Self-taught
A list of great self-taught feats/careers.
Leopold Godowsky was one of the greatest virtuoso pianists and composers of his time, earning the respect of other greats like Rachmaninoff and Arrau, and Hofmann. He composed many works, but the most famous are his 54 Studies on Chopin's Études, where he augments Chopin's already challenging études with impossibly hard techniques like countermelodies , transcriptions for left hand solo , and interweaving three études together . They're known as some of the most technically difficult piano pieces ever written, and only a few pianists have even tried to perform them. Classical music typically requires decades of formal training and education, but Godowsky received almost none:
I would be very glad could I have stated with truth that I was a pupil of [Franz] Liszt or any other great man, but I was not. I have not had three months lessons in my life.
Srinivasa Ramanujan was one of the greatest mathematicians, and he made significant contributions to multiple areas of pure math. Despite growing up in poverty, having almost no education/books, and passing away at just age 32, Ramanujan discovered nearly 3,900 novel, highly unconventional results. Working as a clerk to support his family, he spent his free time researching in isolation, often having to independently rediscover known results from famous mathematicians like Euler and Jacobi. There are many stories and accounts of his genius and remarkable intuition .
George Green was a mathematical physicist who wrote an essay, where he created the first mathematical theory of electricity and magnetism and introduced many important concepts like Green's theorem and Green's function. His theory helped form the foundation for other great scientists like James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson. Green was almost entirely self-taught: he only had 1 year of schooling, and much of his advanced math knowledge came after the age of 30 after he became a member of the Nottingham Subscription Library while working as a miller. In fact, he even published his essay privately because he didn't think someone with no formal education could should it to a journal.
Oliver Heaviside was a mathematician and physicist who pioneered operational calculus, laid the groundwork for modern telecommunications, and rewrote Maxwell's equations into the form commonly used today. He had no education past age 16, and he self-studied and independently conducted research from home while working as a telegraph operator and electrician.
I was determined to master the book and set to work. I was very ignorant. I had no knowledge of mathematical analysis (having learned only school algebra, and trigonometry which I had largely forgotten), and thus my work was laid out for me. It took me several years before I could understand as much as I possibly could. Then I set Maxwell aside and followed my own course. And I progressed much more quickly...
Scientific establishments often ridiculed Heaviside's work due to his lack of rigor and background, but he published his work anyway and eventually gained recognition as one of the most important researchers of his time.
The Wright brothers were aviation pioneers who invented, built, and flew the world's first airplane. Neither of them had education after high school, and they taught themselves mechanical skills while working their day jobs involving printing presses, bicycles, and motors. This included learning through relentless experimentation like building their own wind tunnel, collecting aerodynamic data, and conducting many flight experiments. The first sustained and controlled powered flight took place on December 17, 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Dick Fosbury was an Olympic gold medalist high jumper who revolutionized the sport by inventing the Fosbury Flop . Prior to Fosbury, coaches primarily taught the straddle technique . Despite pushback from his coaches and the media, he experimented, refined, and practiced the run-up and jump techniques to minimize the height of athlete's center of gravity throughout the jump and maximize take-off thrust time. Fosbury went on to win gold at the 1968 Olympics, and no man or woman has won an Olympic medal without using the Fosbury Flop since 1980.
Motivation
I wrote this post because I like living by the philosophy that anyone can learn to do anything if they try hard enough, and it's inspiring to learn about people that achieved great things regardless of their lack of resources or divergence from traditional paths. Often times, these people also produce some of the most unconventional and interesting ideas of all time due to extreme self-directed thinking, passion, and independence. With technology and information access improving so rapidly today, it's more important than ever for smart, motivated people to strive to do great work—no matter how hard it seems.
Criteria
It's tricky to define and verify what qualifies as both sufficiently impressive and self-taught to be included in this list. For this list, I defined it as people who:
- Self-taught themselves or were extremely self-directed in a way that was atypical for their time and field.
- Accomplished, produced, or discovered revolutionary results.
These criteria excludes people typically cited as autodidacts like Steve Jobs (entrepreneurs have to be autodidactic by nature), Jimi Hendrix (almost every rock/pop musician is self-taught), or Benjamin Franklin (hard to verify sources). If you have any disagreements or suggestions, please send me them.