To operationalize the theory, one can design asymmetry indexes: ratios measuring the disparity between intellectual contribution and economic reward. For example:
Contribution--Reward Gap (CRG): difference between the scope of originality (e.g., citations, derivative technologies) and the creator's lifetime wealth.
Time Lag Index (TLI): average years between creation and economic recognition.
Waste Estimate Metric (WEM): proportion of rediscovered or belatedly recognized contributions relative to total innovation.
Such metrics transform what has been treated as anecdotal tragedy into measurable structural phenomena.
5. Narrative Deconstruction as Method
Because epistemological blindness is sustained by cultural narratives, methodology must also involve discourse analysis: unpacking how genius is narrated in biographies, textbooks, and motivational literature. By exposing how myths of eccentricity, impracticality, or madness are deployed, scholars can reveal the ideological mechanisms that protect the illusion.
Implication for Research
Methodologically, then, this theory demands multi-disciplinary tools:
Economics must measure not only production but distribution of recognition and wealth.
Sociology must account for gatekeeping and institutional conservatism.
Philosophy of science must interrogate how epistemic frameworks misrecognize anticipatory value.
Only through this methodological pluralism can we move beyond anecdotes of tragic genius and toward a structural science of genius--wealth asymmetry.
VI. Case Studies
A. Tesla vs. Edison (Science and Technology)
History loves to tell the story of Tesla and Edison as a clash of two great minds. But strip away the romantic varnish, and what we see is less a duel of equals than a morality play in which genius is sacrificed on the altar of exploitation leverage.
Tesla: the lightning conjurer, the dreamer of wireless worlds.
A man who saw the Earth itself as a conductor, who envisioned free and limitless energy for all humanity. His curiosity capital was infinite, his imagination unbounded. Yet he died in a New York hotel room, feeding pigeons, unpaid and forgotten, while his patents had already lit the modern world.
Edison: the patent clerk of Prometheus, the shrewd salesman of sparks.
He did not dream of free energy for all. He dreamed of a utility company with monthly bills. He mastered not nature, but the institution. Investors, publicity, patents, courtrooms---these were Edison's laboratory. Where Tesla electrified the world, Edison electrified Wall Street.
The market called Edison "rational" and Tesla "eccentric." But let us decode this satire:
