FAMOUS or INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE WITH ASPERGER’S

Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk —what unites these exceptional individuals? It is widely accepted that all were/are geniuses, but something else exists. Neuroscientists believe that all suffered/suffer from Asperger’s. Applying these characteristics to famous or historical figures may allow a better understanding of the significant positive impact great Asperger’s ancestors have left behind toward an enlightened and improved society and world.
The whole definition of the term “neurological disorder” implies that something is going wrong in the brain. However, there is a growing recognition that when it comes to the processes in our brain, “going wrong” does not necessarily mean “going bad”. Our brain is too complicated a mechanism to be interpreted in simplistic terms. Some neurological disorders produce a peculiar state of mind often associated with high artistic and scientific achievements.
Part of autistic intelligence is a distinctive cluster of aptitudes, skills, attitudes, and abilities. People with autism can see things and events around them from a new point of view. In favourable cases, this ability can lead to exceptional achievements that others may never attain. Hans Asperger may have been the first clinician to notice that his patients’ imaginations occasionally anticipated scientific developments by decades.
Asperger’s may possess unique strengths that help them thrive later in their careers. Some areas in which children with autism commonly have average or above-average skills are specialist knowledge in a particular area, good visual and spatial memory, methodical and organized, ability to understand abstract concepts, and problem-solving/logical reasoning.
Some people with Asperger’s are visual thinkers, and others are math, music, or number thinkers, but all think in speciﬁcs. The Asperger’s mind enjoys and focuses on details, while the normal mind is more skilled at assembling whole concepts from more information. Individuals with Asperger’s syndrome may do poorly in school, but their interests are likely very narrow and focused.
Autistic children want to figure out how things work; rather than art, they study biology, chemistry, and physics. Kids formerly ridiculed as nerds and brainiacs have grown up to become the architects of our future. The tribe of industrious hermits invented the modern digital world.
These activities focus their minds and provide a sense of comfort. If they are forced to leave their projects, they may become distressed. Likewise, if their projects are failing, fostering these narrowed interests is essential for emotional and mental support.
Rather than being considered a normal child trapped within an “autistic shell,” waiting to be rescued, Asperger’s is “a way of being” that colours every experience, sensation, perception, thought, emotion, and encounter, every aspect of existence.

FAMOUS ASPERGER’S PEOPLE IN HISTORY
Though autism did not become the mainstream diagnosis it is today until well into the 20th century, it is certainly not anything new. History is full of people who many consider to be or have been somewhere on the autism spectrum. No one would likely dispute that the following were or are geniuses.
Asperger’s syndrome is a high-functioning developmental disorder that is part of the autism spectrum. Symptoms, such as difficulty with social interaction, repetitive behaviours, and trouble making eye contact, vary widely among affected individuals. Asperger’s may go unrecognized until a child or adult begins to experience difficulties in school, work, or other social settings. But Asperger’s often bestows unique gifts, too. Some of the most inspiring and influential people we know and love have Asperger’s.
Making a retrospective diagnosis of Asperger’s for someone who is no longer living is nearly impossible. Still, experts – both medical professionals and those who experience autism first-hand – agree that every person listed here probably shows or shows autistic tendencies. While some experts disagree with others, this list is meant to be helpful and inspiring to those who themselves fall somewhere on the spectrum.

Michelangelo 1475-1564. Sculptor, Painter, Architect, Poet
Dr. Muhammad Arshad published a convincing paper in the Royal Society of Medicine’s Journal of Medical Biography arguing that Michelangelo was almost certainly autistic.
The evidence: the artist’s singular interest in his work, a temper that could change at the drop of a hat, strict routines, and abysmal communication and social skills. He was aloof and had few, if any, friends. He was obsessive about following a repetitive work routine. If the routine was broken, it created an incredible frustration, interrupting his creative process. He has been described as being preoccupied with his private reality.
Such characteristics, determined through dozens of contemporary notes and letters, are consistent with those of high-functioning Asperger’s with savant abilities.

FAMOUS AND INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE WITH ASPERGER’S

The whole definition of the term “neurological disorder” implies that something is going wrong in the brain. However, there is a growing recognition that when it comes to the processes in our brain, “going wrong” does not necessarily mean “going bad”. Our brain is too complicated a mechanism to be interpreted in simplistic terms. Some neurological disorders produce a peculiar state of mind often associated with high artistic and scientific achievements.

A distinctive cluster of aptitudes, skills, attitudes, and abilities is part of autistic intelligence. People with autism can see things and events around them from a new point of view. In favourable cases, this ability can lead to exceptional achievements that others may never attain. Hans Asperger may have been the first clinician to notice that his patients’ imaginations occasionally anticipated scientific developments by decades.

Asperger’s may possess unique strengths that help them thrive later in their careers. Some areas in which children with autism commonly have average or above-average skills are specialist knowledge in a particular area, good visual and spatial memory, methodical and organized, ability to understand abstract concepts, and problem-solving/logical reasoning.

Some people with Asperger’s are visual thinkers, and others are math, music, or verbal thinkers, but all think in speciﬁcs. The Asperger’s mind enjoys and focuses on details, while the normal mind is more skilled at assembling whole concepts from more information. Individuals with Asperger’s may do poorly in school, but their interests are likely narrow and focused.

Autistic children want to figure out how things work; rather than art, they study biology, chemistry, and physics. Kids formerly ridiculed as nerds and brainiacs have grown up to become the architects of our future. The tribe of industrious hermits invented the modern digital world.

These activities focus their minds and provide a sense of comfort. If they are forced to leave their projects, they may become distressed. Likewise, if their projects are failing, fostering these narrowed interests is essential for emotional and mental support.

Rather than being considered a normal child trapped within an “autistic shell,” waiting to be rescued, Asperger’s is “a way of being” that colours every experience, sensation, perception, thought, emotion, and encounter, every aspect of existence.

FAMOUS ASPERGER’S PEOPLE IN HISTORY
Though autism did not become the mainstream diagnosis it is today until well into the 20th century, it is certainly not anything new. History is full of people who many consider to be or have been somewhere on the autism spectrum. No one would likely dispute that the following were or are geniuses.
Asperger’s syndrome is a high-functioning developmental disorder that is part of the autism spectrum. Symptoms, such as difficulty with social interaction, repetitive behaviours, and trouble making eye contact, vary widely among affected individuals. Asperger’s may go unrecognized until a child or adult begins to experience difficulties in school, work, or other social settings. But Asperger’s often bestows unique gifts, too. Some of the most inspiring and influential people we know and love have Asperger’s.
Making a retrospective diagnosis of Asperger’s for someone who is no longer living is nearly impossible. Still, experts – both medical professionals and those who experience autism first-hand – agree that every person listed here shows autistic tendencies. While some experts disagree with others, this list is meant to be helpful and inspiring to those who themselves fall somewhere on the spectrum.

