Eight Year Old Physics Student Admitted to College

paris writes to tell us that The Korea Herald is running a story about Song Yoo-guen, the youngest university student that Korea has ever seen. At eight years old Song is already talking about building flying cars and defying Newton's law of gravity while others his age are attending the first grade. He completed his elementary, junior-high, and high school curricula in just nine months, something that usually takes 12 years, and has been admitted as a freshman to the physics department of Inha University.

Comments

Pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

He's so nerdy that he won't be getting laid at all in college.

Re:Pointless

[ravenspear]

Well I would hope not, he's fucking 8 years old.

That would be disturbing.

Re:Pointless

[Mingco]

Well I would hope not, he's fucking 8 years old.

No, it would be his girlfriend who would be fucking 8 year-olds.

Re:Pointless

[cp.tar]

it would be his girlfriend

Why do straight people always assume that everyone else is too?

The. Kid. Is. Eight.
For his own sake, I do hope he's had no chance yet to discover he's either straight or gay or anything else of the sort.
(Luckily for him, he's probably not Catholic.)

Besides, it was a joke. Not all blondes are stupid, either.
I'll even daresay not all Macintosh fans are gay, despite the abundant evidence to the contrary.

Sheesh.

OK I give up

[guardiangod]

He surprised professors by explaining the Schroedinger equation, which is of central importance to the theory of quantum mechanics.

Oh my god, to think that a 7 years old best me when it comes to learning the good old Schrodinger equation...

Someone please bury me.

Re:OK I give up

[tct25]

Hang on, explaining or regurgitating what his parents told him? All this smacks of publicity stunt... both for the anxious parents (it'll help junior in our hyper-competitive society) and a middling Korean university (at best).

Re:OK I give up

[servognome]

It's a good point, the difference between intelligence and wisdom. It's relatively easy to learn something, even Schrodinger's equation. It's far more difficult to try and explain the implications, or to formulate your own perspective. Breakthroughs in knowledge come from experience and creating your own version of the universe, not what is taught.

Re:OK I give up

[jacksonj04]

What I don't understand is how talk of building flying cars and defying Newton's laws makes someone eligible for college. I was talking about building flying cars and defying gravity when I was eight, and no amount of intellectual knowledge will make up for the fact that college education is not designed for 8 year olds.

Self-teaching, working with peers, and generally being a lot more adult about the whole thing are an important part of college life. I don't think an 8 year old has enough life experience to make it through without serious support, but just my $0.02.

Re:OK I give up

[SnowZero]

and a middling Korean university

Prodigies usually attend universities near home, so that they can still live with their family. The quality of the school is secondary, as they can always move on later if they outgrow it. My university won't even let students live on campus below a certain age, and they probably aren't socially ready for it anyway. One of my best friends from undergrad started taking classes at 12 and entered as a freshman at 14. She wasn't allowed to live on campus until sophomore year.

In a way, I'm glad to not be in that category, as its quite difficult for such students. Their intelligence at school is well advanced of their social development, and nobody treats them normally anyway. Our society is set up so that things only line up for regular people.

Re:OK I give up

[crmartin]

I *was* one of those 8 year olds in college. Feel a little sorry for him, 'cause he's caught in a hard place: as someone else observed, he will stand out and have to deal with all sorts of issues in his college as a result; on the other hand, it's not like he can have anything like a normal life in a normal school, either.

But if his experience is anything like mine, he's *not* regurgitating --- which if you think about it woulldn't work anyway. (Think about the Chinese Room Problem.) If he can "regurgitate" well enough to read what he needs to read, answer questions, and pass tests, how is that *different* from having "really" learned it?

Re:OK I give up

[Skreems]

Since nobody's taken the time to question the kid for days on end, how does the Chinese Room apply here? The kid's supposed to be a genius in physics, so his parents stuffed him full of random physics facts. It's not that far-fetched. And the fact that he wants to join CERN "to learn how to apply superstring theory to flying cars" sorta proves that he really has no idea what it actually means to study physics. Yes, he gave a nice prettied up version of the definition of anti-gravity, but all the kid really said was, "I want to make cars float, even though gravity is pulling on them".

