...the staff at my university, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and later all of Boston were behaving strangely towards me. ...I started to see crypto-communists everywhere. ...I started to think I was a man of great religious importance, and to hear voices all the time. I began to hear something like telephone calls in my head, from people opposed to my ideas. ...The delirium was like a dream from which I seemed never to awake.
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I would not dare to say that there is a direct relation between mathematics and madness, but there is no doubt that great mathematicians suffer from maniacal characteristics, delirium and symptoms of schizophrenia.
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I did have strange ideas during certain periods of time.
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Though I had success in my research both when I was mad and when I was not, eventually I felt that my work would be better respected if I thought and acted like a 'normal' person.
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John Forbes: You were voted the prettiest girl in the class; I was voted the boy most likely to succeed. Something should happen to people lik...
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