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Comment by lectrick | Hacker News Reader

> Acquaintances state appointee and wife divorced over year ago and have no reason to question moral character of either. Pertinent news articles re appointee set forth including article reporting divorce result of appointee's interest in calculus and African drums and his choking wife and smashing furniture when interrupted by wife.

I kind of have to wonder if Feynman would have been diagnosed with ADD in this day and age. ADD folks tend to hyperfocus on stuff like that, and unfortunately it jars relationships (ADD people have a 50% higher divorce rate)

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In the present day war on boys and brains, our institutions would have had Feynman locked up and medicated at age 5.

"War on boys and brains" and "locked up" are rather florid characterizations of the ADHD condition and its treatments.

You don't say! Especially given all his experiments on radios, chemistry and other gadgets. I have little doubts that he would have been a prankster computer hacker if he were in school today.

Is it possible to hyperfocus the way Feynman did when you have ADD though? From my limited understanding, the 'hyperfocus' is really just a focus on smaller things, not sustained obsession with specific, difficult problems.

I recognize many symptoms of ADD in myself, but most of these have to do with boredom. I just cannot sit through a lecture if it doesn't capture my interest, and I get distracted. I find it difficult to converse sometimes, because an argument is one I've heard once too often, or it's with one of those people where I can finish most of their sentences.

But when I find the right topic, I can easily spend days obsessed with specific things. In fact, it seems that it's all or nothing for me. Is that a characteristic of ADD?

> Is it possible to hyperfocus the way Feynman did when you have ADD though?

I wouldn't say everyone with ADD can come up with the same results Feynman did, but I would say they can generally focus effectively on "the right topic," if it really interests them. The problem is they can't choose what this will be: in other words, their mind still gets set on tasks, but they can't set their minds to tasks.

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