Re:OK I give up

[Anonymous Coward]

It's better than the alternative anyways, trust me. As someone who was offered placement into the whole special schools programs, but whose school district and parents where both considerable into poverty preventing such, going to a public highschool for years is pretty useless, and even painful. I got more out of reading a half-dozen good books than a year of that crap. Ultimately I had to drop out and get a job, for financial reasons(like housing and feeding myself through). And now at 22 I'm in secnd year of university, but being a highschool dropout complicates the situation, not to mention the delayed schedule, and the decrease in mental malleability through age. I don't feel sorry for these kids at all, they could have it starkly worse through any alternatives.

Re:OK I give up

[magarity]

But what exactly did he explain about it, ah?
 
Did he explain it at all? From tfa:
 
  The interview was conducted mainly with the senior Song since Yoo-geun is lacking in his ability to communicate with adults.
 
This entire situation smacks of a publicity stunt and/or parents that are waaaaay over projecting on their child.

Re:OK I give up

[Kadin2048]

since they rarely if ever amount to anything other than an average person... just faster.

And in other news, your AMD Athlon64 3000 is no better than my Intel 8080, because it just does the same thing, only faster.

Re:OK I give up

[TheDracle]

Searle's "Chinese Room" thought experiment doesn't seem to support your point. The idea Searle attempts to explain isn't that there's no difference between regurgitating information, and actually understanding it. Indeed many of the arguments against AI claim that 'only' machines that externally demonstrate intelligence, but lack a conscious mind, and an ability to actually understand that information, can exist. It's precisely this that Searle tries to demonstrate in his experiment--- the exact opposite of what you seem to be relying on.

Just for an example of how a machine could 'regurgitate' a highly articulate explanation of a certain problem vist: http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/theory/relativit y.html.

It seems that my computer can offer a good explanation for a myriad of differing problems, but, I still doubt that there isn't any difference between this and understanding those problems.

The Turing experiment, I believe would support your opinion. Turing's major claim is that if you, as a third party observer, couldn't tell the difference between a computer and a human through blind dialog--- then that computer is intelligent. For one, this test judges intelligence through how well a machine relates to our particular brand of social interaction. It doesn't seem fair to say that something isn't intelligent if it's incapable of human communication. If an intelligent alien species that communicated through beams of light, or sonar, were to analyze our species this way, we would quickly be determined not to demonstrate intelligence. It also heavily relies on the social and conversational abilities of the judge in the situation. Many template based bots, whom most people would agree are not intelligent, have tricked judges into believing they're intelligent. An entertaining programming pass time involves creating bots and attempting to fool random individuals into having deep personal conversations with them. In the end Turing's method seems too subjective, and it doesn't seem entirely logical. It isn't apparent that a machine that only seems to be intelligent can't exist, and I would assume this could also be true for human beings ;).

John Searle argued against this using a parody of the Turing Experiment, the "Chinese Room" experiment. This thought experiment involves an intelligent human being, interacting with the outside world via a proxy of a limited symbolic interface. Through this interface he can place answers to given questions in the Chinese language by following a complicated program, or rule book, without understanding a word of Chinese. In essence, he claims to have crated a machine incapable of ever being intentional. His second claim is that no rule book exists that would allow you to, as the operator, to understand Chinese.

While I agree with Daniel Dennett that this is just intellectual sleight of hand, and in the end Searle's experiment makes several logical errors that fail to prove that intelligent machines can not exist; I don't believe it either proves, or disproves, the possibility of zombie machines existing.

Re:OK I give up

[colmore]

You know, I had a chance to start College at age 14, not quite 8, but still. I'm really glad I didn't take it.

Sure, highschool sucked. But highschool sucked for a whole lotta people. I read a lot on my own time, and I don't think humanity was deprived of any potential fruits of my intellect while I was spending my efforts avoiding football games and vainly attempting to figure out how to talk to girls.

When I started college at the normal age, I had a blast and did well academically.

I remember reading an article about what prodigies were up to 20 years later (looking at what happened to a bunch of kids who'd gone into college before puberty, which apparently there was a rash of in the 70s) and none of them were doing anything *that* earth-shaking. All smart men and women, sure, but no nobel prizes.

Think of it this way: You're a professor starting a new research project. Which early PhD student do you want to be your research assistant, the 24 year old with an apartment and a settled life, or some kid who'se just started the roughest years of puberty? They both have the same amount of education, and the kid is way more impressive *for his age* but what the hell do you care about someone being impressive for their age? You want work to get done. I really suspect this kind of thing happens more to stoke parental egos than anything else. It just doesn't make that much sense to get so far off of the clock that your society expects of you.

