Alexander Masters has a interesting profile at the Guardian about his downstairs neighbor, math prodigy Simon Phillips Norton, who, yes, is brilliant and very eccentric. An excerpt;

“The Monster is Simon’s special area in mathematics, a field known as Group Theory, or the study of symmetry. In 1980, mathematicians discovered the largest symmetry: the most convoluted symmetrical atom of them all. Because of its size and complexity, the final atom was dubbed ‘The Monster”.’Mathematicians study symmetry using grids of numbers. A sudoku table has nine rows and nine columns of numbers. The Monster has 808017424794512875886459904961710757005754368000000000.

It’s essential to emphasise that in no sense of the term is Simon mad. He’s covered in facial hair and wears rotten shoes and trousers for the opposite reason: too much mental order.

He burps; he thinks you won’t mind knowing about the progress of his digestion; he goes on long, sweaty walks, and doesn’t change his clothes for a week. But what else can he do? Everybody is messy somehow, and there’s no other place for Simon to store his quota. Inside his head there’s no room: all the mess has been swept out. It’s as pristine in there as a surgeon’s operating theatre.

 Simon’s mother, now dead, taught him maths, up to quadratic equations. Astounding, for a British housewife in the 1950s – no one in the family can explain it. Simon says he’s a fluke of genetics. Every birth is a gamble by nature, a throwing in the air of infinite possibilities. In Simon’s case, ‘The molecules settled in my favour. Neither of my brothers is particularly intelligent.'” (Thanks Longform.)