Sir Isaac Newton, 1643-1727. Mathematician, Astronomer, & Physicist
Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, and author widely recognized as one of the greatest mathematicians, physicists, and most influential scientists of all time. He was a key figure in the philosophical revolution known as the Enlightenment. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), first published in 1687, established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing infinitesimal calculus.
In Principia, Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that formed the dominant scientific viewpoint until the theory of relativity superseded it. Newton used his mathematical description of gravity to derive Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, account for tides, the trajectories of comets, the precession of the equinoxes, and other phenomena, eradicating doubt about the Solar System’s heliocentricity. He demonstrated that the same principles could account for the motion of objects on Earth and celestial bodies. Newton’s inference that the Earth is an oblate spheroid was later confirmed by the geodetic measurements of Maupertuis, La Condamine, and others, convincing most European scientists of the superiority of Newtonian mechanics over earlier systems.
Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a sophisticated theory of colour based on the observation that a prism separates white light into the colours of the visible spectrum. His work on light was collected in his highly influential book Opticks, published in 1704. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling, made the first theoretical calculation of the speed of sound, and introduced the notion of a Newtonian fluid. In addition to his work on calculus, as a mathematician, Newton contributed to the study of power series, generalized the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, developed a method for approximating the roots of a function, and classified most of the cubic plane curves.
Evidence of Asperger’s. Thanks to researchers at Cambridge University, we have a pretty good idea that Isaac Newton had Asperger’s Syndrome. Newton isolated himself as much as possible, rarely spoke, and was notoriously awkward regarding typical daily conversation. He had very few friends and was socially inept. He became so fixated and focused on his work that he went without eating or sleeping for days. He relied very strongly on routines. If he were scheduled to lecture, that lecture would happen whether there was an audience or not. He hated his stepfather, saying, “Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them.” At school, he was motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully. He became the top-ranked student, distinguishing himself mainly by building sundials and models of windmills.
He never married. “He was never sensible to any passion, was not subject to the common frailties of mankind, nor had any commerce with women.” It is now a widespread belief that he died a virgin.
Religiously, he rejected the Trinity.
Newton had a close friendship with the Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier. Their relationship came to an abrupt and unexplained end in 1693. At the same time, Newton suffered a nervous breakdown, which included sending wild, accusatory letters to his friends Samuel Pepys and John Locke—his note to the latter included the charge that Locke “endeavoured to embroil me with women”.
In 2015, Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in physics, called Newton “a nasty antagonist” and “a bad man to have as an enemy”. He particularly noted Newton’s attitude towards Robert Hooke and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
It has been suggested from these and other traits, and his profound power of concentration, that Newton may have had a form of high-functioning autism, known as Asperger’s syndrome.
Life outside mathematics. Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He was a devout but unorthodox Christian who privately rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. Unusually for a member of the Cambridge faculty of the day, he refused to take holy orders in the Church of England. Politically and personally tied to the Whig party, Newton served two brief terms as Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge, in 1689–1690 and 1701–1702. He was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705 and spent the last three decades of his life in London, serving as Warden (1696–1699) and Master (1699–1727) of the Royal Mint, as well as president of the Royal Society (1703–1727).
Early life. Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in Lincolnshire. His father, Isaac Newton, died three months before. Born prematurely, Newton was a small child; his mother reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabas Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother. Newton disliked his stepfather and maintained some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: “Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them.”
Education. From about twelve until seventeen, Newton was educated at The King’s School, Grantham, which taught Latin and Greek and probably imparted a significant foundation of mathematics. He was removed from school and returned to Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth by October 1659. His mother, widowed for the second time, attempted to make him a farmer, an occupation he hated. Henry Stokes, a master at The King’s School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student, distinguishing himself mainly by building sundials and models of windmills.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. He started as a subsizar—paying his way by performing a valet’s duties—until he was awarded a scholarship in 1664, guaranteeing him four more years to get his MA. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and developed a mathematical theory that later became calculus. However, he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student. Newton’s private studies over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics, and the law of gravitation.
Work. In April 1667, he returned to Cambridge, and in October, he was elected as a fellow of Trinity. Fellows were required to become ordained priests, although this was not enforced in the restoration years, and an assertion of conformity to the Church of England was sufficient. However, by 1675, the issue could not be avoided; by then, his unconventional views stood in the way. Nevertheless, Newton managed to avoid it by obtaining special permission from Charles II.
Newton’s work has been said to “distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied”. In June 1669, he was identified as the work “of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things”.
In his work, he was involved in two outstanding disputes:
Leibniz controversy. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over the priority of the development of calculus. Most modern historians believe Newton and Leibniz developed calculus independently, although with very different mathematical notations. Occasionally, it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693 and did not give a complete account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society accused Leibniz of plagiarism. The dispute broke out in full force in 1711 when the Royal Society proclaimed in a study that Newton was the true discoverer and labelled Leibniz a fraud. Thus began the bitter controversy which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter died in 1716.
Hooke’s controversy regarding optics. In 1671, the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope, which resulted in the work Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticized some of Newton’s ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. This stimulated Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector. But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke’s death.
Religion. In the 1690s, Newton wrote several religious tracts dealing with the literal and symbolic interpretation of the Bible. He disputed the fidelity of 1 John 5:7—the Johannine Comma—and its fidelity to the original manuscripts of the New Testament.
Politics. Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England for Cambridge University in 1689 and 1701. Still, according to some accounts, his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Royal Mint. Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696. He took charge of England’s great recoining and trod on the toes of Lord Lucas, Governor of the Tower. He retired from his Cambridge duties in 1701 and exercised his authority to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. Newton estimated that 20 percent of the coins taken during the Great Recoinage of 1696 were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by the felon being hanged, drawn, and quartered. Despite this, convicting even the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult; however, Newton proved to be up to the task.
Disguised as a habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners.
Toward the end of his life, Newton lived with his niece and her husband at Cranbury Park, near Winchester, until he died in 1727. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her “very loving Uncle,” according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox.
Personal relations. Although it was claimed that he was once engaged, Newton never married. “He was never sensible to any passion, was not subject to the common frailties of mankind, nor had any commerce with women—a circumstance which was assured me by the physician and surgeon who attended him in his last moments”. This now-widespread belief that he died a virgin has been commented on.
Newton had a close friendship with the Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier. Their relationship came to an abrupt and unexplained end in 1693. At the same time, Newton suffered a nervous breakdown, which included sending wild, accusatory letters to his friends Samuel Pepys and John Locke—his note to the latter included the charge that Locke “endeavoured to embroil me with women”.
In 2015, Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in physics, called Newton “a nasty antagonist” and “a bad man to have as an enemy”. He particularly noted Newton’s attitude towards Robert Hooke and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
It has been suggested from these and other traits, and his profound power of concentration, that Newton may have had a form of high-functioning autism, known as Asperger’s.
Death. Newton died in his sleep in London on 20 March 1727, and his body was buried in Westminster Abbey. A bachelor, he had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years and died intestate. His papers went to John Conduitt and Catherine Barton. After his death, Newton’s hair was examined and found to contain mercury, probably from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton’s eccentricity in late life.
After death
Fame. The mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange said Newton was the greatest genius ever.
Newton was relatively modest about his achievements, writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676, stating, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”. Two writers think that the above quotation, written when Newton and Hooke were in dispute over optical discoveries, was an oblique attack on Hooke (said to have been short and hunchbacked), rather than—or in addition to—a statement of modesty. On the other hand, the widely known proverb about standing on the shoulders of giants, published among others by seventeenth-century poet George Herbert (a former orator of the University of Cambridge and fellow of Trinity College) in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had as its central point that “a dwarf on a giant’s shoulders sees farther of the two”, and so its effect as an analogy would place Newton himself rather than Hooke as the ‘dwarf’.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote: I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
In 1816, a tooth said to have belonged to Newton was sold for £730 (US$3,633) in London to an aristocrat who had it set in a ring. Guinness World Records 2002 classified it as the most valuable tooth, valued at approximately £25,000 (US$35,700) in late 2001. Who bought it and who currently has it has not been disclosed.
Albert Einstein kept a picture of Newton on his study wall alongside the ones of Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell. In a 2005 survey of members of Britain’s Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Einstein, the members deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of the day’s leading physicists voted Einstein the “greatest physicist ever,” with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton.
The SI-derived unit of force is named the Newton in his honour.
Religious views. Although born into an Anglican family, by his thirties, Newton held the Christian faith that, had it been made public, would not have been considered orthodox by mainstream Christianity, with one historian labelling him a heretic.
By 1672, he had started recording his theological researches in notebooks, which he showed to no one and which have only recently been examined. They demonstrate extensive knowledge of early Church writings and show that in the conflict between Athanasius and Arius, which defined the Creed, Athanasius took the side of Arius, the loser, who rejected the conventional view of the Trinity. Newton “recognized Christ as a divine mediator between God and man, who was subordinate to the Father who created him.” He was especially interested in prophecy, but for him, “the great apostasy was trinitarianism.”
Newton tried unsuccessfully to obtain one of the two fellowships that exempted the holder from the ordination requirement. At the last moment in 1675, he received a dispensation from the government that excused him and all future holders of the Lucasian chair.
In Newton’s eyes, worshipping Christ as God was idolatry, to him the fundamental sin. In 1999, historian Stephen D. Snobelen wrote, “Isaac Newton was a heretic. But … he never publicly declared his private faith, which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars still unravel his personal beliefs.”

Benjamin Banneker 1731-1806. African American almanac author, surveyor, naturalist, astronomer, inventor, and farmer
He lived as a free man in 18th-century America. Many contemporary documents refer to Banneker’s “unparalleled brilliance” and “odd methods of behaviour,” lending credence to the idea that Banneker had high-functioning Asperger’s. He was known to fixate on particular objects, such as a friend’s watch, until that fixation ultimately led to an experiment or invention of his own.

Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826. Early American Politician
This is especially controversial. Despite being the third president of the United States, Jefferson was shy, was well-known to have been an uncomfortable public speaker, and could not communicate verbally or relate well to others. Alexander Hamilton noted that Jefferson seemed to have difficulty making eye contact.
Several contemporary documents reference Jefferson’s sensitivity to loud noises and strange routines. He was fixated on birds, particularly mockingbirds—a pet mockingbird named Dick was a constant companion who sat on his shoulder.
Despite the evidence, the best one can do when it comes to Jefferson is speculate, as most documents dating from his early life were burned down with his childhood home.

Henry Cavendish 1731-1810. Scientist
Henry Cavendish is one of the most important scientists in history. A natural philosopher, chemist, and physicist, Cavendish is most famous as the discoverer of hydrogen. He is also thought to have been autistic. Besides his weekly meetings at the prestigious Royal Society Club, Cavendish did all he could to avoid company and social calls. Indeed, he was so reclusive that he communicated with his servants in writing, ordered his meals via a note left on the table, and even added a private staircase to the back of his house to avoid the housekeeper. He also avoided eye contact and was described by a contemporary as the “coldest and most indifferent of mortals.” But he was also brilliant, though only after his death did fellow scientists go through his many papers and realize all he had accomplished.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756-1791. Classical Composer
Most scholars agree that musical maestro Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was somewhere on the spectrum. Mozart was allegedly extremely sensitive to loud noises, had a notoriously short attention span, and could fly through a cycle of facial expressions within seconds. In one well-documented incident, a bored Mozart began doing cartwheels and vaults over tables while meowing loudly like a cat.

Hans Christian Andersen 1805-1875. Children’s Author
The experts go back and forth over whether Hans Christian Andersen, the beloved writer of such fairy tales as The Little Mermaid and The Ugly Duckling, was autistic or not. Most of those who insist that he appeared somewhere on the spectrum are those who are autistic themselves and therefore can relate to Andersen on a personal level. For example, Andersen’s diary extensively describes his many bouts of unrequited love for those who were, quite frankly, unattainable – a common personal experience, say those on the spectrum who can relate. They also cite the recurring theme of outcast characters in his stories. Most never achieve their sought-after happy endings.

Charles Darwin 1809-1882. Naturalist, Geologist, and Biologist
Trinity College professor Michael Fitzgerald, a leading psychiatrist, researched and published a paper concluding that Charles Darwin had Asperger’s Syndrome. Records from Darwin’s childhood state show that he was a reticent and isolated child who feared intimacy and avoided interaction with others as much as he could. Like many others with Asperger’s, he sought alternative communication methods, such as writing letters and notes. At times, Darwin would become obsessed and fixated with various gadgets. He was ritualistic and compulsive. He had fixations with specific topics like chemistry, but was a very visual thinker — all traits of someone on the autism spectrum.

Emily Dickinson 1830-1886. Poet
In her book Writers on the Spectrum: How Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome Have Influenced Literary Writing, academic Julie Brown includes classical poet Emily Dickinson. Brown is part of a large group who believe Dickinson showed plenty of signs of being autistic: she wrote poems that were highly unconventional for her period, she was reclusive, she got along best with children, she wore white clothing almost exclusively, and had a fascination with scented flowers, among other things. While Dickinson’s biographer, Lyndall Gordon, insists that Dickinson’s epilepsy is what made her so reclusive, medical professionals are quick to point out that those with autism have a much higher chance of also having epilepsy.

Lewis Carroll 1832-1898. author of children’s books
Few historical figures are as controversial as Lewis Carroll, the author of the children’s classic Alice in Wonderland. While some of his behaviour, such as continuously seeking out the company of young girls, has made some wonder if the university professor was a pedophile, others use the same information to insist that Carroll was autistic. After all, Carroll lived in a different time and place, with far different social customs than we are used to today. He was also known to be a poor communicator and likely found interacting with children much easier. A severe stammer exacerbated his difficulty with communication. Finally, Carroll showed great mathematical ability and even considered himself a minor inventor, both common characteristics of those on the spectrum.

Nikola Tesla 1856-1943 Inventer
The brilliant Serbian inventor’s wireless experiments preceded those of the “father of the radio,” Guglielmo Marconi. A former lab assistant of Thomas Edison who reportedly stole many of his best ideas, Edison became his primary rival. Edison championed direct current, while Tesla thought alternating current was the best.
Tesla did trailblazing research in various fields, including robotics, home lighting, X-rays, proto-transistors, remote control, and alternating current. He even predicted 21st-century warfare, semiautonomous drones, which he called Telautomata. “When wireless is perfectly applied, the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain,” Tesla told an interviewer in 1926. “We shall be able to communicate instantly, irrespective of distance. We shall see and hear one another as perfectly as we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles. The instruments to do this will be carried in your vest pocket.
Whatever Tesla was, the word typical didn’t describe him. Eccentric genius ran in his family: his mother was an expert weaver from a long line of inventors who designed her sewing. Tools. His older brother was a child prodigy who died when Tesla spooked the horse he was riding. He suffered as a boy from what would now be diagnosed as epilepsy. He could be honest when his two elderly aunts asked him to choose which one was prettier, and he replied that one was “not as ugly as the other”. He felt compelled to calculate the precise volume of coffee cups, soup bowls, and morsels of food at the table. He counted the exact number of steps he took when walking (like Cavendish and Dirac, he walked 8-10 miles daily in Manhattan in a rigid timetable). Tesla developed rigid habits, aversions, and a fascination for specific shapes as a teenager. The mere sight of a pearl made him feel ill, but the glittering of objects with flat surfaces mesmerized him. He suffered from a large number of phobias, was extremely sensitive to light and sound, isolated himself, and was obsessed with the number three.
He embarked on his career as an inventor when he discovered he could visualize theoretical machines in minute detail. He even set them running in his mind, tweaking his design as parts wore out. “I needed no models, drawings, or experiments,” Tesla recalled in his memoir. “I could picture them all as real… Whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop is immaterial to me. I even note if it is out of balance.”
Temple Grandin’s account of her design process is virtually identical: “Before I attempt any construction, I test-run the equipment in my imagination. I visualize my designs being used in every possible situation, with different sizes and breeds of cattle and in different weather conditions. Doing this enables me to correct mistakes before construction.”
Tesla died in 1943, impoverished and emaciated in his room at the Hotel New Yorker with a “do not disturb” sign permanently affixed to his door.