There are a whole lot of square pegs out there, and the standard education system is nothing but round holes. Some parents give their kids pills or push them onto the chearleading team in order to make them round pegs. Some parents look around frantically for square holes for their precious square pegs. I personally am a big believer in the value of spending a few years getting whacked in the head by a hammer as society tries to cram you down the damn round hole. The adult world isn't that much different, and you learn to deal with it without developing a massive ego or the belief that nothing is right if it doesn't feel like a special magical little cradle created just for unique little you.

Re:OK I give up

[Ibag]

If he can "regurgitate" well enough to read what he needs to read, answer questions, and pass tests, how is that *different* from having "really" learned it?

I don't know what your highschool experience was like, but mine did involve a lot of regurgitation. Tests can test a number of things:

What is the title of chapter 5?
What is the name of the protagonist?
How did the farmer travel back in time?
Why did the farmer travel back in time?
Do you believe the farmer was morally justified in traveling back in time? Elaborate.

Different tests require different levels of understanding and different levels of analysis and synthesis. I once had a history class that, while we were asked open ended questions about why things happened, we were given points only for mentioning the points which the teacher felt were the "actual" reasons (which he often told the class the day before). It turned history from something that should have been about understanding the interplay between different events and personalities and situations into a mere regurgitation of facts.

Even in math or science, high school requires very little in the way of understanding. If you can remember the worked solutions and just plug in your new numbers or variables into them, you can succeed admirably. I knew a lot of people in highschool who started having trouble in math only when they couldn't memorize the examples in entirety.

Mere regurgitation with a slight amount of variation (a la simple regex) is enough to get you through highschool quite easily.

As a slight bit of an asside, several of the people in the PhD program I'm in have mentioned that the only way they made it through some early classes was through understanding the concepts and being able to rederive the formulas quickly. As you progress in your education further, the amount you can get by just on memorization decreases considerably. However, there is a large chunk of it where regurgitation and rote memorization will help you a lot more than real understanding. With any luck, college will present this boy with an opportunity ro prove that he can actually think. So far, there are no gaurentees.

Re:OK I give up

[crmartin]

Well, the point of mentioning the "Chinese Room" is just to make a comparison, but if I were going to go further I'd probably say the "Chinese Room" was the old behaviorist notion in vitalist drag. now, instead of saying there's no such thing as consciousness, Searle says there's a thing called consciousness, but it's such that no conceivable experiment could ever identify it from outside. (This is by definition, by the way: since the Turing Test is defined to be over any arbitrarily long interaction, Searle's argument requires that there be no interaction, no matter how long, that can distinguish between the "Chinese Room" and a "consciousness".)

As you say, sleight of hand: good for getting tenure, but not very informative.

Re:OK I give up

[abradsn]

Playing four square and video games mostly. Pretty much the same now, minus the four square.

Re:OK I give up

[Skreems]

The difference is in what questions can be processed. In the Chinese Room, only questions that have been specifically answered in the "stored data" can be answered successfuly. With true understanding, one can take the rule set behind the individual answers, and apply it to any of a wide variety of possible inputs. The theory can further be taken and linked with other disciplines, related to history, to philosophy (where appropriate). It's the understanding of the underlying principles that makes the difference. And again, without knowing what the kid told them, it's entirely possible he doesn't really have more than a cursory understanding of what he's talking about.

It may not even be pure regurgitation. Remembering back to when I was that age, I understood a hell of a lot, but as I grew up I realized that there was a lot of nuance and finer detail that I was lacking. And like I said, the kid's comment about flying cars and anti-gravity shows that level of thought process. Yes, he's a very verbal kid (assuming the translation came across correctly), and that's a very pretty definition of anti-gravity. But it's also the statement of a child who just thinks anti-grav is soooooo cool, and hasn't really integrated the whole thing into a more wholistic understanding of the world around him.

Blow Job

[Anonymous Coward]

Did he get a blow job when he graduated high school? I did. If you grow up too quickly you'll miss the best things in life!

Re:Blow Job

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you really have to tell us what your mother gave you as a graduation present?

Re:Blow Job

[Hognoxious]

It's no secret - she gives the same to everyone.

happy for him

[sontek]

Although this is a great opportunity for him, Kids at that age have a lot of development ahead of them and jumping right into college might hinder some social growth

Re:happy for him

[HappyEngineer]

You honestly think this kid would grow up normally if you let him stay with other kids his age? When I was growing up I always felt like I was surrounded by idiots. I'm sure this kid would feel that only times a thousand. It'd be like forcing an average kid to spend 12 years in special education classes with the mentally handicapped.

