12 year old boy with higher IQ than Einstein develops his own theory of relativity

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I'm not trying to steal the glory of a 12 year old, but to be honest, a lot of people like that probably exist but just aren't introduced and brought up to study calculus etc. from a young age, because the parents are probably normal and don't recognise the child's potential or don't know what to do with it.

Even if the parents are smart, the chances that a) they will have a child who is insanely smart, combined with the chances that b) they will recognise his potential, and c) they will act upon it, are extremely low, which is why we rarely hear of these kind of stories

ok fine I am jealous douche

Reply 41

Sovr'gnChancellor£

For all of those saying "I feel stupid now", "I feel so thick" :blah:

-

No.1.

- This was the direct motive of the media: to make you feel inadequate and stupid; the incentive behind splashing out images of celebrities and bands and millionaires works in the same manner also.

No.2.

- Stop spending so much time on the internet and work hard at something! The whole point is to work hard at things and do extracurriculars on top of your "school-work" - "geniuses" are not so because it "runs in the genes" - it is because they grasp things quickly and easily - all frontal lobe work (i.e. working memory).

No.3.

There is no number 3 - No.2 should have encompassed all.

Sup guys.

Original post by Tomato_Soup1992

Considering hia autism, I think he'd be much happier with what he's doing now then struggling to fit in with kids who don't understand.

Off topic: Something about Child prodiges always bugs me. They do this really complex maths from a very young age, but surely that must mean he was introduced to complex maths from a very young age. His parents aren't mathematical, and his school probably wouldn't have handed him calculus, so how did he start doing this? Unless, when it sais he taught himself the maths, it means he derived them? That seems unlikely. I hope this doesn't sound like envy: it's not. I'm just curious how this comes about. From my experience, it would be, even for someone as capable as him, that he would go to school just like everyone else, but act differently and think differently to everyone else. He wouldn't fit in - He would very liekly spend a lot of time on sites such as wikipedia: but how would he have known to come across something like calculus....
Can someone help me out here?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Barnett

He got the books and taught himself when he was offered a place at the University to study physics, having been going to classes for a while at the request of his parents.

If you have autism/ aspergers, it has the one upside of completely being able to focus on one task and spot patterns that nobody else can [that quickly]. Having said that, the American system does Maths a little different AFAIK. Here, you spend years and years getting a very rounded Maths education, whereas in America, you can specialize a little from Middle School onward. Their pre-college classes (i.e, what he did) are around the same difficulty as A Levels [in theory], but he only had to take what was essentially half an A Level in Maths in Algebra, Calculus and Trig.

I honestly think that most people doing Maths at the same level would be capable of learning C1-C4 calculus in the 2 week period he did, and our Calculus essentially automatically contains the trigonometry, assuming no distractions and a very dedicated work ethic.

Granted, I'm talking about 16-17 year old, and he's 12, so it's a different playing field altogether, but think about how much you could achieve if you could block out any and all distractions and just concentrate solely on one task, using pretty much all of your brain power on that alone. In a way, I envy him for that. I find I get distracted by anything and everything.

Also, he has a MATH IQ of 170. It's a little different than saying a general IQ of 170. For example, Kasparov, the chess grandmaster, who is suspected of having a mild form of autism, had a very high spatial IQ (I've seen this fluctuate, but it's supposedly 210), but he isn't particularly brilliant at other tasks.

Reply 44

Mask Of Sanity

He's a pretty amazing child.

Reply 45

Refrigerator

Original post by Sovr'gnChancellor£

For all of those saying "I feel stupid now", "I feel so thick" :blah:

I agree with the fact that it's the media being the media and that we should work hard to achieve our best, but first of all, IQ is just the genetic lottery put into numbers, and at the kind of levels that the kid is at, you need good genes as well as hard work. Only so much can be done with hard work

or maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better

Reply 46

Abbadon27

Yeah, but he had to go to bed by 8 :rolleyes:

WTF

Jesus, that's impressive.

I get the impression that some people on here are slightly envious of his abilities, but remember, he'll never have a normal childhood to look fondly on when he's older. He's been doing university level physics since age 8.

I quite enjoyed the ignorance of childhood. It was nice. Good luck to this kid though, future world-leader in physics and maths, fo' sho'!

Reply 49

Cicerao

LOL, I love these threads because it puts TSR people who think they're so smart in their place!

Reply 50

philistine

Why is this so something to be envied (even if it is jocularly)?

To have such intellectual capacities whilst retaining all regular faculties (inhibition free, no mental anomalies, no social disparities), would be infinitely more satisfying and impressive if I were to encounter such a person. With all these prodigies occasionally surfacing, it's a case of 'Yeah, that's impressive, but he has x, y and z = genius'.

Am I the only one who thinks this?

I'm taking nothing away from people possessing such thinking power, though what I'm saying is someone with such ability who wasn't afflicted with some kind of mental disability would be infinitely more astounding. I'm stating the obvious though now, it seems.

Wow, that's amazing.

Original post by ohdeer

Intelligent Quotient measures your potential to learn, not your knowledge.

So if the tests are reliable, age shouldn't affect your score.

(not that I buy into that bull****)

yeah, but surely at 12 years of age he has the same level of IQ as I did last year at 19 years old. Hes 7 years younger and has all that time to improve his own IQ.

Weird how we have the same surname though :/ Obviously unrelated but still.

Reply 54

Broderss

Guys have you never seen the film Limitless? This kid will run out of pills and eventually he'll go back to being a failed writer going no where in life.

Reply 55

Paint-a-Picture

I feel like the most stupid person on Earth. I really want this to be a troll or a lie.
If I am going to be beaten by a 12 year old child what is the point of me doing anything.

Reply 56

Refrigerator

Original post by AreYouDizzeeBlud_x

this concept of improving your IQ doesn't really exist
IQ is literally raw intelligence that you are born with, environmental factors may have a tiny effect but not more than 5 points or so

very young children are incapable of sitting adult IQ tests basically because their brain just isn't developed enough to have reached its maximum intelligence potential, but this potential is reached at a much younger age than say, puberty, so by about 7 or 8 he would have reached it