The Lifestyle of Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was a very tall and skinny, standing over six feet and weighing around one hundred and forty pounds. He had light blue-gray eyes, which were considered odd because he was of Serbian descent and was typically known to have darker eyes. Tesla, probably joking, said to a reporter that his eyes used to be dark, but using his mind so much had made them many shades lighter. The inventor was known to be elegant, stylish, meticulous in grooming and clothing, and regimented in his daily activities.

Tesla never married and remained celibate and a bachelor his entire life. Tesla was solely committed to science principles above all else, so he denied the love and companionship of a female counterpart. He chose to lead a solitary life, hoping only that this sacrifice to work would make his name live on through many centuries.

One of his few hobbies, other than work, was feeding birds. Tesla’s respect for birds began when he was a child growing up in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He and his local friends made a sport out of catching live birds, and when Tesla himself caught a couple of keepers, he and his friend found themselves getting attacked by a murder of crows. The revolt forced the boys to release the birds and take cover. In America, he made it a specialty of his to treat sick pigeons, which seems odd because he was a germaphobe. He would feed them daily on his daily walks, take in wounded pigeons, and nurse them back to health at his hotel in New York. He seemed to have had a better connection with birds than with most people. In 1917, he was awarded the Edison Medal, and upon receiving the award, the inventor could not be found. He was later seen feeding pigeons near a local library and was persuaded back to the ceremony to give his speech.

Tesla suffered from an obsessive-compulsive disorder, and because of this, he developed some bizarre idiosyncrasies and phobias, such as having a strong dislike of earrings, pearls, peaches, and touching other people’s hair. He counted the steps in his walks and calculated the cubic contents of soup plates, coffee cups, and pieces of food. All repeated acts or operations he performed had to be divisible by three.

While living in New York, Tesla kept his laboratories clean and pure, refused to touch other people, would wear gloves while shaking hands, and insisted upon personally cleaning his plates and silverware at restaurants with his requested 18 napkins. This cleanliness was intentional because, as a child, he almost died from cholera, which raged in the region of his hometown, Smiljan, due to contaminated water. Many found Tesla’s actions strange, but to him, it was a significant measure to protect his health.

To keep his body clean and pure, Tesla invented an electrical apparatus that could give the human body a dry bath by passing millions of volts of electricity through it (similar to his demonstrations in the early 1890s, where he passed electricity through his own body). His oscillator was a small, drum-like object about two feet long by one foot wide and could apply half a million volts of electricity through his body. The large amount of electricity would affect the germs without destroying the cells of the body’s tissues. Though his oscillator seemed like a fountain of youth, Tesla maintained his conventional health ideas. He bathed daily, believed in plenty of exercise, and walked eight or ten miles daily. He said he would never take a cab or other conveyance and relied on his leg power for transportation.

His diet was crucial to his daily routine to remain healthy and prolong his lifespan. He was very fussy and particular about his food: he ate very little, but what he did eat had to be the very best. He wasn’t a complete vegetarian; he ate meat, just not very often (perhaps once or twice a year). He believed that humankind should move towards a vegetarian diet, not just because eating meat the way we do is “barbarous,” as he said, but because he believed the vegetarian diet is more beneficial to the human body.

In his later years, he never smoked, drank tea, coffee, alcoholic beverages, or consumed any other stimulant. Since he saw life through his mechanistic theory, he cared for his body like a machine, properly maintaining its best efficiency.

As for sleep, Tesla reported that he was a poor sleeper and had very unusual resting patterns. He claimed only to sleep a few hours each day and would oftentimes practice polyphasic sleep, where he would take short naps for restoration instead of sleeping for an extended period.

Unfortunately for Tesla and his clean and healthy lifestyle, in 1937, at the age of 81, he was hit by a taxicab during one of his regular walks. He was likely jaywalking because he was known to do so. He broke three ribs and seriously injured his back. Tesla would be bedridden for months while refusing to see a doctor, and on top of this, he would catch pneumonia, which would plague his health for the last 5 years of his life. I believe this accident and sickness would play a significant role in the rapid decline of his health, both mentally and physically, and his goal of living past a century would never be realized.

Nikola Tesla had a unique and eccentric lifestyle and was known for his intense work habits. He often spent long hours in his laboratory, so much so that his friends would seriously worry about his health. Financial difficulties were a recurring theme, and he died in relative obscurity. Despite these challenges, Tesla’s legacy is marked by his groundbreaking contributions to the field of electrical engineering.

Henry Ford, 1863 – 1947. Industrialist

He was the American founder of the Ford Motor Company and the father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry. He was a prolific inventor and was awarded 161 U.S. patents. As the owner of the Ford Motor Company, he became one of the richest and best-known people in the world.
I did find some sources that claimed Henry Ford had Asperger’s. Still, all of the significant, online biographies on Ford I looked at don’t mention his diagnosis, nor make any reference to Asperger’s at all.

William Butler Yeats 1865-1939 Irish poet
He had extreme difficulty in school, where he was bullied for his lack of interest and awkward social behaviour. Yeats pined for years for Maud Gonne, despite her stated disinterest.

Marie-Curie 1867-1934. A scientist who pioneered research on radioactivity
She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and the only woman to win the Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. Her husband, Pierre Curie, was a co-winner of her first Nobel Prize, making them the first-ever married couple to win the Nobel Prize and launching the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. 1906 she was the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris.
In 1891, at 24, she went to Paris to study, earning her higher degrees and conducting her subsequent scientific work. In 1895, she married the French physicist Pierre Curie, and she shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with him and the physicist Henri Becquerel for their pioneering work developing the theory of “radioactivity”—a term she coined. In 1906, Pierre Curie died in a Paris street accident. Marie won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering polonium and radium, using techniques she invented for isolating radioactive isotopes.
Under her direction, the world’s first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms using radioactive isotopes. 1920 she founded the Curie Institute in Paris, a major medical research centre. During World War I, she developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals. Marie Curie died in 1934, aged 66, of aplastic anemia from exposure to radiation during her scientific research and radiological work at field hospitals during World War I. In addition to her Nobel Prizes, she has received numerous other honours and tributes; in 1995, she became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in Paris’ Panthéon. She is also known as Madame Curie.
Evidence of Asperger’s. She graduated from the gymnasium in 1883 with a gold medal and had a collapse, possibly due to depression. At the University of Paris, she focused so hard on her studies that she sometimes forgot to eat. A month after accepting her 1911 Nobel Prize, she was hospitalized with depression and a kidney ailment. For most of 1912, she avoided public life. She was known for her honesty and moderate lifestyle. She gave much of her first Nobel Prize money to friends, family, students, and research associates. In an unusual decision, Curie intentionally refrained from patenting the radium-isolation process so that the scientific community could do research unhindered. She insisted that monetary gifts and awards be given to the scientific institutions she was affiliated with rather than to her. She and her husband often refused awards and medals. Albert Einstein remarked that she was probably the only person who could not be corrupted by fame.

James Joyce 1882-1941. Author of “Ulysses”
Ask any autism expert about James Joyce, and you’ll likely hear them argue that his writing itself is extreme evidence of Joyce possibly being autistic. After all, his two most famous works, “Ulysses” and “Finnegans Wake”, are brilliant, yet intentionally difficult to read and understand. Joyce told Harper’s Magazine, “The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my work.” Some claim that this intentional approach to his work showed Joyce’s desire to distance himself from society, which is a very autistic trait. These same scholars also reference Joyce’s youth, during which he was brilliant, but also suffered from many phobias and had trouble keeping friends.

Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955. Scientist, Mathematician & Physicist
He was a German-born theoretical physicist. He is best known for his theory of relativity and specifically mass-energy equivalence, E = mc2. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics “for his services to Theoretical Physics, especially for discovering the law of the photoelectric effect. Perhaps the most famous scientist and mathematician in history,
Albert Einstein had several interesting and possibly telling characteristics. For one, he had trouble socializing, especially as an adult. As a child, he experienced severe speech delays, repeating sentences to himself until he was seven. Later, he had echolalia or the habit of repeating words. He had difficulties with social interactions. Although he loved his children, he could not stand for them to touch him. He displayed fixations on one topic to the exclusion of everything else. And of course, there is the fact that Einstein was incredibly technical. Such characteristics have led many experts to conclude that he appeared somewhere on the autism spectrum.
Einstein had a brain abnormality that some researchers think made his genius possible. According to Sandra Witelson, a researcher at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, the parts of his brain that processed visual and mathematical thought were fused. He was in the right environment to express his genius; however, today, he might be shunted through the special education system. Not to mention that a young patent clerk today would have great difficulty getting published in a physics journal.
Albert Einstein’s Brain 2023

Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889-1951. Philosopher
The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein is another inspiring historical figure who likely had autism. Wittgenstein’s most famous work, “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,” has been cited repeatedly as a classical example of the autistic thought process. Contemporary letters and diary entries reference Wittgenstein’s persistent irritation, especially when understanding and dealing with those around him.

Alfred Kinsey 1894-1956 Sexologist & Biologist
Alfred Kinsey was a famed sexologist and biologist who founded the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. Kinsey was highly controversial, as is just about anything in his work. Though the controversy surrounding his work has died down since Kinsey’s death, a new debate has since arisen: was Kinsey autistic? Many medical professionals seem to think so. A 1999 article in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders stated that Kinsey meets the criteria for Asperger’s Syndrome because of his “qualitative impairment in social interaction,” “failure to develop appropriate peer relationships,” and “lack of social and emotional reciprocity.”

Paul Dirac 1902-1984 Physicist
Paul Dirac has repeatedly been referred to as one of the most significant and influential physicists of the 20th century. The Cambridge professor greatly contributed to early quantum mechanics and electrodynamics and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933. That Nobel was almost refused by Dirac, who was so reclusive that he didn’t want the publicity. Such shyness is one of many reasons why a large number of people think Dirac may have had some form of autism. Besides his shyness, they cite his intense focus, extreme literal-mindedness, lack of empathy, and rigid patterns, among other things.

Barbara McClintock 1902-1992. Scientist and Cytogeneticist
Barbara McClintock was a famed scientist who made significant breakthroughs in studying chromosomes and how they change during reproduction. McClintock has long been thought of as autistic in some way. She had an extreme fixation on her work and could focus for long periods. She was also very particular about what she would and would not wear. Notably reclusive and one who went to great lengths to avoid any attention or limelight, McClintock nearly didn’t accept the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine that she was awarded for her excellent and groundbreaking work.

