Cover photo: R. Cottrell, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
The Polgár Experiment: Geniuses Aren't Born
A father believed genius is built, not born — and proved it on his own daughters.
About
In nineteen sixty-five, Hungarian László Polgár wrote a manifesto to a woman he had never met: how he intended to raise genius children, if she agreed to become his partner in the experiment. Klara said yes, and the plan that letter described was carried out on three real daughters: Susan, Sofia and Judit.
László chose chess because it can be measured objectively, kept the girls out of school, and faced attacks from neighbors and experts who saw abuse where he saw upbringing. The youngest daughter, Judit, became the youngest grandmaster in the history of chess at fifteen, breaking a thirty-three-year-old record held by Bobby Fischer, and later the only woman ever to reach the world's top ten, defeating eleven former or reigning world champions, Garry Kasparov among them.
A story about how far a child can go when someone believes, without any reservation, that they can — and about the question the family itself never stopped facing: where devoted upbringing ends, and exploitation begins.
Sources
- Wikipedia — "László Polgár" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r
- Wikipedia — "Judit Polgár" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r
- Wikipedia — "Susan Polgar" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Polgar
- Wikipedia — "Sofia Polgar" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofia_Polgar
- Britannica — "Judit Polgar" — https://www.britannica.com/biography/Judit-Polgar
- Psychology Today — "The Grandmaster Experiment" — https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200507/the-grandmaster-experiment
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