How every genius enjoys a ‘hot streak’
THE unrecognised genius toiling away in obscurity should keep the faith and struggle on, for their time will inevitably come, a study suggests.
Considering the work of scientists, artists and film directors, it found a ‘hot streak’ happens in almost every career.
These periods tend to last around five years during which people have a string of successes beyond anything they have achieved before. The study cited Albert Einstein in 1905, when he finished three papers in three months that would radically change the way we think about space and time.
It also noted Vincent Van Gogh’s year of blockbuster paintings in 1888, when he produced Sunflowers, Van Gogh’s Chair and Starry Night Over The Rhone.
A hot streak is defined as a period when someone’s performance is ‘substantially better’ than usual. The study was led by researchers at Northwestern University in the US who considered the work of 3,480 artists, 6,233 film directors and 20,040 scientists.
Looking at the prices that artists’ works fetched at auction, directors’ ratings on the Internet Movie Database website and scientists’ citations in academic journals, they found almost everyone had a hot streak.
But the study, published in Nature, suggests lightning rarely strikes twice. Two-thirds of artists, four out of five directors and 68 per cent of scientists only had such a time once.