Original subtitles

the course of history.

A brilliant mathematician

who became a criminal mastermind.

And secrets contained within the brain

of Albert Einstein.

For centuries, humanity has wondered

what makes the mind of a genius tick.

Are people like Leonardo da Vinci

or Albert Einstein born with a special gift

that the rest of us simply don't possess?

Or do we all have the potential for genius

locked inside our minds, just waiting to be unleashed?

Well, that is what we'll try and find out.

In this suburb located seven miles

from downtown Los Angeles lives Kashe Quest.

Although Kashe is similar to other three-year-olds

in some ways,

her mental abilities are astonishing.

Some experts have even claimed that she's a genius.

SUKHJIT ATHWAL: Let's do a few elements. Are you ready?

-Yeah. -All right, what's this one?

-Chlorine. -Chlorine. What's this one?

-Helium. -Helium. What's this one?

-Beryllium. -What's this?

QUEST: Copper.

We got to take turns.

SHATNER: Since the age of two, Kashe has been able

to visually recognize and memorize

the elements on the periodic table

and all 50 states on the map,

which the vast majority of children her age cannot do.

In fact, Kashe is the youngest person ever admitted into Mensa.

The most prestigious

high-intelligence society in the world.

But is it really possible

for someone who is only three years old

to qualify as a genius?

ATHWAL: Very early on, she was just always keen to learning.

She identified all, you know,

basic preschool skills

at 18 months- which were shapes, colors,

numbers, letters and sounds.

Once we started reading her books and doing puzzles,

we just realized how much she was actually retaining.

Show Mommy South Africa.

Kashe is a toddler with gifted abilities.

There it is.

Our pediatrician did say she's doing a lot of things that,

in her history of being a pediatrician,

she has not seen other children do.

Show Mommy Indonesia.

That's what led us to get her tested,

to identify her IQ.

There it is.

And we found out that her IQ was 146.

SHATNER: According to experts, an IQ,

or intelligence quotient,

higher than 140 qualifies as genius-level.

For decades,

scientists have used various kinds of IQ tests

to try and unravel the mystery of what makes someone a genius.

The basis of what we call the IQ test

was developed by a French psychologist

by the name of Alfred Binet

at the beginning of the 20th century.

That original diagnostic developed by Binet

was then taken by the American psychologist

Lewis Terman at Stanford.

He does this big study around San Francisco

where they just administer the IQ test to schoolchildren,

and he tries to weed out anyone below an IQ of 140,

which he identifies as the genius level.

SHATNER: There were two boys who participated in Terman's study

who would go on to win the Nobel Prize in physics

when they grew up-

William Shockley and Luis Alvarez.

But, curiously, because their IQs were less than 140,

the study did not consider them

to have genius-level intelligence.

McMAHON: And it just goes to show you

that genius and intelligence

are not the same thing.

You can have a high IQ, but not necessarily have

all the other kind of skills that are necessary

to produce great things.

RAMANI DURVASULA: The big problem with this word "genius"

is that nobody agrees upon the definition.

All we do know is when we hear it,

we know that the person who is a so-called "genius"

is in possession of abilities or skills

that are far beyond the pale of what most

ordinary human beings possess.

SHATNER: But if an IQ score doesn't answer the question

of what makes someone a genius,

then what does?

What is the common trait- or combination of traits-

that allows geniuses to make

such important contributions to society?

Some experts believe that a clue can be found by examining

both the role that geniuses have played in history

and how our perception of genius

has changed over time.

Genius is a term that actually goes back to ancient Rome,

and, therefore, it's acquired

a lot of different meanings in 2,000 years.

If you look at a lot of historical examples

of geniuses- like Aristotle and Plato,

Isaac Newton, Beethoven

and Albert Einstein-

these are people who are making

very important, highly valued contributions

to our culture, to our civilization.

We're talking about science,

literature, something that is valued by the culture,

an artistic masterpiece.

An absolutely incredible contribution

to a major area of achievement.

McMAHON: We need to be cautious about thinking of genius

as a universal trait.

