The Internet has been abuzz today with the story of Jacob Barnett. Jacob has an IQ of 170, which is higher than Albert Einstein. As a matter of fact, he is currently working through “errors” in Einstein’s famous theory of relativity. This would be impressive for any student of electromagnetic physics at Indiana University. Jacob, however, is only twelve.

His classmates compare him to Doogie Howser. His mother makes the hourly trek to Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis twice daily in order to ensure he gets to his classes on time. He even has, of course, a spoof  Twitter account in his honor.

At eighteen months, Jacob began exhibiting some abilities. He could recite the alphabet backwards and could calculate the volume of cereal boxes off of the top of his head. However, he then began to withdraw into himself and was soon diagnosed with autism and later Asperger’s syndrome.

“We were so afraid Jake would be withdrawn from us forever, and so we set out to find out what was the spark that could light him up,” Kristine Barnett recalls.

That spark turned out to be astronomy. At three, Jacob discovered planets and the rest was, well, quantum history. By age eight he had advanced to college level mathematics and science. According to his mother, he taught himself all pertinent high school math courses in under a week. Yeah, wow.

Now, I am not a physicist and cannot offer conjecture as to if Mr. Barnett will reinvent Einstein’s theories. Still, just that he’s trying should be enough to give parents of autistic children hope that their kids will one day find a similar spark.

“I’m thankful that Jake has become the person he is and feel that, for all children with autism, we need to find the place where there is a little spark inside them,” Barnett says. “If we had listened to all the people that told us our son would always be in special ed, and would probably never escape the isolation of autism, how sad would that be?

It's not clear where Jake got his gifts from. "Whenever I try talking about math with anyone in my family," he told the Indianapolis Star, "they just stare blankly."

But his parents encouraged his interests from the start. Once, they took him to the planetarium at Butler University. "We were in the crowd, just sitting, listening to this guy ask the crowd if anyone knew why the moons going around Mars were potato-shaped and not round," Jake's mother, Kristine Barnett, told the Star. "Jacob raised his hand and said, 'Excuse me, but what are the sizes of the moons around Mars?' "

After the lecturer answered, said Kristine, "Jacob looked at him and said the gravity of the planet , is so large that (the moon's) gravity would not be able to pull it into a round shape."

"That entire building , everyone was just looking at him, like, 'Who is this 3-year-old?'"

It's amazing how some people get to find their hidden strength even in seeming hopeless situations. This is a wonderful discovery. Such children are rare and I respect them. The only problem is that they never seem to live a full life.

yimiton:

It's amazing how some people get to find their hidden strength even in seeming hopeless situations. This is a wonderful discovery. Such children are rare and I respect them. The only problem is that they never seem to live a full life.

Please kindly expantiate on the highlighted sentence above.

Interesting, Good to have him in our time. Maybe he could one day invent some things eg. Time machine lol

Infact sef i don vex,i wan fault all these teachers wey no sabi differentiation,area of a circle is logarithmic and not function of a function.lol agbaya at 17 dey talk. But mehn,this guy is crazy. Has an i.q of 170 and is 12 while mine is just 125,shit!!! I only wish Nigeria had these kind of students so as to harness their full ability.