Alan Turing 1912-1954 – Father of modern computing, mathematician, philosopher, theoretical biologist and logician, code breaker in WW2
Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalization of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. In 1938, he obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Mathematics at Princeton University. During the Second World War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain’s codebreaking centre that produced Ultra intelligence. Turing played a crucial role in cracking intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Axis powers in many critical engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic.
Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts. He accepted chemical castration treatment, with DES, as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death to be a suicide. The “Alan Turing law” is now an informal term for a 2017 law in the United Kingdom that retroactively pardoned men convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts. He appears on the current Bank of England £50 note, which was released to coincide with his birthday. A 2019 BBC series, as voted by the audience, named him the greatest person of the 20th century.

Andy Warhol 1928-1987. Artist
Experts like Judith Gould, the director of the leading diagnostic center for autism in the United Kingdom, insist that it makes perfect sense that Andy Warhol was autistic. After all, much of the artist’s work focuses on repetition, on which those with autism usually fixate, have an obsession with consumer goods, and have great difficulty in social interactions. In interviews and when he did converse, Warhol almost always responded to questions with monosyllabic answers, possibly evidence that he had verbal dyslexia, which is so common among those on the spectrum. He reportedly refused to wear anything but a particular kind of green underwear. His eccentric behaviour included extreme focus and obsession with detail.
Interestingly, the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh has worked with the Cognitive Psychology Department at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, on a project that hopes to improve the communication skills of autistic children. The program uses Warhol’s portraits to teach facial recognition skills to students who have been diagnosed as on the autism spectrum.
Still, not everyone agrees that Warhol was autistic. Those who argue against this posthumous diagnosis suggest that Warhol’s different behaviour was calculated to “enhance a sense of mystery.”

Stanley Kubrick 1928-1999. Film Director
Stanley Kubrick is most famous as the innovative and exceedingly creative director of films like “A Clockwork Orange,” “Dr. Strangelove,” and “2001: A Space Odyssey.” But could he also have had some form of autism? The experts are split on this one. Those who argue that Kubrick was indeed autistic cite the director’s reclusive nature and his habit of hoarding animals. He was a chess mastermind and was said to be uncomplimentary and cheap. Still, there are plenty of reports that refute these allegations.

Glenn Gould 1932-82 Canadian classical pianist
Gould was very weird, and, as he grew older, his obsessions worsened. He was an intense hypochondriac, for example, and collected hotel keys. In many ways, a child who never grew up, Gould had an odd, stiff gait. Clumsiness and a bizarre gait are common in people with Asperger’s, probably due to immature development of the cerebellum and vestibular system (a ﬁnding of Bauman’s autopsy studies). Despite Gould’s oddities, Osborne writes that he had an “uncanny knack for instantaneously seizing the structure of complex musical pieces in their totality.”

Anthony Hopkins 1937 to present. Welsh actor, film director, and film producer. He has received many accolades, including two Academy Awards for Best Actor, four BAFTAS, two Emmys, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and a British Academy Television Award. In 1993, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts. Hopkins received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003 and the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2008.
Hopkins is renowned for his preparation for roles. He indicated in interviews that once he has committed to a project, he will go over his lines as many times as is needed (sometimes upwards of 200) until the lines sound natural to him so that he can “do it without thinking”. This leads to an almost casual style of delivery that belies the amount of groundwork done beforehand. While it can allow for some careful improvisation, it has also brought him into conflict with the occasional director who departs from the script or demands what the actor views as an excessive number of takes. Hopkins stated that after he finished a scene, he discarded the lines, not remembering them later.
Richard Attenborough praised Hopkins for “this extraordinary ability to make you believe when you hear him that it is the first time he has ever said that line. It’s an incredible gift.”
In Steven Spielberg’s Amistad (1997), Hopkins astounded the crew by memorizing a seven-page courtroom speech and delivering it in one go.
In 2016, Hopkins spoke of his ability to frighten people since he was a boy growing up in Port Talbot, Wales. “I don’t know why, but I’ve always known what scares people. When I was a kid I’d tell the girls around the street the story about Dracula and I’d go ‘th-th-th’ (the sucking noise which he reproduced in The Silence of the Lambs). As a result, they’d run away screaming.” He recalled going through the script of Silence of the Lambs for the first time with fellow cast members. “I didn’t know what they would make of it, but I’d prepared it—my first line to Jodie Foster was: ‘Good morning. You’re one of Jack Crawford’s, aren’t you?’ Everyone froze. There was a silence. When he portrays deliberately scary people, he plays them quietly, emphasizing their sinister control.”
Hopkins has been married three times. He has a daughter, actress and singer Abigail Hopkins (b. 1968), from his first marriage. The two are estranged; when asked if he had any grandchildren, he said, “I don’t have any idea. People break up. Families split and, you know, ‘Get on with your life.’ People make choices. I don’t care one way or the other.”
Hopkins is a recovering alcoholic; he has stayed sober since he stopped drinking just after Christmas 1975. He said, “I made that quantum leap when I asked for help. I just found something, and a woman talked to me and said, Trust in God. And I said, well, why not?” When asked, “Did you pray?” Hopkins responded: “No, I didn’t. I think because I asked for help, which is a form of prayer.” In January 2020, when asked if he was still agnostic, he responded, “Agnosticism is a bit strange. An agnostic doubts, and atheism denies it. I’m not a holy Joe; I’m just an old sinner like everyone else. I believe more than ever now that there is a vast area of our lives that we know nothing about. As I get older, I can cry at the drop of a hat because the wonderful, terrible passion of life is so short. I have to believe there’s something bigger than me. I’m just a microbe. That, for me, is the biggest feeling of relief – acknowledging that I am nothing. I’m compelled to say, whoever’s running the show, thank you very much.”
In January 2017, Hopkins reported that he had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, but that he was “high end”. The actor said it has helped him get into roles.

Bobby Fischer 1943-2008. Chess Grandmaster
Bobby Fischer, the chess grandmaster and World Chess Champion, is said to have had Asperger’s Syndrome in addition to paranoid schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Fischer was known to be highly intense and did not relate well to others, thanks to his lack of friendships and poor social abilities. His extreme focus on chess is another sign, as his track record shows he cannot cope in an unstructured environment.

Temple Grandin 1947-present. Animal Scientist
There may be no autistic person alive today more famous than Temple Grandin. The author and Colorado State University professor didn’t begin speaking until she was almost four years old, and the doctors who diagnosed her recommended she be institutionalized. Fortunately, her parents did not agree with those doctors. Grandin has become a leading force in animal sciences, named one of Time’s 100 most influential people, and even produced an award-winning biopic about her life. She remains an outspoken advocate in the autism community and has been unapologetic about her belief that the “characteristics of autism can be modified and controlled.”

Dan Aykroyd 1952-present. Comedic actor
Popular comedic actor Dan Aykroyd is best known for his stint as a comedian on Saturday Night Live (1975-1979) and movies like The Blues Brothers and Ghostbusters. A psychiatrist diagnosed him with Asperger’s after he consulted him about tics and symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder. He had already been expelled from two different schools by the time. Since then, Aykroyd has been pretty honest and up-front about his experiences with the autism spectrum. “My very mild Asperger’s has helped me creatively. “I sometimes hear a voice and think ‘That could be a character I could do.’” Akroyd has also said his obsession with ghosts and law enforcement helped him with his role in Ghostbusters.

Jerry Seinfeld 1954-present. Comedian
Jerry Seinfeld, one of the most popular comedians of all time, has said in multiple interviews that he believes himself to be on the autism spectrum. Though he has never been officially diagnosed by a medical professional, Seinfeld has defended his self-diagnosis by citing various social challenges that he has experienced since childhood, as well as his tendency to think literally. While Seinfeld may consider himself to have Asperger’s Syndrome, others in the autism community disagree. Seinfeld’s revelation has been quite controversial, with many feeling that his self-diagnosis has only served to make light of actual issues.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011. Former CEO of Apple
Those who associate Steve Jobs with autism admit that it’s pure speculation, but they are also quick to point out that that speculation has grown more and more mainstream since the Apple genius died in 2011. Those who believe Jobs landed somewhere on the spectrum cite such behavioural quirks as his obsession with perfection, unorthodox thinking, and general lack of empathy when dealing with others.

Bill Gates 1955-present. Co-founder of the Microsoft Corporation
Could Bill Gates, one of the wealthiest men in the world, be autistic? Quite a few autism experts seem to think so! While nothing has ever been confirmed regarding whether or not Gates falls on the autism spectrum, those who seem to think he is, cite things like the distinct rocking motion Gates displays when he concentrates, his shortened and monotoned speech patterns, and his habits of avoiding eye contact on the rare occasion he speaks directly with someone else. These are all common characteristics of those on the spectrum, and the evidence that Bill Gates may be autistic is quite persuasive.

Tim Burton 1958-present. Movie Director
Is Hollywood director Tim Burton autistic? His long-time partner, Helena Bonham Carter, seems to think so. At least, she once speculated that he was “possibly autistic” during an interview. While researching an autistic character for a film, Carter claims, she had an “a-ha moment” and realized that much of her research applied to Burton. Said Carter, “Autistic people have application and dedication. You can say something to Tim when he’s working and he doesn’t hear you. But that quality also makes him a fantastic father; he has an amazing sense of humour and imagination. He sees things other people won’t see.”

Daryl Hannah 1960-present. Actress & Environmental Activist
Daryl Hannah — the beautiful star of films like Splash, Blade Runner, and Steel Magnolias — only came out about her experiences on the autism spectrum about five years ago. Since then, Hannah has been inspirational as she’s told the truth about her challenges with Asperger’s Syndrome. As a child, she rocked herself to self-soothe and was so shy that she refused to give interviews once she began acting. Asperger’s made it difficult to cope with some of the social demands made of Hollywood stars, and he never went on talk shows or to premieres. Though she has mostly learned to control and live with her diagnosis, Hannah has all but left the entertainment industry to focus on environmental issues and other passions. She’s learned to adjust. “These days, I have little tricks that I do to help me cope.” As long as I remember to do them, I am okay.

Susan Boyle 1961-present. Singer
Most people know Susan Boyle as the shy Scottish introvert who sold over 14 million albums after her 2009 Britain’s Got Talent audition when she sang a perfect rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” from the Broadway show Les Misérables. She toured the world and gained a following by producing music that brings listeners to tears.
Boyle, 47, didn’t realize she had Asperger’s syndrome, though the clues — trouble with eye contact, anxiety, and sudden and emotional withdrawal in uncomfortable situations — were everywhere. It made sense when Boyle’s doctor told her she had the disorder. More people found Boyle inspiring when she announced she had been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a diagnosis that Boyle said “felt like “a relief.” Boyle was anything but thrown by the diagnosis. “Asperger’s doesn’t define me. It’s a condition that I have to live with and work through, but I feel more relaxed about myself. People will better understand who I am and why I do what I do.” Boyle is still learning about the autism spectrum and how it affects her, but as long as she keeps singing, people will continue to be inspired by her.

