12-yr old expands Einstein's Theory of Relativity, thinks he can prove it wrong | Hacker News Reader

12-yr old expands Einstein's Theory of Relativity, thinks he can prove it wrong

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15 pointsshawnee_13 comments

Seems like a deliberate scam or an unintentional case of an overly kid-promoting parent & a gullible reporter. Check out the video here: http://www.youtube.com/user/mathboysmom#p/a/u/2/lNypTxvOxxQ

The kid doesn't actually prove or say anything significant beyond what's stated in basic physics books or in various resources on the web (e.g. wikipedia). Kudos to the kid for being interested in these topics at such an early age but the "genius" label should come with some results.

Also notice how the Princeton professor gently sidesteps the question of kid's genius: "I'm impressed by his interest in physics and the amount that he has learned so far," Institute for Advanced Study Professor Scott Tremaine wrote in an email to the family. "The theory that he's working on involves several of the toughest problems in astrophysics and theoretical physics."

He seems like a genius (in the same way that most IMO competitors are math geniuses -- not necessarily Einstein genius though). With that said, bright 12 year olds aren't that uncommon. I mean to his parents or even a given city he might be uncommon. But every year you can probably find a handful of them in the US or China for every age group.

A good movie is Beautiful Young Minds that follows a group of UK high school students who prepare for the IMO. In particular there is a very bright and confident student with Asperger's. While he could probably give a similar talk at a similar age, it is important to note that he doesn't make the UK's IMO team. He's bright enough that the average non-academic probably can't tell when he knows what he's talking about vs when he doesn't.

I suspect the professor at Princeton heard some ambitious, if not naive statements. Wanted to encourage, but not to give validation to the statements.

I don't sense a scam or over promotion. But I can imagine as a parent when you have a child this bright it can almost be overwhelming. You can't really guide the child directly and there's always a bit of fear that you're not properly nurturing the child.

Good point about him being uncommon to his peer group...my perspective is skewed since I went to a school focused on math/physics studies and it was common for kids to know basic calculus at his age. Neither teachers nor parents considered them geniuses, just very (Asperger-like) focused on hard sciences.

So I standby my claim, the kid is obviously very bright but not a genius, at least not to the extent where the definition of genius requires some remarkable results.

I think by reading the rest of the article you can see that he does indeed have some extraordinary talents for such a young age.

Scam? Wow, that's pretty snide. The kid enrolled University classes at the age of 8:

By the age of eight he had left high school and was attending Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis advanced astrophysics classes.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369595/Jacob-Barnet...

Even if the theory he's working on turns out to be wrong, the fact that a kid his age can arrive at even a wrong theory is a sign that he is smart enough to merit attention. The specifics of what he's thinking at the moment are far less important than encouraging him to keep on thinking.

When a major university says it is running out of things to teach a 12 year old and is trying to move him into a paid research position, there would seem to be something more than an over-promoting parent and a gullible reports.

Longer article, with a lot more detail here: http://www.indystar.com/article/20110320/LOCAL01/103200369/G...

This seems to be the original article that the others are either borrowing from or that tipped them to the story.

From the moment I saw the article reference the kid's IQ score (which everyone knows is a joke), I knew this was a piece of pulp journalism.

How is IQ score a joke? Yes, I know there are reliability problems with IQ tests such as cultural bias. However, isn't the main problem that things like cultural bias cause some groups of people to score lower, so the tests report them as less intelligent than they are? Similarly, it is easy to have a bad day when taking a test, and get a lower score than you "should" have gotten, or you could suck at time management, and so on. There are plenty of ways someone can blow a test.

Thus, when someone takes an IQ test and scores low (especially a test given as part of mass testing of a group) it would be seriously wrong to use the test results to conclude that the person is really at that level of intelligence.

On the other, it is much harder to score way above your level.

An IQ score may not be a joke, but as my Psych 101 professor said, "What is IQ? It's a score on a test." What follows is my personal account. Take it or leave it.

When I was 11 years old and in the 7th grade, I was failing most of my classes. I was a big problem for teachers. I talked a lot and was generally distracted; also a distraction for other students. My teachers wanted to put me in the "STAR" program, which was for learning disabled students. My parents protested, demanding that I be thoroughly tested.

I spent a full week being evaluated by psychologists and special-needs specialists. A psychologist administered an IQ test, which came back over 170. If I recall correctly, the first score was 174. They re-administered the test with another psychologist resulting in a score of 169. My teachers smugly denied having thought I was dumb and fell back to the position that being in the STAR program would help solve my "focus" issues; despite any in appropriateness for my learning ability.

I barely made it through my first year of high school. I graduated with a 2.7 GPA. It wasn't because I couldn't solve the problems -- I liked learning the material and passed tests readily -- it was that I wouldn't do the work. Squandering ability is pretty stupid thing to do.

This isn't a "look how smart I am" post. Do I think I'm smart? It'd be disingenuous for me to say no, but if I look at the outcome of my life, I can say without any feeling of self-disrespect that having a "genius" IQ hasn't netted me much. This isn't to say I haven't achieved success. To the contrary, I'm the proud owner of a business that does a couple million dollars a year in revenue and solves some fun problems, but by the measure of the greats, I've done nothing.

So what does my IQ mean? It means I'm well suited to taking IQ tests. I wouldn't want to discourage this 12-yr old from pursuing his dreams, but I would caution against recognizing IQ as a universal predictor of greatness.

> can solve up to 200 numbers of Pi

What does that mean? It must be pretty hard to compute 200 digits... But generally that's computed once and memoized :)

I suspect that phrases like that are contributing to some folks feeling dubious about the whole situation. The lad is probably very bright, yet uninformed journalism makes it look like something funky is going on.

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