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Alasdair Beal: Polymaths - Who Needs 'Em?

Are polymaths merely jacks of all trades and masters of none? The orthodox view is that real progress comes from the sustained efforts of specialists who concentrate their efforts on a limited area of research in order to make breakthroughs.

Alasdair Beal challenges this view and discusses the achievements of some of history's great polymaths, including Leonardo da Vinci and the English scientist Thomas Young (who could speak Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Hebrew, German, Chaldean, Syriac, Samaritan, Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Amharic before he was fourteen).