Re:happy for him

[XchristX]

The last time such a thing happened, it turned out to be a fraud. The fact of the matter is that physics is not like pure math. Raw intelligence is not the only requirement, but knowledge, research background and experience count for more. Plenty of famous physicists with only slightly above average IQ's. This bloke's in for a tough time if he thinks he'll be able to get away with it.

ah well

[Triv]

So much for letting the kid grow up.

Re:ah well

[MoonFog]

Is this worse than drafting or buying a very young sportsman? Whether you play soccer in the English Premier League at the age of 16 or you get a PhD at the age of 16 you will not be able to grow up in the same way as others, but with that kind of talent comes certain issues. If they hold him back and force him to "be his age", it will most likely severly hurt his intellectual growth.

Re:ah well

[HappyEngineer]

Why do so many people think it's so awesome to be a kid? Being a kid sucks! Life doesn't get good until you get into college. It sounds to me like this kid is skipping the crappy parts of growing up.

Re:ah well

[HappyEngineer]

I suppose so, but I suspect he'd be even lower on the befriend list of other people his own age. Middle school and highschool is pretty socially disfunctional as it is (at least in the US). Being a smart guy doesn't get you much in that environment. In college being a smart guy may be rewarded.

Re:ah well

[paul248]

Earth has billions of people on it.

Is it really a problem if a few take an uncommon path? His childhood won't be "better" or "worse" than yours, just different.

Re:ah well

[RedBear]

So much for letting the kid grow up.

I really wish I could fathom why this kind of crap gets modded +5, Insightful. WTF does that comment even mean? You think you know these people? Do you know the kid personally? Do you know the parents? Do you know the society? You think you know the best way to raise such a unique human being, if he is indeed that unique?

But know, I'm sure you're right. What they should have done was give him a lobotomy so he could grow up with his "peers" and have a "normal" childhood wasting twelve years of his life learning how to "socialize". Because God knows socializing is infinitely more important than challenging yourself and using your given abilities to their fullest.

Honestly, what is wrong with so many people that makes them want to tear the kid down and force the parents to push him through the same mold as everyone else? If he passed all the damn tests for the lower grades legitimately what exactly is wrong with letting him (letting, not forcing) further his education in order to work toward his dreams? Yeah, an 8-year-old going to college is going to have a difficult time learning about "life", but as far as I can tell learning about real life is hard no matter what path you walk. As long as he has a good support system and really is super-intelligent he should do just as well as any of us. What is with this subtle (or not so subtle) show of disgust as if he is being used or mistreated somehow, and this seeming urge to stuff the kid back in the box marked "NORMAL CHILD"?

I for one am excited by what this says about the potential for human intelligence, if it turns out to be for real and not just some publicity stunt or fluke of eiditic memory or something. It's really an amazing thing. And I'm so irritated when I think about all the students in this country who could have been done with school within a few years if they hadn't been chained to the almost completely inflexible modern school system, where doing your time seems to be more important than learning anything or challenging yourself to find your potential abilities.

Give the kid a break. He'll either be able to hack it or he won't, and he's either a bonafide super-genius or he isn't. The truth will come in due time, either way. It's not your problem, and it's not your place to be judging people halfway around the world based on one little article. I suppose you'll all be pissed off again when CERN hires him right after he gets his Ph.D. in theoretical physics at age 10-1/2. How awful. Poor kid. What a horrible thing it would be for his dream to come true. Gack. Give ME a break, and get off the high horse(s).

Re:ah well

[elakazal]

Everything I've seen indicates that this sort of thing is generally (though, admittedly, not always) bad for the kid. Whether he's intellectually ready for college or not, he's not emotionally ready, and in four years (or less, at his rate) he will certainly not be emotionally ready for grad school. You don't have to force him to "be his age" intellectually...you can offer him an intellectually challenging curriculum without forcing him into a situation designed for young adults.

These kids usually burn out fast, and very few make lasting contributions to their field. We will never hear of this kid as an adult. Mark my words. I think that's a function of a number of things, foremost among them is the fact that behind most of these kids are insane, high-pressure parents. Some of them are loving parents, but very few are good for their kids. Also the kind of thinking that wows people as an eight year old isn't necessarily the kind of thinking that gets you through college, and it almost certainly isn't the kind that writes a PhD dissertation in physics, or revolutionizes one's field.

