The Mind Creative APRIL 2015 APRIL 2015 | Page 7

Wikipedia defines an autodidact to be ‘a self-educated person; one who has had little or no formal education’. The word has been derived from the Greek word autodidaktos. There have been many well-known autodidacts who have astounded the world with their extraordinary knowledge and skills. A handful of these people have been amateurs in their field of interest and yet have had an enormous impact on the world. A few of these personalities have also been labelled as geniuses and their self-learnt abilities have, to an extent, changed the world. Here are the extraordinary life stories of a few such personalities…. 7