Peter Mark Roget, best remembered as the person who compiled Roget’s Thesaurus. He was a physician by trade, but was actually pretty slow to start up that career, taking multiple detours along the way. Biographers noted that he suffered from depression most of his life, and, from an early age, compiled lists as a relaxation mechanism. After he retired as a physician, he earnestly compiled lists and lists of meanings of words and phrases, and indexed and organized them so that they could be referenced.
Isaac Newton.
I remember reading about some crazy military guy that was like charging machine guns with a bayonet and winning, or something equally absurd. He was like the one Centurion that lived three ages later and is now like the best guy in the army.
Can’t think of his name & I need to go to bed since I’ve had like 3 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours so I can’t fall down the “crazy military story” rabbit hole right now. I’m sure someone smarter than me can link a Wikipedia page.
Anyway, that dude definitely had a touch of the 'tism.
Alan Turing, I bet
Bet.
Alfred Krupp, German steel manufacturer, inventor, and the largest arms dealer of his age.
He was obsessed with building cannons and built the first successful breech loading cannon of cast steel. Common wisdom was that such cannons would explode and kill their operators. He kept building cannons even though nobody would buy them.
He was an extreme hypocondriac who also suffered from depression. He would not leave his bed for weeks or months at a time. He would weigh anyone who visited his house and kept over thirty years of records before he died. He loved the smell of horse dung and had his office built over the stables so he could always smell it.
jesus christ bro was cooked
David Lynch.
Thomas Jefferson. Good at writing, shit at social conventions. Developed a whole mechanised house via slaves. Slavery might not be an autistic trait, but mechanizing your house is.
I wouldn’t consider him a positive example, but he almost certainly was autistic.
All religions figures and or founders.
Nikola Tesla
Buddha
Nietzsche
Probably a major amount of important scientists. Many are known to have been eccentric or downright socially inept; while social ineptitude can be a bit of a hindrance for becoming famous, eccentricity helps a lot with making people remember you. Do most people know Einstein because of his science, or because he’s visually distinct and has that wild photo with his tongue out?
Probably Newton and Tesla. Both seemed to not really understand other people and were more focused on their specific hobbies
Newton is known for physics but I just learned from the Stuff You Should Know pod cast that he was also an alchemist and really worked and studied a lot trying to turn things into gold and discover the elixir of youth
Newton wishes he met this guy
Definitely both of them.
The Einstein picture was on his bIrthday when he wad asked to smile. Not sure if that confirms or refutes your argument
I think I know Einstein because it was so common to call people Einstein either genuinely or sarcastically, I didn’t see the tongue out photo til probably a decade after
I’d assume that he got that reputation because of that image. Once a person becomes a household name, the original thing that made them famous often becomes somewhat forgotten; it’s similar to how today’s memes work. As an example, I’ve been somewhat involved with pokemon online culture for over 10 years and knew about the nuzlocke challenge, but only today did I learn that it came from a webcomic. And I actually read a lot of webcomics, and the webcomic in question was pretty high quality.
Henry Cavendish
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cavendish
Scientific genius, asocial and probably asexual, extremely shy, especially so around women, could only talk to one person at a time, and then only if he knew them, and they were male. Also the largest depositor at the Bank of England in his day.
Euler, most probably.
There is a legit theory in historical circles that Galileo Galilei was brcause he clearly didn’t understand some social conventions. Additionally, he was really ok with home arrest.
Oh no, sentenced to start at my house where all my favorite stuff is, and a legally binding excuse to not have to go to that thing someone invited me to. You sure showed me, whatever shall I do?
