I encountered Steve by sending him an email to ask a question about one of his papers.  After a few rapid fire email exchanges I found myself on the phone with him for over an hour the very next day discussing topics as wide ranging as his interests.  He's one of the first people I have met that I would definitely consider a polymath in that his expertise spans multiple disciplines (including my own).  After our talk I sent him some questions.  We covered everything from physics and Richard Feynman's supposedly "low" IQ to his latest research in intelligence.  Finally, I asked him if he thought we would ever find another Einstein.

WAI: In a nutshell, tell me what your physics research is about.

HSU: I'm interested in the basic constituents of nature ("fundamental particles") and the rules that govern their interactions ("quantum field theory" or "quantum gravity"). My work involves things like quarks, black holes, the big bang, and quantum mechanics.

2. What led you to pursue physics?  Tell me about your scientific heroes.

I had a natural attraction to the subject: it attempts to describe the universe with mathematical precision, yet in order to do so has to grapple with conceptually difficult and ill-defined ideas like causality and space and time.

My scientific hero since when I was in high school was Richard Feynman. See link:
http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2007/07/feynman-video.html

What I liked most about Feynman was his unlimited curiosity and willingness to pursue problems wherever they lead. He was also a very down to earth person. I was lucky enough to attend Caltech while he was still on campus.

3.  Is it true Feynman's IQ score was only 125?

Feynman was universally regarded as one of the fastest thinking and most creative theorists in his generation. Yet it has been reported-including by Feynman himself-that he only obtained a score of 125 on a school IQ test. I suspect that this test emphasized verbal, as opposed to mathematical, ability. Feynman received the highest score in the country by a large margin on the notoriously difficult Putnam mathematics competition exam, although he joined the MIT team on short notice and did not prepare for the test. He also reportedly had the highest scores on record on the math/physics graduate admission exams at Princeton. It seems quite possible to me that Feynman's cognitive abilities might have been a bit lopsided-his vocabulary and verbal ability were well above average, but perhaps not as great as his mathematical abilities. I recall looking at excerpts from a notebook Feynman kept while an undergraduate. While the notes covered very advanced topics for an undergraduate-including general relativity and the Dirac equation-it also contained a number of misspellings and grammatical errors. I doubt Feynman cared very much about such things.