Being freakishly intelligent is as much a handicap as a blessing. If anything, it gets in the way of your education. The idea behind Gifted & Talented programs was to recognize this and provide these kids with stimulating educational opportunities matched to their particular gifts. In practice, however, many schools have turned these either into functionless shells or programs apparently designed to reward the kids with good grades with something interesting to do. These are the programs we need to deal with these kids...not rushing him through the entire regular curriculum in months. (Speaking of which, why even pretend you're trying to educate the kid? You couldn't physically run through 13 years of coursework in nine months.)

Re:ah well

[globalar]

The problem is there is no structure or process in society to cultivate his ability. In history there have been a few places where he would have been welcome - Greek philosophical schools, Islamic jurisprudence colleges, a few Chinese schools, etc. Even these institutions were not perfect, but they were far more flexible and student-oriented than what we call education. They had drawbacks, of course. By and large these institutions have profoundly changed, if they still exist, and are decidely against the grain of modern education practice.

What this kid needs are people who understand his age and his ability, and do not exclusively obsess about either. It's about balancing who he is and what he can do. I have only met a few individuals in my life who were truly able to handle and teach someone who was smarter than them. It is amazing to see. They are not all professional teachers - the ones who are seem more like mentors than instructors.

I hope this kid finds someone who sees him as he is, not as just a prodigy or just a smart twerp.

Re:ah well

[GlenRaphael]

I call bullshit on the kid finishing high school in 9 months.[...]The sheer volume of information that you're exposed to would require him to be a speed reader...

Are you serious? I'm sure he reads faster than you, but I don't believe he'd need to read implausibly fast to do that. I remember high school as a ridiculous waste of time as far as efficiently imparting information. 9 months is only about a 4:1 compression - that's doable.

Sure, a typical US high school takes 4 years, but with winter and summer breaks there's only about 9 months of instruction per year, and even of that the first month or so is generally wasted review. For most classes there is a book that covers essentially the same material as the lectures. The book was written and edited by somebody much smarter than your teacher and covers more material. Sometimes the textbook is bad too, but you can find a better book at the local library. If you are good at reading and understanding written arguments, the lecture is a complete waste of time if you read the relevant book and work through a few exercises. The class is generally paced so that the dumbest student in the room should be able to keep up, which means the smartest student in the room could learn at least 4 times faster. And this one did - good for him!

Doogie Howser, PhD

[Anonymous Coward]

"Dude, did Doogie Howser just steal my fucking car?!"

/Harold and Kumar...

Annoying

[rm999]

I really hate it when kids rush through their education. What some people don't realize is school is just as much about growing maturity as it is about growing the mind. Yeah, this kid may be smarter than the average college student, but he is going to miss important aspects of life like having friends and interacting with other people his age, which is arguably more important than college.

Re:Annoying

[arvindn]

I'm from India, and we have kids doing this a lot back there, especially in math. I once talked to a math professor who's met some of these kids and who actually knows what he's talking about, and he says most of the time they are not even remotely qualified to be enter university, even though they might be somewhat precocious. Usually the parents make the kid do it because they are publicity whores, and the university plays along for the same reason.

Re:Annoying

[addie]

As an English teacher in Korea, I can assure you that this isn't unusual. Most of my students go to school from 8 am to 8 pm every day, and come home to study. Missing out on developing social skills and never learning how to have fun is the norm, rather than the exception. That aside, you're absolutely right that putting this child in University is not at all the best thing for him. Until Korea's voracious appetite for over-education calms, there will only be more of this. Someday they'll notice a correlation between time spent learning/working to their suicide rate.

That said, many schools are phasing out school on Saturday over the next two to three years.

Re:Annoying

[cdn-programmer]

kids at the upper and lower 10 percentiles should not be in the main stream. Whether university is right for him is an open question. I suspect they have nothing else to challenge him.

He will find physics challenging.

As for the social side - well - he'll have to do the best he can. If anyone wants to ponder what it is like to be the brightest kid in the classroom then consider how it would feel to be sitting in a classroom of monkeys being taught by a monkey.

Once you get past the 99th percentile the measuring stick no longer is working.

So the post is not insightful. I could have moderated it down but I chose to reply instead.

Please note that I am not talking about accelerating someone with a high 80's average. I'm talking about those few kids that nail 100% time after time after time and don't bother to study becuase there is nothing to study.

For them, being in a gr 12 math class is like asking a normal "A" student to take a grade 2 math class.