Genius is less a quality inherent in people and more

a label that we apply to people of supreme intelligence

or creative capacity or productivity.

And the criteria that we use to apply that label changed.

Different skills, different gifts, different capacities

that change from time to place and have changed over history.

(speaking foreign language)

SHATNER: Our understanding of the nature of genius is clearly evolved

and will continue to evolve in the future.

But there's another question about genius

that has been debated for centuries.

Do some people come into the world

already possessing genius

or is it developed after birth?

One dominant idea that evolves around genius

is that genius is born not made.

The great kind of test case in this regard is Mozart.

Mozart is a child prodigy.

He has genius from the beginning,

and he carries that out throughout the rest of his life.

And so, to contemporaries, he seemed to confirm

this belief that genius is just there.

Either you have it or you don't.

Looking at the other side of things,

we know that his father was a music teacher

and he that surely clocked the requisite 10,000 hours

of training and practice to make him the prodigy that he became.

So, there is this kind of idea now

that just intelligence is not enough,

so there's a big debate about this.

But we don't know. (laughs) That's what makes it a mystery.

SHATNER: Today, there are some experts who believe

that genius is a special quality

that certain individuals are simply born with,

but not everyone agrees with that theory.

In fact, at Johns Hopkins University

in Baltimore, Maryland,

a program has actually been instituted

for the purpose of developing geniuses.

It's called CTY,

or the Center for Talented Youth.

DURVASULA: CTY, or The Center for Talented Youth,

identifies gifted youth

and gives them all kinds of enriched

educational experiences,

higher level coursework.

Things that are typically at a higher level

than what a child would be receiving at school

in that particular grade or age level.

With the idea being that,

because these children are such talented children,

that they need this enrichment to be able to cultivate them,

so that they can sort of reach their fullest potential.

Some of the famous alumni

of CTY include Mark Zuckerberg,

Sergey Brin, who was the co-founder of Google.

So, clearly, some of the people who've come out of this program

have shaped society in rather permanent ways.

SIMONTON: Our civilization, our culture is pretty much

defined by our geniuses in the past.

And when a society

loses its geniuses,

when it stops producing its geniuses,

it descends into a dark age.

And so that leads to the question,

what are some things we should look for

to identify geniuses or potential geniuses?

And what can we do to encourage the emergence of genius?

Because genius is an important thing to cultivate.

SHATNER: Tanishq Abraham receives

his Bachelor's degree with highest honors.

But unlike the other graduates picking up their diplomas,

Tanishq is only 15 years old.

And then, from there on, we kind of figured,

yeah, he's getting the hang of this,

and so we start introducing new concepts to him.

BIJOU ABRAHAM: When Tanishq was four years old, we took his IQ test.

He had such a high IQ score, I don't think I knew anybody

who had that high of an IQ score, personally.

So, that's when I realized

there's something unusual about this kid.

TANISHQ ABRAHAM: I actually want to go to medical school

and become a doctor,

and I want to become a physician scientist.

I know that I have a talent and I want to put it to good use.

SHATNER: What makes Tanishq Abraham's mind

different from everyone else's?

Although scientists have been studying child prodigies

like Tanishq for years,

they still don't really have an explanation.

And in his case,

an explanation is further complicated by the fact

that Tanishq isn't the only genius in his family.

BIJOU: Tiara had started singing at a really young age.

She started out singing, like, simple songs

like "Happy Birthday" and things like that,

but she sang it in an opera style,

and so, we'd go and ask musicians, "Is that normal?"

And they're just like, "That's not normal." So...

That's when we felt, "Okay, we have a different type

of prodigy on our hands."

Not the highly scientific intellect type,

but Tiara has her prodigy more in the arts,

and she has a really amazing memory.

TIARA ABRAHAM: I've learned six languages,

including Spanish, French, Italian, and German.

And, just for fun, I memorized around 550 digits of pi.

It's amazing that, in a short amount of time,

she was able to memorize those numbers.

She kind of described it like, uh, dance programs,

where the notes start scrolling down,

and that's how she feels, she said.