Courtney Love 1964-present. Singer, songwriter, and actress
A figure in the alternative and grunge scenes of the 1990s, her career has spanned four decades. Love has drawn public attention for her uninhibited live performances, confrontational lyrics, and highly publicized personal life following her marriage to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. In 2020, NME named her “one of the most influential singers in alternative culture of the last 30 years.”
Her mother maintained an unconventional home; according to Love, “There were hairy, wangly-ass hippies running around naked [doing] Gestalt therapy,” and her mother raised her in a gender-free household with “no dresses, no patent leather shoes, no canopy beds, nothing”. In 1972, Love’s mother moved the family to Nelson, New Zealand. Love was enrolled at Nelson College for Girls but was soon expelled for misbehaviour.
At age 14, Love was arrested for shoplifting from a Portland department store. And remanded at Hillcrest Correctional Facility, a juvenile hall in Salem, Oregon. She was intermittently placed in foster care throughout late 1979 until becoming legally emancipated in 1980, after which she remained staunchly estranged from her mother. Shortly after her emancipation, Love spent two months in Japan working as a topless dancer but was deported after her passport was confiscated. She returned to Portland and began working at the strip club Mry’s Club, adopting the surname Love to conceal her identity; she later adopted Love as her surname. She worked odd jobs, including as a DJ at a gay disco. Love said she lacked social skills and learned them while frequenting gay clubs and spending time with drag queens.
In July 1982, Love returned to the United States. Love returned to working abroad as an erotic dancer, briefly in Taiwan, and then at a taxi dance hall in Hong Kong. By Love’s account, she first used heroin while working at the Hong Kong dance hall, having mistaken it for cocaine.
After 2004, her life was marked by publicity surrounding Love’s legal troubles and drug relapse, which resulted in a mandatory lockdown rehabilitation sentence in 2005 while she was writing a second solo album. Love has also been active as a writer; between 2004 and 2006, she co-created and co-wrote three volumes of a manga, Princess Ai, and wrote a memoir, Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love (2006).
The singer revealed that she was diagnosed with a mild form of autism at age 9 in her biography, Courtney Love: The Real Story.

Satoshi Tajiri 1965-present. Creator of Nintendo’s Pokémon
As a child, Satoshi Tajiri was fascinated by insects and was nicknamed “Dr. Bug” by other children. As an adult, Tajiri turned that interest into the worldwide phenomenon of Pokémon, which makes him an inspiration to millions of children (and adults!) worldwide. But Satoshi Tajiri is also on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum. Though he confirmed that he does indeed have Asperger’s Syndrome, Tajiri does not talk about it in public, choosing instead to let his many accomplishments speak for themselves.

Grigori Perelman (1966—Leningrad) is a Russian mathematician and geometer known for geometric analysis, Riemannian geometry, and geometric topology. In 2005, Perelman resigned from his research post at the Steklov Institute of Mathematics and stated in 2006 that he had quit professional mathematics owing to feeling disappointed over the ethical standards in the field. He lives in seclusion in Saint Petersburg and has declined interview requests since 2006.
In the 1990s, he contributed to studying Alexandrov spaces in collaboration with Yuri Burago, Mikhael Gromov, and Anton Petrunin. In 1994, he proved the soul conjecture in Riemannian geometry, which had been an open problem for 20 years. In 2002 and 2003, he developed new techniques to analyze Ricci flow. He proved the Poincaré conjecture and Thurston’s geometrization conjecture, the former of which had been a famous open problem in mathematics for the past century.
In August 2006, Perelman was offered the Fields Medal. for “his contributions to geometry and his revolutionary insights into the analytical and geometric structure of the Ricci flow”, but he declined the award, stating: “I’m not interested in money or fame; I don’t want to be on display like an animal in a zoo.” This made him the only person to have ever declined the prize. On 22 December 2006, the scientific journal Science recognized Perelman’s proof of the Poincaré conjecture as the scientific “Breakthrough of the Year”, the first such recognition in this area of mathematics.
On 18 March 2010, it was announced that he had met the criteria to receive the first Clay Millennium Prize for resolving the Poincaré conjecture. On 1 July 2010, he rejected the prize of one million dollars, saying that he considered the decision of the board of the Clay Institute to be unfair, in that his contribution to solving the Poincaré conjecture was no greater than that of Richard S. Hamilton, the mathematician who pioneered the Ricci flow. The main reason is my disagreement with the organized mathematical community. “I don’t like their decisions, I consider them unjust.” The Clay Institute subsequently used Perelman’s prize money to fund the “Poincaré Chair”, a temporary position for young promising mathematicians.
He had previously rejected the prestigious prize of the European Mathematical Society in 1996.
Perelman’s mathematical talent became apparent at age 10, and he excelled in all subjects except physical education. In 1982, not long after his sixteenth birthday, he won a gold medal as a member of the Soviet team at the International Mathematical Olympiad hosted in Budapest, achieving a perfect score.
Perelman is quoted in a 2006 article in The New Yorker saying that he was disappointed with the ethical standards of mathematics. The article implies that Perelman refers particularly to alleged efforts of Fields medalist Shing-Tung Yau to downplay Perelman’s role in the proof and play up the work of Cao and Zhu. Perelman added, “I can’t say I’m outraged. Other people do worse. Of course, many mathematicians are more or less honest. But almost all of them are conformists. They are more or less honest, but they tolerate those who are not honest. […] It is not people who break ethical standards who are regarded as aliens. It is people like me who are isolated.”
This, combined with the possibility of being awarded a Fields Medal, led him to state that he had quit professional mathematics by 2006. He said. “As long as I was not conspicuous, I had a choice. Either to make something ugly oOo, if I didn’t do this kind of thing, I would be treated as a pet. Now, when I become a very conspicuous person, I cannot stay a pet and say nothing. That is why I had to quit.”
Russian media speculated that he periodically visits his sister in Sweden while living in Saint Petersburg and caring for his elderly mother.
Perelman has avoided journalists and other members of the media. Masha Gessen, author of a biography about Perelman, Perfect Rigour: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century, could not meet him. A reporter who had called him was told: “You are disturbing me. I am picking mushrooms.”

Elon Musk, 1971 to present. Entrepreneur and business magnate.
Musk may be the best-known person with Asperger’s syndrome. His first big deal was founding PayPal. He is the founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer at SpaceX, CEO and Product Architect of Tesla, Inc., founder of The Boring Company, and co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI. A centilionaire, Musk is the wealthiest person in the world as of September 2021. Around three-quarters of Musk’s wealth derives from Tesla.
His life story reads like a genius fairy tale with many Asperger’s traits. He frequently tweets inappropriate comments and gets into conflicts in his business dealings unless he is the boss.
Around age 10, Musk became interested in computing and learned computer programming using a manual by age 12. An awkward and introverted child, Musk was bullied throughout his childhood. He was once hospitalized after a group of boys threw him down a flight of stairs. After his parents divorced in 1980, Musk mostly lived with his father in Pretoria and elsewhere, a choice he made two years after the divorce and subsequently regretted. Musk has become estranged from his father, whom he describes as “a terrible human being. “Almost every evil thing you could think of, he has done.”
Musk has been criticized due to unorthodox or unscientific stances and highly publicized controversies. In 2018, he was sued for defamation by a British caver who advised in the Tham Luang cave rescue; a California jury ruled in favour of Musk. In the same year, he was sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for falsely tweeting that he had secured funding for a private takeover of Tesla. He settled with the SEC. Musk has spread misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and received criticism from experts for his other views on artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, and public transport.
Musk’s managerial style and treatment of his employees have been heavily criticized. One person who worked closely with Musk said he exhibits “a high level of degenerate behaviour” such as paranoia and bullying. Another described him as exhibiting “total and complete pathological sociopathy”. Business Insider reported that Tesla employees were told not to walk past Musk’s desk because of his “wild firing rampages.
In July 2020, Musk tweeted “Pronouns suck” to significant backlash on Twitter, and has been perceived by some as transphobic after an attack on non-binary identities.
Personal life. Musk first married in 2000 and used IVF to have twins and triplets. The couple divorced in 2008. In 20010, Musk married English actress Talulah Riley, were divorced in 2012, remarried in 2013, and in 2016 were divorced for the second time. In May 2018, Musk dated Canadian musician Grimes and gave birth to their son in May 2020. He was named X Æ A-12; however, the name would have violated California regulations as it contained characters not in the modern English alphabet. It was then changed to X Æ A-Xii. This drew more confusion, as Æ is not a letter in the modern English alphabet. The child was eventually named “X AE A-XII” Musk, with “X” as a first name, “AE A-XII” as a middle name, and “Musk” as a surname. Musk confirmed reports that the couple is “semi-separated” in September 2021.
On the night he hosted Saturday Night Live in May 2021, Musk said he was the first person with Asperger’s to host SNL — something he hadn’t said publicly before. It did not appear he was joking, but it was challenging to be sure how sincere Musk was being, given his history as an internet troll and someone who doesn’t always know how to deliver a joke.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO joked that people sometimes don’t know what to expect from him. “I reinvented electric cars and I’m sending people to Mars on a rocket ship,” Musk said. “Did you think I would be a chill, normal dude?” Musk said his famous appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, where he smoked weed, wasn’t his habit. And he appeared to relish the live audience: “I could say something truly shocking like ‘I drive a Prius.’” He also said the name of his youngest child, spelled X Æ A-12, is “pronounced ‘cat running across the keyboard.” Musk’s mother, Maye, also appears during the monologue. “I’m excited about my Mother’s Day gift, I just hope it’s not Dogecoin,” she said. To which Elon replied, “It is.”

Dan Harmon 1973-present. Writer, producer, actor, and comedian.
Harmon is a multi-talented artist. He created and produced the NBC sitcom Community (2009–2015), co-created the Adult Swim animated series Rick and Morty (2013–present) and its subsequent franchise along with Justin Roiland, and co-founded the alternative television network and website Channel 101. Harmon published the book You’ll Be Perfect When You’re Dead in 2013.^[3] He also hosted a weekly podcast, Harmontown (2012–2019).
While producing the NBC hit comedy television series Community, Harmon made an astonishing discovery during his research and character development. “I started looking up these symptoms [of Asperger’s], just to know what they are. And the more I looked up, the more familiar they seemed.” Following more research into the syndrome, Harmon self-diagnosed as having Asperger’s.

