Johnson learned wherever he went. On a visit to an army camp in 1778, when he was nearly sixty, he enquired about many aspects of military practice, including the weight of musket balls, and the range at which they could be effective. He displayed a good knowledge of gunpowder, talked on a range of military topics, and sat up late watching a court martial. The inventor Richard Arkwright said Johnson was the only person who, on first view, ‘understood the principal and powers of his most complicated piece of machinery’. He had been advised by his cousin Cornelius Ford, with whom he spent some formative months as a young man, ‘to obtain some general principles of every science’.

– Henry Oliver

Similar to Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Johnson was a man interested in everything.

Second time through on the Samuel Johnson chapter…

Oliver, Henry. Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life. United Kingdom, John Murray Press, 2024. pg181, Kindle edition.