In science, as well as in other fields of human endeavor, there are two kinds of geniuses: the “ordinary” and the “magicians.” An ordinary genius is a fellow that you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what he has done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different with the magicians. They are, to use mathematical jargon, in the orthogonal complement of where we are and the working of their minds is for all intents and purposes incomprehensible. Even after we understand what they have done, the process by which they have done it is completely dark. They seldom, if ever, have students because they cannot be emulated and it must be terribly frustrating for a brilliant young mind to cope with the mysterious ways in which the magician’s mind works. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest caliber.
--Mark Kac
I think it's probably best if we don't deify too many geniuses, but I think it's fair to say that there are a handful in history where, even had we been exposed to all of the diverse experiences they had, we still wouldn't hope to equal.
The impression I got on reading Feynman's "Surely You're Joke...", was that Feynman was a magician in the ordinary sense of the word; he liked to produce results in a fashion that was maximally dramatic and maximally inexplicable (whether those results involved opening safes or calculating complex formulas).
And consider. The first sleight-of-hand magicians were village shamans who used the wonder the "magic" produced to leverage the power of suggestion for healing. But we know that the effect of superstition on society as a whole is detrimental.
Similarly, the belief that Feynman really had "magic" ways to unlock safes or solve math problems is less-than-useful.
Edit: I think that it is true that some fraction of scientists operate as "magicians" but some of this can come from a remarkably selfish position - the desire maintain their colleagues in awe and ignorance. I don't think Feynman in particular was in this unfortunate category but I've seen some folks whose approach was basically abusive.
Didn't Feynmann said that he sometimes seemed magical because he just had 'different toolbox' than his friends? As far as I remember these words regarded calculus. Probably I am more wrong than Mark Kac in this matter, but I think that this kind of orthogonal thinking can be somehow learned by looking in the directions that at first glance doesn't look like they lead to any solution or even unrelated. Also it seems that great knowledge of two seemingly disconnected areas allow to actually find some connections between them - which may seem magical for spectators.
I disagree. It's like debugging -- at some point, bugs are just too slippery and difficult to find, so we give up and say "I can't hope to solve this" ?
--Mark Kac
I think it's probably best if we don't deify too many geniuses, but I think it's fair to say that there are a handful in history where, even had we been exposed to all of the diverse experiences they had, we still wouldn't hope to equal.