The numbers are just scrolling by,

and she just starts reciting them.

3.141592653

5897932384626

4338327950

288419716

9399375105820

97494459.

JUDY HO: People don't even agree on the definition of what a genius is.

We know that it's not hereditary like the way your eye color is.

And so, really, many times,

people who are defined or talked about as geniuses,

they do come from families with parents with normal IQ.

And so, I don't think we know very much

about exactly why genius occurs.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: What's so special about these kids?

Why is it that their brain developed in such a way

that they can solve problems or understand things

that adults take years to do?

SHATNER: Is it possible that the potential for genius

lies within each and every one of us?

Somewhere deep within each of our brains?

Perhaps the answer can be found by examining the case

of a man who wasn't born a genius

but became one at the age of 39.

While in town visiting his mother,

corporate sales trainer Derek Amato

reconnects with some old friends at a pool party.

AMATO: We got together at the pool for a little barbecue,

and we were challenging one another

to do all these goofy stunts,

and I told one of the guys to throw the football,

and I would run and dive over the water and catch it,

and I hit my head on the bottom of the shallow end

of the swimming pool.

I knew I had hurt myself,

but I didn't know to what extent.

After they took me to my mom's house,

she rushed me right to the hospital.

They had done a bunch of scans,

and I didn't have any bleeding.

So they kept me to monitor what was going on,

and the next morning they sent me home.

SHATNER: Despite a serious head injury

that could've left him paralyzed or worse,

Derek appeared to make a full recovery.

Other than a bump on his head,

there didn't seem to be anything different about him.

Or so everyone thought.

AMATO: I did go home with my mother and stay with her

for the next five days, and I slept.

I remember little moments, periodically, looking up and

seeing these blocks, these black and white squares

and I just thought they were little marks

just from my head injury

that I was seeing these little, um, shapes.

After five days, the gentleman

that was with me when I hit my head

came over to pick me up and

we went over to his apartment,

and there was a small keyboard in the corner.

And, as we were talking, I just kind of felt drawn

to walk over to it.

And I sat down and...

that's when my hands

just started to absolutely go

like I had been playing for years,

and it was a pretty profound moment

because I had never touched a piano.

I did not see those black and white squares

prior to my head injury,

and then, after some time working with some doctors,

we've kind of put these pieces together to understand that

those little boxes are the notes

that are telling my hands what to do and where to go.

SHATNER: In the years after his accident,

Derek has become a virtuoso pianist

and has played on stages across the United States.

And even though thousands of people

have now seen him perform, the question still remains:

how did Derek

develop his incredible ability

seemingly overnight

and without ever taking a single piano lesson?

AMATO: My reaction at the moment I discovered

my hands were playing the piano was

"How am I going to explain this to someone?"

I became so curious that I started looking

on the Internet for any information I could find on it,

and they even had a title for it as

acquired savant syndrome

and that was all new words for me

because I thought a savant was a French pastry.

HO: Acquired savant syndrome means that,

after some kind of brain injury or damage,

all of a sudden, this person becomes

really specialized in some area

that they previously had no skill in.

SUSAN SCHNEIDER: Scientists have identified damage

to a particular area of the brain,

the left anterior temporal lobe, as being essential

to the creation of acquired savant syndrome.

The theory is that, perhaps,

because the left hemisphere started to go dark

after this injury, now the right side

could feel free to express themselves fully,

and they develop these artistic abilities.

SHATNER: The remarkable abilities of people like Derek Amato

suggest that even if we aren't born a genius,

there is something in our brains

that could be rewired to make us one.

AMATO: I believe we all have these gifts,

and it may not be musical gifts in all of us, but I think

we're designed gifted, and I think it's just a matter

of discovery from there on out.

SHATNER: Music teacher Adam Ockelford is in the middle of a lesson,

when a blind five-year-old boy bursts through the door

and changes Adam's life forever.

I first met Derek 35 years ago.

And this totally blind little boy,

who was desperate to get at the piano,

and he just pushed us out of the way and got playing.

And I thought, "God, he's mad."

You know, there were notes flying everywhere.

