Simon Norton, mathematical prodigy who became the subject of the biography ‘The Genius in my Basement’ – obituary

Telegraph:

Simon Norton, who has died from a heart condition aged 66, was an Eton-educated maths prodigy considered one of the greatest minds of the 20th century – until the mid-1980s, when he lost his position at Cambridge University and ended up living in squalor in a dingy Cambridge basement packed with bulging plastic bags and piles of bus timetables, living on a diet of tinned mackerel, Bombay mix and brinjal pickle.

In 2011 his story was told by Alexander Masters, his one-time Cambridge tenant, in The Genius in my Basement: The biography of a happy man, a comically affectionate portrait which in the end could not bridge the chasm between the outer and the inner man.

Simon Norton was born on February…