Comment by norir

It's interesting to me that I can't think of anyone remotely comparable to Euler in the public consciousness today. Even the work of someone like Erdos seems very esoteric by comparison and also was largely done in collaboration. Was Euler just born at the right time and picking all the low hanging fruit? Or maybe his immense creative production was a unique consequence of wealth plus limited distractions? I'm inclined to believe there are similarly talented individuals today but wonder if it is even possible to fully recognize them in the moment. Perhaps we will only discover the Eulers (and Shakespeares and Bachs) of today in a few hundred years time.