Greta Thunberg 2003 to present. Environmental activist
A Swedish environmental activist who is known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action for climate change mitigation, Thunberg initially gained notice for her youth and her straightforward speaking manner, both in public and to political leaders and assemblies, in which she criticizes world leaders for their failure to take what she considers sufficient action to address the climate crisis. She was in Time‘s 100 most influential people, the youngest Time Person of the Year, included in the Forbes list of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women (2019), and three consecutive nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize (2019–2021).
Thunberg says she first heard about climate change in 2011, when she was eight years old, and could not understand why so little was being done about it. The situation made her depressed, and as a result, at the age of 11, she stopped talking and eating much and lost ten kilograms (22 lb) in two months. Eventually, she was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and selective mutism. In one of her first speeches demanding climate action, Thunberg described the selective mutism aspect of her condition as meaning she “only speaks when necessary.”
Thunberg struggled with depression for three or four years before she began her school strike. Her diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome was made public nationwide in Sweden in 2015, to help other families in a similar situation.
While acknowledging that her diagnosis “has limited me before”, Thunberg does not view her Asperger’s as an illness and has instead called it her “superpower”. She was later described as being not only the best-known climate change activist but also the best-known autism activist. Thunberg commented in 2021 that many people in the Fridays for Future movement had autism, and we’re very inclusive and welcoming. She thinks that the reason for so many people with autism become climate activists is that they cannot look away, and have to tell the truth as they see it: “I know lots of people who have been depressed, and then they have joined the climate movement or Fridays for Future and have found a purpose in life and found friendship and a community that they are welcome in.” She considers that the best thing that has come out of her activism has been friendship and happiness.
She is an excellent student. Much of her behaviour shows autistic ways of expression – very straightforward, factual, and scientific – she doesn’t mince words.
In 2019, at the UN Climate Action Summit, she said, “This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us, young people, for hope. How dare you!”
You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are at the beginning of mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!
Thunberg used many of the themes in her previous speeches, but focused on one in particular: “Our house is still on fire.” Thunberg joked that she cannot complain about not being heard, saying: “I am being heard all the time.” “They invite cherry-picked young people to meetings like this to pretend they listen to us. But they are not.”
Thunberg said climate experts are not being listened to despite the COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the importance of using science to address such issues. She added that the COVID-19 crisis had “shone a light” on how “we cannot make it without science.”
In May 2021, she urged a change in the food production system and the protection of animals and their habitats. Thunberg criticized the promotional campaigns the fashion industry uses to appear sustainable without “actually doing anything to protect the environment” and called the campaigns “greenwashing.” On the same day, she used Twitter to criticize the fashion industry as “a huge contributor” to the climate and ecological “emergency” and “not to mention its impact on the countless workers and communities who are being exploited around the world for some to enjoy fast fashion that many treat as disposables.” Thunberg’s wearing of wool garnered criticism from fellow vegans.
Thunberg has met with many politicians and world leaders, but she could not think of a single politician who has impressed her. Thunberg asked about widely respected New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, saying, “It’s funny that people believe Jacinda Ardern and people like that are climate leaders. That tells you how little people know about the climate crisis.” Thunberg ignores words and sentiments: “Obviously the emissions haven’t fallen. These people are not doing anything” (New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions had increased by 2% in 2019).
Addressing her critics: “It’s quite hilarious when the only thing people can do is mock you, or talk about your appearance or personality, as it means they have no argument or nothing else to say.”
In September 2019, Trump shared a video of Thunberg angrily addressing world leaders, along with her quote that “people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are at the beginning of mass extinction.” Trump tweeted about Thunberg: “She seems like a thrilled young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!” Thunberg reacted by changing her Twitter bio to match his description, stating that she could not “understand why grown-ups would choose to mock children and teenagers for just communicating and acting on the science when they could do something good instead.” In December 2019, Trump again mocked Thunberg after she was named Person of the Year for 2019 by Time, tweeting: “So ridiculous. Greta must work on her anger management problem, then go to a good old-fashioned movie with a friend! Chill, Greta, Chill!” Thunberg responded by changing her Twitter biography: “A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old-fashioned movie with a friend.” During the 2020 United States presidential election, Thunberg commented on Trump tweeting “STOP THE COUNT!” with the text: “So ridiculous. Donald must work on his anger management problem, and then go to a good old-fashioned movie with a friend! Chill, Donald, Chill!”
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro responded: “Greta said that the Indians were dying because they were trying to protect the Amazon. It is impressive how the press gives voice to such a brat.” On the same day, Thunberg changed her Twitter description to pirralha, the Portuguese word for “brat” used by Bolsonaro.
“Being fat-shamed by Chinese state-owned media is a pretty weird experience even by my standards. But it’s going on my resume.”
Glamour Woman of the Year Award 2019, 12 November 2019, by Glamour magazine. Accepted by Jane Fonda, quoting Greta as saying “If a Swedish, teenage, science nerd who has shopstop, refuses to fly and has never worn makeup or been to a hairdresser can be chosen a Woman of the Year by one of the biggest fashion magazines in the world then I think almost nothing is impossible.”

Bella Ramsay Actress
She sought a psychiatric assessment after a crew member with an autistic child had assumed Ramsey, too, had autism. The diagnosis confirmed a suspicion that Ramsey had “always wondered” about. She went on to share that their diagnosis has helped improve her acting.
“I’ve always been watching and learning from people. Learning more manually how to socialize and interact with the people around me has helped me with acting.” The “Last of Us” star uses they/them pronouns and opens up about her diagnosis in an interview with British Vogue. “I’ve spoken a bit about neurodivergence before, but I always for some reason didn’t want to,” Ramsey said, before deciding to share that they “got diagnosed with autism when I was filming Season 1 of The Last of Us.”
Having a routine and a set of rules helps. “I have a call time, and I’m told what to wear, how to stand, where to stand and what to eat.”
The diagnosis is “freeing” because it enables me to walk through the world as an autistic person with more grace towards myself about not being able to do the easy, everyday tasks that everyone else seems to be able to do. There’s no reason for people not to know.”
Ramsey is best known for starring in HBO’s “The Last of Us,” a series based on the popular video game of the same name. Ramsey also appeared in three seasons of “Game of Thrones” as Lyanna Mormont.

OTHER FAMOUS PEOPLE THOUGHT TO HAVE ASPERGER’S
Ludwig Van Beethoven 1770 – 1827. Composer, pianistHe
He was a German composer and virtuoso pianist. He was crucial in Western classical music’s transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras. He remains one of the most respected and influential composers of all time.

Jane Austen 1775 –1817. Author
Was a British novelist whose realism, biting social commentary, and masterful use of free indirect speech, burlesque, and irony have earned her a place as one of the most widely read and best-loved writers in British literature

Mark Twain 1835 – 1910. Author & humorist
Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. Twain is most noted for his novels, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has since been called the Great American Novel, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He is extensively quoted. During his lifetime, Twain became a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.
Twain enjoyed immense public popularity. His keen wit and incisive satire earned him praise from critics and peers. William Faulkner called Twain “the father of American literature.”

Thomas Edison, 1847 – 1931. Inventor, businessman
He was an American inventor and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life worldwide, including the phonograph and the long-lasting light bulb. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production to the invention process and is, therefore, often credited with creating the first industrial research laboratory.

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE 1899 – 1980. Director and producer
He was an iconic and highly influential director and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and thriller genres. After a substantial film career in his native Britain, he moved to Hollywood and became an American citizen in 1956, although he also remained a British subject. He ultimately directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades, from the silent film era, through the invention of talkies, to the colour era. Hitchcock was among the most consistently successful and publicly recognizable world directors during his lifetime and remains one of the best-known and most popular of all time.

George Orwell 1903 – 1950. Author
George Orwell was an English writer and journalist well-known as a novelist, critic, and commentator on politics and culture. He is one of the most admired English-language essayists of the twentieth century. He is most famous for two novels critical of totalitarianism in general (Nineteen Eighty-Four) and Stalinism in particular (Animal Farm), which he wrote and published towards the end of his life.

Charles Monroe Schulz 1922 –2000. Cartoonist
He was a 20th-century American cartoonist best known worldwide for his Peanuts comic strip. Robert Ripley first published Schulz’s drawings in his Ripley’s Believe It or Not!. His first regular cartoons, Li’l Folks, were published from 1947 to 1950 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press; he first used the name Charlie Brown for a character there, although he applied the name in four gags to three boys and one buried in the sand. The series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In 1948, Schulz sold a cartoon to the Saturday Evening Post; the first of seventeen single-panel cartoons by Schulz that would be published there. 1948 Schulz tried to have Li’l Folks syndicated through the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Schulz would have been an independent contractor for the syndicate, unheard of in the 1940s, but the deal fell through. Li’l Folks was dropped in January 1950

Woody Allen 1935 to present. Actor, writer, director
He is a three-time Academy Award-winning American film director, writer, actor, jazz musician, comedian, and playwright. His extensive work and cerebral film style, mixing satire, wit, and humour, have made him one of the most respected and prolific filmmakers in the modern era. Woody said the following in an interview: I am a neurotic, more benignly. I have a lot of neurotic habits,” the quirky American director and actor told Reuters Television. I don’t like to go into elevators, I don’t go through tunnels, I like the drain in the shower to be in the corner and not in the middle,” Allen said in an interview after showing his new comedy “Anything Else” at the 60th Venice Film Festival.

James Maury “Jim” Henson 1936- 1990), Puppeteer
He was the most widely known puppeteer in American television history. He was the creator of The Muppets and the leading force behind their long creative run in the television series Sesame Street and The Muppet Show and films such as The Muppet Movie (1979) and The Dark Crystal (1982). He was also an Oscar-nominated film director, Emmy Award-winning television producer, and the founder of The Jim Henson Company, the Jim Henson Foundation, and Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. Henson is widely acknowledged for his ongoing vision of faith, friendship, magic, and love, infusing nearly all of his work.

Michael Edward Palin CBE, 1943 to present. Comedian, actor, traveller
An English comedian, actor, writer, and television presenter, best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries. Palin wrote most of his material with Terry Jones. Before Monty Python, they had worked on other shows such as The Ken Dodd Show, The Frost Report, and Do Not Adjust Your Set. Palin appeared in some of the most famous Python sketches, including “The Dead Parrot”, “The Lumberjack Song”, “The Spanish Inquisition” and “Spam”. Palin continued to work with Jones, co-writing Ripping Yarns. He has also appeared in several films directed by fellow Python Terry Gilliam and made notable appearances in films such as A Fish Called Wanda, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

Anne Hegerty 1958 to present, TV game host
Anne Hegerty is one of the chasers on the ITV game show The Chase, known as “The Governess”. She made appearances on many other quiz shows, including Mastermind, Fifteen to One, Today’s the Day, Are You an Egghead? And the Brain of Britain. In an interview, Hegerty stated that she has Asperger’s syndrome, with which she was diagnosed in 2005 in a candid interview on the This Morning TV Show. She has since finished 7th on the reality TV show I’m a Celebrity… Could you get me out of here?

Gary Numan 1958 to present. Singer and composer
Born Gary Webb, he is an English singer, composer, and musician. Numan has Asperger’s syndrome. In a 2001 interview, he said: “Polite conversation has never been one of my strong points. Just recently, I found out that I’d got a mild form of Asperger’s syndrome, which means I have trouble interacting with people. I couldn’t understand why people thought I was arrogant for years, but now it all makes more sense.

Peter Howson OBE, 1958 to present. Painter
He is a Scottish painter. He was an official war artist in the 1993 Bosnian Civil War. He has produced some of his most shocking and controversial work detailing the atrocities at the time. One painting in particular Croatian and Muslim, detailing a rape created controversy partly because of its explicit subject matter but also because Howson had painted it from the accounts of its victims rather than witnessing it firsthand. Much of his work cast stereotypes on the lower social groups; he portrayed brawls, including drunken, even physically deformed men and women.
His work is exhibited in many significant collections and is in the private collection of celebrities such as David Bowie, Mick Jagger, and Madonna, who inspired several paintings in 2002
Howson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours.

Michael Jackson 1958 – 2009. Musician, songwriter
Known as the King of Pop, he was an American musician and one of the most commercially successful and influential entertainers ever. His unique contributions to music and dance, and his highly publicized personal life, have made him a prominent figure in popular culture for over four decades.
Michael Jackson certainly shows signs of Asperger’s Syndrome (AS). His unusual behaviour has often been blamed on his upbringing; however, his siblings are relatively normal, with a similar upbringing, so I do not feel this is the cause. Michael is often seen as shy and has difficulty relating to many people. His friends are a few people with whom he has common interests, especially his background as a child star. He mostly seems able to relate to children; however, this perhaps reflects the social immaturity that may be seen in Asperger’s. Regardless of maturity level, people with Asperger’s seem to be more comfortable with those older or younger than their peer group. This has never been confirmed, but many sources feel there was a possibility he might have had Asperger’s Syndrome.

