Not necessarily. Not necessarily at all. All the geniuses of history have been supposed to be strange and with what we would see today as 'traits' and 'signs' of being on the autistic spectrum. I'm a little disappointed in michio kaku in this video and I was listening to him. I think he can do better than that.
@MultiTipsie
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Hi There, You mention people with Asperger Syndrome always look away, at least not in someone's eyes and are horrible in social communication. Well I am diagnosed with Aspergers and I can tell you that both are not true at all! There only is a portion of people with Aspergers tend to do this. I myself for example have to be aware not to look too long into somebodies eyes, because it might scare them! I do this as to be able to read them and their intentions better! Yes, I do have a lot of social communication issues and also studied on it for almost all of my life! I am 50 years old now. I have come to the conclusion that neuro-typical people almost never say what they mean! Everything is twisted! The only thing is that the receiver of the information has a decoding device in their head that translates that information and strangely enough do a pretty good job at it! Only, it also goes wrong a lot of the times! But then they get in an argument in which both are convinced of their own truth and separate from the other. They decide to not like one and another! People with Aspergers communicate much more direct and do not have a decoder on board! This results in that decoding device of the neuro-typical person translates this nonetheless and thus the receiver explains the information for himself as strange, wrong, deceitful etcetera. It is actually the person with Aspergers who is very good in communication and the rest of the world doing it wrong! That is why there is so much conflict going o in the world! At every scale!!! Since I noticed this years ago and kept observing this phenomenon it is mind-blowing to see that actually pretty much everything a neuro-typical person says is not what they mean. Up until the smallest or most ordinary things! So I would say neuro-typical people are the culprit of bad communication and should be taught from birth intensely to communicate straight and clear! Next to this, there is also another misconception about emotions! People with Aspergers tend to be hypersensitive and have lots emotions! Also they can read emotions from others very well! In contrast with popular believes! I can spot the emotion of a person very soon and even take over that emotion, even when just being nearby! The problem lies in that people lie about it! So for years I surpressed this feeling part, because I believed what people said! Since about 4 years or so I started to believe my feeling more and guess what? My feelings are very much always right! In all the cases it could be verified it turned out to be right and in most cases, the person that held that emotion lied about it! So here you have it! People with Aspergers should be reevaluated and be taken more serious in these matters! Oh and I have an IQ of 150, know a lot, but always controversial to social imposed believes about everything, so never believed, and failed miserable in life due to exact these problems of misunderstanding!
@papadizastr
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Hmm
@tahah.babikir7698
January 7, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Lol Degrasse 😂
Comments are closed.