He was playing "Don't Cry for Me Argentina,"

but with lots of scales and arpeggios and chords.

And I suddenly thought, "Wow, you know, he's not mad.

He's a genius."

When I first tried to teach Derek,

it turned out he could just play any tune that I named.

He was only five years old and already in his head

he clearly had thousands of songs already memorized.

Derek was born very premature,

and he had to have a lot of oxygen to keep him alive,

and we know from modern neuroscience that doing that

to a brain causes it to grow in a slightly different way,

to wire itself up in a different way.

The thing with teaching autistic children

like Derek is to form a relationship with him.

He's got to trust you.

He's almost got to love you, really, as a little boy.

It's almost like a parent-child relationship.

So, he'll trust you to take him into new territories

that he doesn't necessarily feel comfortable with.

It's got to be a human relationship.

TERRY WOGAN: He's making it up as he went along.

-Terrific. -(audience applauds)

What a great gift and what a great talent,

and it's something for you to be very proud of.

-Derek Paravicini. -(applause)

SHATNER: Over the next 35 years,

Adam worked closely with Derek to hone his natural abilities.

The result?

Derek is not only

a world-renowned professional pianist,

but someone whom scientists believe

may be among a rare group of humans who possess

the most finely developed sense of hearing in the world.

OCKELFORD: The whole of Derek's musical ability

is really founded on one thing,

which is his hearing is so acute,

he can hear tiny differences in notes that most people can't,

and Derek can remember them as well.

Derek, shall we play our copy game?

We'll play our copy game, please, Adam.

Perfect pitch is really rare amongst people as a whole,

probably about one in 10,000 people have perfect pitch,

but Derek has kind of perfect pitch plus.

Play this note exactly as it is. Ready?

(both play note)

OCKELFORD: So, I can play one note, say F sharp,

and Derek instantly hears it.

You know exactly which one it is, don't you?

-I do. -What if I play two notes?

OCKELFORD: But there's more to it than that,

'cause if he hears two notes

or three notes or even ten notes

all at the same time...

Four notes.

...instantly, Derek can hear it.

Uh, seven notes.

OCKELFORD: In fact, we've done tests with him,

and he can hear ten notes,

and he processes them in less than half a second.

Yeah.

Every day, I sit down

and we start to play and I think,

"How did you do that?"

And that, to me, is what keeps it interesting

because musicians give me a window

into the brain that's unique.

We have developed tools and research to try to infer

about what happens in someone's brain,

but I have personally been involved

in measuring Derek's ability,

and I can very confidently say

that I have exhausted our technological means

to actually try to develop a test

that could measure Derek's ability.

Some people say that Derek's abilities are almost superhuman,

but I would say that it's much more sophisticated than that.

Not only can he unpack

tens, dozens, hundreds of pitches,

he can make musical sense of them,

and that's something that only Derek can do.

I have not come across any piece of technology that can do that.

SHATNER: While Derek has set a new bar for hearing aptitude,

it appears that his heightened sense

is not without its downsides.

Because, as superhuman as Derek's hearing is,

the rest of his mind seems to have paid a price.

-Yay! -Well done, Derek.

-Did you enjoy that? -Enjoyed that, Adam.

-Yay. Good session? -Good session.

The thing with Derek's abilities, they come at a cost.

They come at a cost of understanding language,

of being able to sustain himself independently,

being able to function independently.

Derek is almost like Alice in the looking glass.

Everything is reversed.

So, really complicated things

that most people would find impossible,

like a whole piece of music,

go straight into his long-term memory.

Really easy things,

like "what did you have for lunch today"

just don't stick.

That's the extraordinary enigma of Derek.

SHATNER: But what is it that gives Derek his extraordinary ability?

Is it simply his means of compensating for his blindness

or is there something more to it than that?

MICHAEL DENNIN: When we think about these cases, an obvious place to go is,

"Oh, he's blind, so it's the lack of eyesight

that is contributing to this."

What I don't know, and I think people are still

looking at is, is that something that happens

sort of early on in the formation of the brain

that's purely a function of, "Oh, the eyesight

isn't really being connected"

or is it a process that happens more over time?

