Have a friend who was a MacArthur Scholar. His best friend was a guy who was very similar. They worked together on mail-in chess, one or the other would be the US champion.

When Lockheed or Boeing had an impossible problem they would hire this guy to spend 6 or 8 weeks with them, cloistered, and he would sometimes have to come up with a new math to solve the matter. The guy wasn't interested in shaving or bathing, would do so when necessary, didn't own a car, walked 8 miles one-way to the library every day, had money piled up my friend had to watch for him.

Seems to be a common trait amongst some brilliant mathematicians.

As another friend who got his Ph. D. in math from Berkeley at the same time as Kascynski said about him, you just couldn't figure out how he made the connections to do what he did. Considered the Unabomber to be an absolute genius as a mathematician, didn't know squat about people or getting along with them (obviously).

Arf