Autistic boy,12, with higher IQ than Einstein develops his own theory of relativity

ByDaily Mail Reporter

From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

A 12-year-old child prodigy has astounded university professors after grappling with some of the most advanced concepts in mathematics.

Jacob Barnett has an IQ of 170 - higher than Albert Einstein - and is now so far advanced in his Indiana university studies that professors are lining him up for a PHD research role.

The boy wonder, who taught himself calculus, algebra, geometry and trigonometry in a week, is now tutoring fellow college classmates after hours.

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Gifted: Jacob Barnett is so far ahead of his age group he is now leaving university he is developing his own theory on how the universe came into being

And now Jake has embarked on his most ambitious project yet - his own 'expanded version of Einstein's theory of relativity'.

His mother, not sure if her child was talking nonsense or
genius, sent a video of his theory to the renowned Institute for
Advanced Study near Princeton University.

Gifted: Aspergers syndrome and the conditions affecting child development

Autism: A condition that starts in early childhood, usually involving serious developmental disabilities with social interaction and communication.

People with this disorder can have a range of abilities, from being severely disabled to gifted. It is estimated one in every 150 child has the condition.

Aspergers: A syndrome that is similar to autism, but with the distinction that those with it typically function better, have normal intelligence and near-normal language development.

Savant: Rare condition in which persons with developmental disorders have astonishing islands of ability, brilliance or talent that stand in stark contrast to overall limitations.

According to the Indiana Star, Institute astrophysics professor Scott Tremaine -himself a world renowned expert - confirmed the authenticity of Jake's theory.

In an email to the family, Tremaine wrote: 'I'm impressed by his interest in physics and the amount that he has
learned so far.

'The theory that he's working on involves several of the toughest
problems in astrophysics and theoretical physics.

'Anyone who solves these will be in line for a Nobel Prize.'

But for his mother Kristine Barnett, 36, and the rest of the family, maths remains a tricky subject.

Speaking to the paper, Mrs Barnett said: 'I flunked math. I know this did not come from me.'

And it hasn't gone un-noticed by Jake, who added: 'Whenever I try talking about math with anyone in my family they just stare blankly.'

Jake was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome, a mild form of autism, from an early age.

His parents were worried when he didn't talk until the age of two, suspecting he was educationally abnormal.

It was only as he began to grow up that they realised just how special his gift was.

He would fill up note pads of paper with drawings of complex geometrical shapes and calculations, before picking up felt tip pens and writing equations on windows.

By the age of three he was solving 5,000-piece puzzles and he even studied a state road map, reciting every highway and license plate prefix from memory.

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

Genius: Jake Barnett is now set to become a paid astrophysics researcher

His classroom presence is quite unnerving for many of the 18-plus year old students at his IPIU lectures.

Speaking to the Indy Star, Wanda Anderson, a biochemistry major said: 'When I first walked in and saw him, I thought, 'Oh my God, I'm going to school with Doogie Howser.'

She added: 'A lot of people come to him for help when they don't understand a physics problem.

'People come up to him all the time and say, 'Hey Jake, can you help me'.

'A lot of people think a genius is hard to talk to, but Jake explains things that would still be over their head.'

And his Professor John Ross said his performance in lectures had been 'outstanding'.

'When he asks a question, he is always two steps ahead of the lecture.

'Everyone in the class gets quiet. Poor kid. . . . He sits right in the front row, and they all just look at him.

'He will come to see me during office hours and ask even more detailed questions. And you can tell he's been thinking these things through.

'Kids his age would normally have problems adding fractions, and he is helping out some of his fellow students.'

According to his parents Jake has trouble sleeping at night as he constantly sees numbers in his head.

But far from complaining, Jake has turned the sleepless nights to his advantage - debunking the big bang theory.

The next step, according to professor Ross, is for Jake to leave class altogether and take up a paid research role.

Gmail Users Have Higher Credit Scores than Yahoo Mail Users

by Pete Cashmore

Does your email address reveal something about your credit score? According to Credit Karma, an online credit checking service, it might.

The company has taken data from its users and split it up by email address, finding that Yahoo Mail users have the lowest credit scores of all. Bellsouth and Comcast users have the highest credit ratings, while GMail () users rank third. MSN, Hotmail and AOL users take 4th, 5th and 6th position respectively.

Assuming the data is accurate (and the sample size is large enough – 20,000 credit scores), the more interesting question is why. Could it be because AOL, MSN and Yahoo email addresses are often linked to IM accounts, where the demographics skew younger? Do those who use their ISP-provided email address skew older? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

[via HN]

Boy with 176 IQ is 1 in a million

Enlarge By Glenn Hartong, The Enquirer

Six year-old Pranav Veera, who has a photographic memory and has tested in the very upper ranges of intelligence, poses with letters spelling his name, at home in Loveland, Ohio.

By Cindy Kranz, The Cincinnati Enquirer

LOVELAND, Ohio — Pranav Veera can recite the names of the U.S. presidents in the order they served in office. He can say the alphabet backward. Give him a date back to 2000, and he'll tell you the day of the week.

He's only 6 years old.

VIDEO: Pranav knows his numbers

At first glance, Pranav is a typical young boy who is highly competitive at playing Wii video games and likes to play outside. A closer look reveals he's anything but typical.

Pranav has an IQ of 176. One person in 1 million has an IQ of 176 or above. Albert Einstein's IQ was believed to be about 160. The average IQ is 100.

When Pranav was 4-and-a-half, his parents noticed he seemed unusually intelligent while playing with alphabet sets. He could even recall which letters were certain colors.

"That kind of puzzled us," said his father, Prasad Veera. "You have to have not a normal memorization, but some other means of recall."

Now, he loves all kinds of alphabets.

"He loves to collect them, like different colors, different sizes, different materials," said his mother, Suchitra Veera.

The Veeras decided to have Pranav tested three months ago at Powers Educational Services in Hyde Park, Ohio.

"I said, 'Let's try it out, because he seems to do a lot of stuff kind of not quite normal for his age,' " his father said. "He tested 176."

He seems to have a photographic memory, so keeping Pranav engaged and learning is a big challenge for his family.

His mother and grandmother, Shanta Sastri, work with him at home.

They're guided by his focus and interests.

"The way to get him interested is to associate something with numbers, like presidents' birthdays … and when they came into office," his mother said.

"Once we introduced him to the idea, he was asking more and more questions, so we created a spreadsheet for him in Excel, and he keeps on asking us to add more types of information to it, like sort them in the order that they came into office, sort them in the order when they were born," she said.

In prekindergarten, his teacher had him do more challenging work, such as division and telling time. In kindergarten, his classmates are learning the alphabet and numbers up to 100. He's counting over 1 million.

"He's an amazing child," said Marci Taylor, his teacher at McCormick Elementary in the Milford School District. "He knows so much, yet he's probably more excited about learning than any child I've ever seen. He shakes with excitement."

Pranav knows so many incredible things, she said, but what's also impressive is that he's still a 6-year-old boy.

"He loves to go play at recess and climb on the monkey bars," Taylor said.

It's possible that Pranav might eventually have his learning accelerated, even by skipping grades, but his father said they would have to consider that with his social needs. "We want him to be as normal as possible," his father said.

"Right now, it's kind of early, and we can do a lot at home," his mother added. "We have to figure out what works best, because I think it's different for each child."Pranav draws his intelligence from both sides of the family.

His father has a Ph.D. and his mother has two master's degrees.

What does Pranav want to be when he grows up?

"An astronaut," he said without hesitation.

Truly, for Pranav, the sky's the limit.