Understanding what that connection is,

I think, is a very deep and interesting question.

STEPHEN LOMBER: I think when you consider individuals that have

a severely impaired sense, like blindness or deafness,

they're gonna have a very different reality

than people that have more or less intact senses.

But don't think of it in terms just of the loss,

but the fact that they're gonna have amplifications

in their remaining intact senses.

OCKELDORD: The great thing about Derek is Derek the person.

He's so much more than a clever musician.

Derek is above all a people person.

So, he makes his music for people.

He'll remember people he meets

in terms of the pieces they like.

He may not remember the name, but he'll remember

a particular piece of music they asked for,

even ten or 20 years later.

(cheering, applause)

Derek Paravicini's extraordinary gifts

are a reminder that genius can take

many different inspiring forms.

But there are other stories of genius

that are not an inspiration,

but rather a cautionary tale.

Like in the case of a man who started out life

as a mathematical prodigy

but later became better known...

...as the Unabomber.

SHATNER: A 16-year-old math prodigy

is invited to attend Harvard University,

one of only a handful ever to be admitted so young.

As an adult, he goes on to become a brilliant

and distinguished mathematics professor.

His name is Ted Kaczynski

or, as he's better known today,

the Unabomber.

Ted Kaczynski was a brilliant man,

a wunderkind when he was a child,

who turned all that brilliance and genius towards evil.

REPORTER: The Unabomber has been spreading terror

one small bomb at a time for 17 years.

WIEHL: From 1978 until 1995,

Ted Kaczynski bombed universities,

tech centers, an airline.

Three people died, then 20-some were maimed over the time.

And he would transport the bombs in different ways.

Some he mailed,

and others he would actually deliver it, leave,

and then sit back and wait for the reaction.

He kept the nation in suspense and fear.

People were afraid of opening mail.

JOEL MOSS: The term Unabomb comes from the code word given to the case

because the initial few bombs appeared to have something to do

with either universities or with the airline industry.

Now, later, there were other targets,

but by then, the codename for the case

had already been chosen.

SHATNER: But what led Ted Kaczynski down such a dark path?

Many researchers believe it traces back

to when he was identified

as being exceptionally intelligent

when he was very young.

Ted Kaczynski is a very interesting case

because, evidently,

he was a pretty well-adapted kid in elementary school,

and actually was considered to be something of a leader.

And then somebody got the bright idea

that he should take an IQ test.

He did, and he got an IQ score of 167.

You have to have 140 to be defined as a genius.

So what's 167?

That's one out of a million people.

WIEHL: It was recommended by the school

that he skip a grade when he was only ten years old.

So, to skip from fifth to seventh grade.

The problem with it is

he was with older kids that he didn't know.

He became more and more socially isolated.

David, his younger brother, reports that, at one point,

Kaczynski was being very mean to him.

And Ted says, "Well, sometimes, geniuses can be sadistic."

He was acknowledging that,

as a genius, he could be bad,

sadistic, and he could work that genius for evil.

SHATNER: Ted Kaczynski graduated from Harvard in 1962,

at the age of 20.

He then pursued his PhD at the University of Michigan,

where he did groundbreaking work in the field of mathematics.

PUCKETT: One of the hallmarks of his intelligence was,

in the late '60s,

he won an award for his dissertation, in fact, his PhD

in mathematics at Ann Arbor in Michigan

because he solved a theorem that had been thought unsolvable

for decades by mathematicians.

He solved it and published it.

WIEHL: From Michigan, then he went to Berkeley to teach mathematics.

He was the youngest assistant professor

that the mathematics department had ever had.

But the students hated him, absolutely loathed him.

Didn't have any class hours, he wouldn't talk to them.

I mean, he was very disdainful of everybody.

PUCKETT: His genius was in everything

but social commerce with other people.

He wasn't able to negotiate

the social world with other people.

And so, he grew convinced

that he had to get away from people, away from society.