Chris Packham 1961 to present. TV presenter
He is an English naturalist, nature photographer, television presenter, and author, best known for his television work, including the children’s nature series The Really Wild Show in the late 1980s. He has presented the BBC nature series Springwatch since 2009
Chris has talked about his Asperger’s and how he deals with the condition in many of the UK papers.

Gary McKinnon 1966 to present. Computer hacker
Is a Scottish hacker facing extradition to the United States on charges of perpetrating what one US prosecutor claims is the “biggest military computer hack of all time” McKinnon had been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome? His diagnosis was made in August 2008 by the Cambridge University psychologist Prof Simon Baron-Cohen. The computer networks he is accused of hacking include networks owned by NASA, the US Army, the US Navy, the Department of Defence, and the US Air Force. If he is extradited to the US and charged, McKinnon faces up to 70 years in jail and has expressed fears that he could be sent to Guantanamo Bay.

Patrick George “Paddy” Considine 1973 to present. Actor, musician.
Paddy Considine is an English actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, and musician. He has starred in films such as In America, Dead Man’s Shoes, The Cry of the Owl, Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee, Hot Fuzz, as well as in television films such as The Red Riding Trilogy, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, and PU-239. In 2010, aged 36, Considine was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. In a candid interview with The Telegraph, he revealed that he suffered from “a debilitating sense of detachment; from both the people around him and his surroundings and that he struggled on a practical level too certain noises, bright lights, and even wallpaper and fabrics presented problems.” Of the diagnosis, Considine revealed that discovering that he had Asperger’s was a relief

Craig Nicholls, 1977 to present. Singer, songwriter
He is an Australian singer, songwriter, and guitarist for the Vines alternative rock group. During a promotional show for Triple M radio, bass player Patrick Matthews walked off stage after Nicholls bleated at the audience and demanded that the crowd not talk during the performance. Nicholls said to the crowd, “Why the fuck are you laughing? You’re all a bunch of sheep. Can you go baa?” Nicholls was even accused of kicking a photographer, and charges were pressed. As a result, Patrick Matthews never played with The Vines again (he has since joined Youth Group and Triple M banned The Vines from being played on their radio station indefinitely. Nicholls was accompanied by his brother Matt, and his manager and friend Andy Kelly in Balmain Local Court in Sydney on 19 November 2004. There, it was revealed that Nicholls has Asperger’s syndrome

Ladyhawke 1979 to present. Singer, songwriter
Phillipa Margaret “Pip” Brown, better known by her stage name Ladyhawke, is a New Zealand singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Brown has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. She believes that a large amount of her childhood she spent absorbed in music, whether listening to the radio or her mother’s Beatles and Pretenders albums, was attributable to this syndrome.

Guy Martin from 1981 to the present. Motorcycle racer, TV personality
Guy Martin is a British lorry mechanic better known publicly as a motorcycle racer and a television personality. Martin started racing in 1998, debuting on road circuits at the Isle of Man TT events in 2004, gaining 17 podium finishes. He has broken his back twice in racing accidents. After struggling to come to terms with the fame brought about by his media work, Martin was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome.

Adam Young 1986 to present. Musician, songwriter
Adam Young is an American musician, multi-instrumentalist, producer, songwriter, vocalist, and the founder of Owl City. Adam has mentioned he has Asperger’s syndrome, and he has often referred to himself as being deeply shy and socially introverted.

Heather Kuzmich 1986 to present. Model
Heather Kuzmich is an art student and an American fashion model. Heather is best known for being a contestant on America’s Next Top Model, where she was the fourth runner-up of the show. During the show, it was revealed that Kuzmich has Asperger’s syndrome and ADHD. Kuzmich was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome when she was fifteen years old. Heather signed with the women’s division of Elite Model Management in Chicago and Hong Kong. She has also appeared on the cover and inside Spectrum Magazine, a magazine for families and individuals with autism.
Just shows people with Asperger Syndrome can have both Beauty and brains…

Luke Jackson 1988 to present. Author
Luke Christopher Jackson is an author who rose to fame at age 13 when he wrote a book based on his first-hand experience with Asperger’s syndrome. The book, Freaks, Geeks, and Asperger Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence, created a sensation and significantly increased general awareness of the condition.

Robert White Comedian
Robert Stars appeared on the UK’s biggest television talent competition, Britain’s Got Talent 2018, and finished 2nd place. Robert White is the only gay, Aspergic, quarter-Welsh comic on the British comedy circuit (as stated on his website) and is known for his brilliant timing and performance style. Robert’s chaotic stage presence, improvisational skills, and delivery won him the 2010 Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality. In the same year, he wrote one of Dave’s Top Ten Jokes of The Fringe.

SPECULATED TO HAVE ASPERGER’S
George Washington 1732-1799, US Politician
Abraham Lincoln 1809-1865, US Politician
Benjamin Franklin 1706-1790, US politician/writer
Kaspar Hauser 1812-1833, German foundling, portrayed in a film by Werner Herzog
Henry Thoreau 1817-1862, US writer
Vincent Van Gogh 1853-1890, Dutch painter
Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900,German philosopher
George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950, Irish playwright, writer of Pygmalion, critic, and Socialist
Ludwig II 1845-1886, King of Bavaria
Alexander Graham Bell 1847-1922, Scottish/Canadian/American inventor of the telephone
Anton Bruckner 1824-1896, Austrian composer
Oliver Heaviside 1850-1925, English physicist
Richard Strauss, 1864-1949, German composer
Gustav Mahler 1860-1911, Czech/Austrian composer
Wassily Kandinsky 1866-1944, Russian/French painter
Erik Satie 1866-1925 – Composer
Charles Rennie Mackintosh 1868-1928, Scottish architect and designer
Bertrand Russell 1872-1970, British logician
Carl Jung 1875-1961, Swiss psychoanalyst
Bela Bartok 1881-1945, Hungarian composer
Virginia Woolf 1882-1941, English Writer
Franz Kafka 1883-1924, Czech writer
L S Lowry 1887-1976, English painter of “matchstick men”
HP Lovecraft, 1890-1937, US writer
Howard Hughes 1905-1976, US billionaire
Isaac Asimov 1920-1992, Russian/US writer on science and science fiction, author of Bicentennial Man
Tony Benn 1925- 2014, English Labour politician
Marilyn Monroe 1926-1962, US actress
Garrison Keillor 1942-2001, US writer, humorist, and host of Prairie Home Companion
John Denver 1943-1997, US musician
Andy Kaufman 1949-1984, US comedian, subject of the film Man on the Moon
Robin McLaurin Williams 1951 – 2014. US Actor
Carl Sagan – Astronomer (C)
Francis Galton. Scientist, mathematician, and discoverer of fingerprints
Dr. Vernon Smith – a professor of economics at Chapman University, practically invented the field of experimental economics, an achievement for which he won the Nobel Prize in 2002. Credits Asperger’s for his success. (C)

CONTEMPORARY PEOPLE
John Nash 1928-, US mathematician (portrayed by Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind,
Oliver Sacks 1933-, UK/US neurologist, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Awakenings
Bob Dylan 1941-, US singer-songwriter
Jeff Greenfield 1943-, US political analyst/speechwriter, a political wonk
John Motson, 1945-, English sports commentator
David Helfgott, 1947-, Australian pianist, subject of the film Shine
Al Gore, 1948-, former US Vice President and presidential candidate
James Taylor, 1948-, US singer/songwriter
Charles Dickinson, 1951, US Writer
Jamie Hyneman 1956-, Co-host of Mythbusters
Genie 1957- US “wild child” (see also L’Enfant Sauvage, Victor)
Paul Kostabi 1962-, writer, comedian, artist, producer, technician
Crispin Glover 1964, US actor
Joseph Erber 1985-, young English composer/musician who has Asperger’s Syndrome, subject of a BBC TV documentary
Seth Engstrom 1987-, Magician and World Champion in Sleight of Hand. The best man with a deck of cards the world has ever seen.
Bill Gross – successful investment manager (C): See his video about his diagnosis.
Adrian Lamo, an American computer hacker
Carl Soderholm, a speaker on neuropsychiatric disorders
Clay Marzo, an American professional surfer
Daniel Tammet, the British autistic savant, is believed to have Asperger’s Syndrome.
Dawn Prince-Hughes, Ph.D., primate anthropologist, ethologist, and author of Songs for the Gorilla Nation
James Durbin, a finalist on the tenth season of American Idol
Jerry Newport, American author and mathematical savant, is the basis of the film Mozart and the Whale
John Elder Robison, author of Look Me in the Eye
Judy Singer, Australian disability rights activist
Liane Holliday Willey, author of Pretending to be Normal, Asperger Syndrome in the Family; Asperger syndrome advocate; education professor; and adult diagnosed with Asperger syndrome at age 35
Lizzy Clark, actress and campaigner
Raymond Thompson, New Zealand scriptwriter and TV producer
Richard Borcherds, a mathematician specializing in group theory and Lie algebras
Tim Ellis, Australian magician and author
Tim Page, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author
Travis Meeks, lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the acoustic rock band Days of the New
David Campion – champion snowboarder
Michael Burry – USA physician, investor, and hedge fund manager: The movie “The Big Short” is based on him (C)
Ulysse Delsaux & Cody Ware – Race car drivers (C)

Nikola Tesla 1856-1943 Inventer
The brilliant Serbian inventor’s wireless experiments preceded those of the “father of the radio,” Guglielmo Marconi. A former lab assistant of Thomas Edison who reportedly stole many of his best ideas, Edison became his primary rival. Edison championed direct current, while Tesla thought alternating current was the best.
Tesla did trailblazing research in various fields, including robotics, home lighting, X-rays, proto-transistors, remote control, and alternating current. He even predicted 21st-century warfare, semiautonomous drones, which he called Telautomata. “When wireless is perfectly applied, the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain,” Tesla told an interviewer in 1926. “We shall be able to communicate instantly, irrespective of distance. We shall see and hear one another as perfectly as we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles. The instruments to do this will be carried in your vest pocket.
Whatever Tesla was, the word typical didn’t describe him. Eccentric genius ran in his family: his mother was an expert weaver from a long line of inventors who designed her sewing. Tools. His older brother was a child prodigy who died when Tesla spooked the horse he was riding. He suffered as a boy from what would now be diagnosed as epilepsy. He could be honest when his two elderly aunts asked him to choose which one was prettier, and he replied that one was “not as ugly as the other”. He felt compelled to calculate the precise volume of coffee cups, soup bowls, and morsels of food at the table. He counted the exact number of steps he took when walking (like Cavendish and Dirac, he walked 8-10 miles daily in Manhattan in a rigid timetable). Tesla developed rigid habits, aversions, and a fascination for specific shapes as a teenager. The mere sight of a pearl made him feel ill, but the glittering of objects with flat surfaces mesmerized him. He suffered from a large number of phobias, was extremely sensitive to light and sound, isolated himself, and was obsessed with the number three.
He embarked on his career as an inventor when he discovered he could visualize theoretical machines in minute detail. He even set them running in his mind, tweaking his design as parts wore out. “I needed no models, drawings, or experiments,” Tesla recalled in his memoir. “I could picture them all as real… Whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop is immaterial. I even note if it is out of balance.”
Temple Grandin’s account of her design process is virtually identical: “Before I attempt any construction, I test-run the equipment in my imagination. I visualize my designs being used in every possible situation, with different sizes and breeds of cattle and in different weather conditions. Doing this enables me to correct mistakes before construction.”
Tesla died in 1943, impoverished and emaciated in his room at the Hotel New Yorker with a “do not disturb” sign permanently affixed to his door.

