On Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:04:18 -0500, Rich wrote:

P.A.M. Dirac?
Albert Einstein?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe?
Steven Hawking?
Ludwig Van Beethoven?
Leonardo DaVinci?
Michaelangelo Buonarotti?

There are thousands of people alive today as intelligent as any of
these. Genius is common... what isn't so common is the confluence of
conditions, events, and outright luck that lead to one specific smart
person being in the right place at the right time with the right idea
to produce something that is remembered as a first.