SHATNER: In 1969, Kaczynski

suddenly and unexpectedly resigned

from his position at Berkley.

He then withdrew from society

by moving to Lincoln, Montana,

where he lived in a small cabin

that did not have running water or electricity.

WIEHL: The cabin was just this rustic place off the grid,

eight by 12 feet.

That was his getting off the grid and getting so far away

from civilization, everything.

PUCKETT: He was very happy when he first moved to the woods.

He wrote rapturously about it, about how beautiful it was.

But then planes started flying overhead.

He noticed motorcyclists riding through the forest

and disturbing the nature that he was glorying in.

It turned to bitter hatred of the technological society.

He viewed technology as evil,

as the evolution of technology as evil,

and the technical class

as perverting the human spirit.

MOSS: What he discovers is

he can't get away from society, even there.

The society that he's trying to escape

is closing in on him anyway.

And there's nothing he can do about it,

so he strikes back.

PUCKETT: He had taught himself bomb making.

He ended up creating chemical mixes,

melting his own components and casting them

and putting them into the devices,

carving wood to make specific trigger switches.

He was a brilliant criminal in that

he was able to expertly

exclude anything identifying himself;

any hairs, any fibers, any fingerprints.

He was unlike any bomber that we had seen before.

SHATNER: In 1978,

Kaczynski carried out his first attack

by mailing a parcel containing a homemade bomb

to Northwestern University.

It was the beginning of a reign of terror

during which he carried out a total of 16 bombings

over the course of nearly two decades.

For Kaczynski, these attacks were not random killings,

but rather targeted strikes

against the institutions he believed represented

technological society.

His purpose was to wake people up

to the dangers of technology.

He would not have been able to promote his views

if he had not gotten the attention

of the media and the government and law enforcement

by killing people with his bombs.

That was his goal.

SHATNER: In 1995, Kaczynski wrote an anonymous

35,000 word anti-technology manifesto

that he demanded to be published in major newspapers.

Ironically, it was a decision that would lead to his undoing.

PUCKETT: Ted's brother David had read the manifesto,

and phrases jumped out at David right away.

And he had tried to push them down.

"It can't be, it can't be."

There were phrases that appeared in the manifesto

that were unusual spellings that appeared,

that were unusual, and David recognized him.

The upshot was that, finally, David and his wife

went to an attorney in D.C. and said,

"We'd like to approach the FBI."

SHATNER: On April 3rd, 1996,

FBI agents finally arrested Kaczynski at his Montana cabin.

He was found guilty on all counts

that were charged in the indictment.

Had the Unabomb Manifesto not been published,

it's my view that we probably would still be looking

for Theodore Kaczynski.

WIEHL: Ted's evil genius

helped him build bombs that nobody could trace.

And yet, the evil genius

needed to be fed with hubris

and acknowledgement.

And that, ultimately, was his downfall.

SHATNER: Albert Einstein, the celebrated physicist

considered to be the father of modern physics,

dies at the age of 76.

While Einstein's wish is to be cremated,

Princeton hospital chief pathologist Thomas Harvey

must first determine the cause of death.

But with the body of Albert Einstein

on the autopsy table,

Harvey's interest is drawn to something else.

He wanted to find out

what made Albert Einstein tick.

And he sees, "Wow,

there's the source of it all. The brain."

LEPORE: There was something about the brain that fascinated him,

and with no small amount of effort,

he cut the skull, removed the brain,

perfused it with formaldehyde,

and the next morning The New York Times says that

Thomas Harvey has preserved the brain for scientific study.

SHATNER: Thomas Harvey believed that somewhere

within Einstein's brain was the secret to his genius.

So he persuaded Einstein's son Hans Albert

to let him do a study of his father's brain.

LEPORE: Hans Albert and Einstein's executor

came down to speak to Harvey about it.

And Harvey impressed upon them just the uniqueness

and criticality of looking at Einstein's brain

as a way of approaching how people

of intellect and genius think.

SHATNER: Harvey took more than a dozen photos of Einstein's brain,

dissected it, and shaved off thin slices

for microscopic study.

