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To be fair, I imagine that just by working in theoretical physics, you must be extremely smart. Place must be a wunderkind magnet!
I'm really at the lower end of the spectrum there, and the spectrum is quite vast. But indeed, many wunderkinds.
One professor I had when I was still a student had this amazing ability that his 2 hands and his mouth were 3 completely different entities: he'd be wiping of the board with his left hand, writing equations down with his right hand while talking about a third equation with his mouth. Even though it was just special relativity, it was something that struck me, as I came from a different background before getting interested in actual physics.
Another time, I stumbled on some fellow students who were discussing how many games of blind chess they could play in parallel. They were arguing about the fact that a new rule had passed in the field of blind chess, limiting the number of games in parallel to something like 10 games. Otherwise, people had a tendency to overcharge their brain... I can barely play a game of normal chess.
The truly unique ones are the ones that are super smart and can communicate
But as an example of someone who satisfies this condition, one of my previous advisors definitely stands out. He's objectively on track to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in the next few years, yet he's so down-to-earth and easy to talk to. His ability to communicate the most obscure and complicated theories to the layman makes him one of a kind. Only yesterday, I was told about how his pristine and reliable reputation gives him superpowers: apparently, one time, referees were arguing months on end about whether to accept a paper for publication or not, but they were being petty and intellectually unable to grasp the genius of the content in the paper. Tired of what was happening, he picked up the phone, called the editor of the journal, and said: "this paper is a good paper, you should accept it for publication". The editor abided, right away. They knew he would not say that and tarnish his credibility if it weren't true.
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He sounds like a Richard Feynman type. It must be pretty amazing to be able to pick his brain
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