The Lifestyle of Nikola Tesla

Tesla suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder, and because of this, he developed some bizarre idiosyncrasies and phobias, such as having a strong dislike of earrings, pearls, peaches, and touching other people’s hair. He counted the steps in his walks and calculated the cubic contents of soup plates, coffee cups, and pieces of food. All repeated acts or operations he performed had to be divisible by three.

Henry Ford, 1863 – 1947. Industrialist

Greta Thurnberg 2003 to present. Environmental activist
A Swedish environmental activist who is known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action for climate change mitigation, Thunberg initially gained notice for her youth and her straightforward speaking manner, both in public and to political leaders and assemblies, in which she criticizes world leaders for their failure to take what she considers sufficient action to address the climate crisis. She was in Time‘s 100 most influential people, the youngest Time Person of the Year, included in the Forbes list of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women (2019), and three consecutive nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize (2019–2021).
Thunberg says she first heard about climate change in 2011, when she was eight years old, and could not understand why so little was being done about it. The situation made her depressed, and as a result, at the age of 11, she stopped talking and eating much and lost ten kilograms (22 lb) in two months. Eventually, she was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and selective mutism. In one of her first speeches demanding climate action, Thunberg described the selective mutism aspect of her condition as meaning she “only speaks when necessary.”
Thunberg struggled with depression for three or four years before she began her school strike. Her diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome was made public nationwide in Sweden in 2015, to help other families in a similar situation.
While acknowledging that her diagnosis “has limited me before”, Thunberg does not view her Asperger’s as an illness and has instead called it her “superpower”. She was later described as being not only the best-known climate change activist but also the best-known autism activist. Thunberg commented in 2021 that many people in the Fridays for Future movement had autism, and we’re very inclusive and welcoming. She thinks that the reason for so many people with autism become climate activists is that they cannot look away, and have to tell the truth as they see it: “I know lots of people who have been depressed, and then they have joined the climate movement or Fridays for Future and have found a purpose in life and found friendship and a community that they are welcome in.” She considers that the best thing that has come out of her activism has been friendship and happiness.
She is an excellent student. Much of her behaviour shows autistic ways of expression – very straightforward, factual, and scientific – she doesn’t mince words.
In 2019, at the UN Climate Action Summit, she said, “This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us, young people, for hope. How dare you!”
You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are at the beginning of mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!
Thunberg used many of the themes in her previous speeches, but focused on one in particular: “Our house is still on fire.” Thunberg joked that she cannot complain about not being heard, saying: “I am being heard all the time.” “They invite cherry-picked young people to meetings like this to pretend they listen to us. But they are not.”
Thunberg said climate experts are not being listened to despite the COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the importance of using science to address such issues. She added that the COVID-19 crisis had “shone a light” on how “we cannot make it without science.”
In May 2021, she urged a change in the food production system and the protection of animals and their habitats. Thunberg criticized the promotional campaigns the fashion industry uses to appear sustainable without “actually doing anything to protect the environment” and called the campaigns “greenwashing.” On the same day, she used Twitter to criticize the fashion industry as “a huge contributor” to the climate and ecological “emergency” and “not to mention its impact on the countless workers and communities who are being exploited around the world for some to enjoy fast fashion that many treat as disposables.” Thunberg’s wearing of wool garnered criticism from fellow vegans.
Thunberg has met with many politicians and world leaders, but she could not think of a single politician who has impressed her. Thunberg asked about widely respected New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, saying, “It’s funny that people believe Jacinda Ardern and people like that are climate leaders. That tells you how little people know about the climate crisis.” Thunberg ignores words and sentiments: “Obviously the emissions haven’t fallen. These people are not doing anything” (New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions had increased by 2% in 2019).
Addressing her critics: “It’s quite hilarious when the only thing people can do is mock you, or talk about your appearance or personality, as it means they have no argument or nothing else to say.”
In September 2019, Trump shared a video of Thunberg angrily addressing world leaders, along with her quote that “people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are at the beginning of mass extinction.” Trump tweeted about Thunberg: “She seems like a thrilled young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!” Thunberg reacted by changing her Twitter bio to match his description, stating that she could not “understand why grown-ups would choose to mock children and teenagers for just communicating and acting on the science when they could do something good instead.” In December 2019, Trump again mocked Thunberg after she was named Person of the Year for 2019 by Time, tweeting: “So ridiculous. Greta must work on her anger management problem, then go to a good old-fashioned movie with a friend! Chill, Greta, Chill!” Thunberg responded by changing her Twitter biography: “A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old-fashioned movie with a friend.” During the 2020 United States presidential election, Thunberg commented on Trump tweeting “STOP THE COUNT!” with the text: “So ridiculous. Donald must work on his anger management problem, and then go to a good old-fashioned movie with a friend! Chill, Donald, Chill!”
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro responded: “Greta said that the Indians were dying because they were trying to protect the Amazon. It is impressive how the press gives voice to such a brat.” On the same day, Thunberg changed her Twitter description to pirralha, the Portuguese word for “brat” used by Bolsonaro.
“Being fat-shamed by Chinese state-owned media is a pretty weird experience even by my standards. But it’s going on my resume.”
Glamour Woman of the Year Award 2019, 12 November 2019, by Glamour magazine. Accepted by Jane Fonda, quoting Greta as saying “If a Swedish, teenage, science nerd who has shopstop, refuses to fly and has never worn makeup or been to a hairdresser can be chosen a Woman of the Year by one of the biggest fashion magazines in the world then I think almost nothing is impossible.”

OTHER FAMOUS PEOPLE THOUGHT TO HAVE ASPERGER’S
Ludwig Van Beethoven 1770 – 1827. Composer, pianistHe
He was a German composer and virtuoso pianist. He was crucial in Western classical music’s transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras. He remains one of the most respected and influential composers of all time.

Luke Jackson 1988 to present. Author
Author Luke Christopher Jackson rose to fame at age 13 when he wrote a book based on his first-hand experience with Asperger’s syndrome. The book, Freaks, Geeks, and Asperger Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence, created a sensation and significantly increased general awareness of the condition.

SPECULATED TO HAVE ASPERGER’S
George Washington 1732-1799, US Politician
Abraham Lincoln 1809-1865, US Politician
Benjamin Franklin 1706-1790, US politician/writer
Kaspar Hauser 1812-1833, German foundling, portrayed in a film by Werner Herzog
Henry Thoreau 1817-1862, US writer
Vincent Van Gogh 1853-1890, Dutch painter
Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900,German philosopher
George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950, Irish playwright, writer of Pygmalion, critic, and Socialist
Ludwig II 1845-1886, King of Bavaria
Alexander Graham Bell 1847-1922, Scottish/Canadian/American inventor of the telephone
Anton Bruckner 1824-1896, Austrian composer
Oliver Heaviside 1850-1925, English physicist
Richard Strauss, 1864-1949, German composer
Gustav Mahler 1860-1911, Czech/Austrian composer
Wassily Kandinsky 1866-1944, Russian/French painter
Erik Satie 1866-1925 – Composer
Charles Rennie Mackintosh 1868-1928, Scottish architect and designer
Bertrand Russell 1872-1970, British logician
Carl Jung 1875-1961, Swiss psychoanalyst
Bela Bartok 1881-1945, Hungarian composer
Virginia Woolf 1882-1941, English Writer
Franz Kafka 1883-1924, Czech writer
L S Lowry 1887-1976, English painter of “matchstick men”
HP Lovecraft, 1890-1937, US writer
Howard Hughes 1905-1976, US billionaire
Isaac Asimov 1920-1992, Russian/US writer on science and science fiction, author of Bicentennial Man
Tony Benn 1925- 2014, English Labour politician
Marilyn Monroe 1926-1962, US actress
Garrison Keillor 1942-2001, US writer, humorist, and host of Prairie Home Companion
John Denver 1943-1997, US musician
Andy Kaufman 1949-1984, US comedian, subject of the film Man on the Moon
Robin McLaurin Williams 1951 – 2014. US Actor
Carl Sagan – Astronomer (C)
Francis Galton. Scientist, mathematician, and discoverer of fingerprints
Dr. Vernon Smith – a professor of economics at Chapman University, practically invented the field of experimental economics, an achievement for which he won the Nobel Prize in 2002. Credits Asperger’s for his success. (C)

CONTEMPORARY PEOPLE
John Nash 1928-, US mathematician (portrayed by Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind,
Oliver Sacks 1933-, UK/US neurologist, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Awakenings
Bob Dylan 1941-, US singer-songwriter
Jeff Greenfield 1943-, US political analyst/speechwriter, a political wonk
John Motson, 1945-, English sports commentator
David Helfgott, 1947-, Australian pianist, subject of the film Shine
Al Gore, 1948-, former US Vice President and presidential candidate
James Taylor, 1948-, US singer/songwriter
Charles Dickinson, 1951, US Writer
Jamie Hyneman 1956-, Co-host of Mythbusters
Genie 1957- US “wild child” (see also L’Enfant Sauvage, Victor)
Paul Kostabi 1962-, writer, comedian, artist, producer, technician
Crispin Glover 1964, US actor
Joseph Erber 1985-, young English composer/musician who has Asperger’s Syndrome, subject of a BBC TV documentary
Seth Engstrom 1987-, Magician and World Champion in Sleight of Hand. The best man with a deck of cards the world has ever seen.
Bill Gross – successful investment manager (C): See his video about his diagnosis.
Adrian Lamo, an American computer hacker
Carl Soderholm, a speaker on neuropsychiatric disorders
Clay Marzo, an American professional surfer
Daniel Tammet, the British autistic savant, is believed to have Asperger’s Syndrome.
Dawn Prince-Hughes, Ph.D., primate anthropologist, ethologist, and author of Songs for the Gorilla Nation
James Durbin, a finalist on the tenth season of American Idol
Jerry Newport, American author and mathematical savant, is the basis of the film Mozart and the Whale
John Elder Robison, author of Look Me in the Eye
Judy Singer, Australian disability rights activist
Liane Holliday Willey, author of Pretending to be Normal, Asperger Syndrome in the Family; Asperger syndrome advocate; education professor; and adult diagnosed with Asperger syndrome at age 35
Lizzy Clark, actress and campaigner
Raymond Thompson, New Zealand scriptwriter and TV producer
Richard Borcherds, a mathematician specializing in group theory and Lie algebras
Tim Ellis, Australian magician and author
Tim Page, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author
Travis Meeks, lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the acoustic rock band Days of the New
David Campion – champion snowboarder
Michael Burry – USA physician, investor, and hedge fund manager: The movie “The Big Short” is based on him (C)
Ulysse Delsaux & Cody Ware – Racecar drivers (C)

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