But years passed, and Harvey never published

any papers or scientific observations.

He also never returned the brain,

but rather stole it and kept it for himself,

with no intention of ever giving it back.

Once Thomas Harvey had the brain,

he didn't let it out of his sight.

He left his position as chief of pathology

at Princeton Hospital

and he headed out to the Midwest

and he went into general practice.

But the brain was always with him,

stored in two large glass jars

and in cardboard boxes.

EBNER: There's been a historical trend of

examining the brains or the gray matter

of geniuses

to try and find out what makes them tick.

There's a fine line

between science and grave robbing.

Harvey got a little bit greedy here because

not only did he swipe Einstein's brain,

it was basically a memento for him to have on his shelf.

You'd think that the next of kin

might have something to say about it.

LEPORE: Harvey segued from his job,

which is to determine the cause of death of a patient

at Princeton Hospital, and he did that

when he completed the autopsy.

And at that point, all we know is that

he didn't want to hand it over, and that's why he said,

"I keep Einstein's brain.

I'm the pathologist, and I'm studying it."

SHATNER: Two decades after the death of Albert Einstein,

the rest of his body had been cremated,

his wife and children had passed away,

and the world had all but forgotten

about what happened to the famed physicist's brain.

But that all changed in 1978,

when a young reporter named Steven Levy

tracked down the whereabouts of Einstein's brain

for a magazine article

and discovered that Thomas Harvey

was still in possession of Einstein's brain.

EBNER: Levy wrote about this,

and all of a sudden,

it brought renewed interest

to what in the hell was going on with Albert Einstein's brain.

So, the medical community was scratching their heads.

They were like, "Okay, he's got the brain,

"in pieces, as it were.

Let's have a closer look."

SHATNER: As it turns out, when Harvey gave back the dissected pieces

of the brain, scientists made a remarkable discovery.

A discovery that could finally reveal

the secret behind Einstein's genius.

SHATNER: Neurologist Frederick Lepore is given the rare opportunity

to photograph the remains of Einstein's brain.

The pathologist brought out two jars containing

little gauze-wrapped cubes,

which were the remaining sections of Einstein's brain.

That's a very interesting and provocative moment.

How did that inanimate brain tissue develop

world-shaking theories?

And the process begins by looking at the anatomy

and trying to see if it can give us

some answers to the question of,

"Why was Einstein such a profound genius?"

SHATNER: What made Albert Einstein different?

It's a question that Thomas Harvey

first asked in 1955,

and one that led him to steal Einstein's brain

in hopes of getting an answer.

I had the opportunity to meet with Thomas Harvey

in retirement in the spring of 2000.

He'd never really had given up that dream

of trying to, from every possible avenue,

look at this piece of tissue

and try to come up with answers as to Einstein's genius.

SHATNER: In 2007, Thomas Harvey died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Ironically, because Thomas Harvey stole

Einstein's brain and preserved it for so many years,

scientists had the opportunity to examine it

with modern technology.

And when they did,

they discovered that the brain of this visionary genius

was, in fact, different.

JOHN MARTIN: Neuroscientists found that Einstein's brain

had enlarged parietal lobes.

And, in addition, they found that

part of the parietal lobe,

instead of having all these grooves,

it was sort of an enlarged, flattened area.

And so it looked quite remarkable.

LEPORE: The parietal lobe is an area of the brain that helps us

with visual spatial recognition.

And neuropathologists' conclusion

was the exceptional brain of Albert Einstein

was due to the parietal lobe being

anatomically different from the human norm.

McMAHON: Genius is a combination of innate ability,

but also, then, it's very clear that human beings

believe that geniuses are exception to the ordinary laws

of nature or of humanity.

That they can do what ordinary human beings can't.

Literally picking the brains of a visionary person

sounds a little gruesome,

but if there is one mind that holds the secret

of genius, it would be Albert Einstein's.

Imagine what it would be like to find the key

to unlocking the human brain's full potential.

Mm. It's a fascinating possibility to explore.

However, the true nature of genius may ultimately lie

just beyond our grasp

and remain unexplained.

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