Re:Annoying

[PingPongBoy]

If high school was no challenge why would university be a challenge? After all it's geared to average learning for people who survived public school.

The whole idea is to have an effective algorithm for acquiring knowledge. Bingo, you don't need school. What you need is a bit of time to learn (i.e., run the algorithm) and objectives or problems or whatever. In other words, after a year or two, graduate and get on with life.

Now can we have the 10 DVD set of Educate Yourself This Week by Watching Nonstop? After a person goes through school, how much of that knowledge is ever applied? It all seems so irrelevant. Let me see, the last time I applied the quadratic equation ... Was it that long ago that I balanced a chemical equation?

By the way, we never really explained to you, school is just an IQ test. It seems a bit of a waste of 12+ years. Why not just launch kids straight into university right out of kindergarten - in other words, make graduating really count?

The one thing about university is it's rigor - failure is not tolerated well. The age of the student means nothing in first year. Even someone 80 years old is totally comfortable.

But, you know, starting kids into university young may be a good thing. A lot of people don't know how to communicate well, and first year university would be mostly about communications since 5 and 6 year olds really have no language skills. A university-standard education on communications would do wonders for the world. At any rate, it would cause wonders.

Re:Annoying

[bundaegi]

So you're saying that everyone should become a hippy because 0.001% of the students are committing suicide? Perhaps it would be more productive to just get the depressed kids some counseling and Prozac?

Am I reading this right? Are you trolling or seriously mis-informed? It's Korea we're talking about about, not the US. Maybe your kids are given Prozac or Ritalin or whatever the magic drug of the day is, but the Korean society doesn't work like that. Koreans have a serious problem with over-education. Less jobs means more competition means kids from their youngest age go to school from 8AM... to 8PM... every fucking day.
Actually, with kids locked in the school until they finish their homeworks, it's more like 8AM to 11PM. Again, every freaken day but Sunday. That doesn't include pre-school classes like English or Piano.

Then of course, Bad Things happen when kids fail even one exam (and their parents get upset) or when they are bullied (because kids don't learn how to interact with each other in a non-destructive way) or simply, when they just can't take the pressure anymore.
Tell me, Mr HappyEngineering, do you think (you're giving a professional opinion, right? and it's only 0.001% after all, right? 1 in a 1000?)... do you think, after his third attempt at slashing both his wrists, a six year old should be given Prozac or councelling? Both, maybe?

Those I found, were interesting reads (if you are indeed willing to learn more).

Pushed to the limit here

[...] While the students' performances look good on paper, the report does not show the emotional impact of high-pressured education. South Korea has the fastest-rising suicide rate in the world. Eight out of every 100,000 15- to 19-year-olds killed themselves in 2003. The stakes are high.

Specter of Suicides here

[...] That Korea's suicide rate took first place among OECD countries last year should make us reflect seriously on our lives and society. The National Statistical Office's 2004 mortality figures are especially embarrassing since suicide is rampant through all age groups at a time when the nation is most democratized and affluent. It may be these dizzying social changes that forced some troubled individuals to take life's final option.

Re:Annoying

[nsasch]

I'm 15. I've never studied, for anything. Before 6th grade, Anything below a 97% is failing. Since then, I've developed a social life. I still don't study, but I always get 90%s. It's a fair exchange, I can still get into good universities (with a really good resume and interview of course:-) and I have friends now. I always get 99th percentile on standardized tests. The highest grade I've earned was something around a 114% in Geometry (I hate it, but I can visualize anything).

I honestly feel that school is a waste of time. I read probably 20 more books during the summer than I do during the entire school year. I've taught myself more (mostly science, math, and computer science) than I have ever been taught. The school doesn't teach exact things. I learn what I need to as I do it. That's how I teach myself programming languages, I start a project, and learn what I need to as I go. Then I've accomplished something, and I can use the knowledge later. The biggest thing I know how to do would be the ability to find the info that I need. I teach myself (even things concerning language and history) more on my own. I'd say I've never learned anything in school, but as of entering highschool, I have learned a few things.

I could probably enter a local college or even a pretty nice university. But I never would. I'm using this time to go flying, sailing, and to just hang out with friends and getting rides from people old enough to drive me places. I'm mature for my age, honestly, I think you can tell that from me being here and how I write. But I still would not fit in in a university setting. I'm 15, and I'd be with some people 19 or 20. I have friends that age, but they have completely different issues. This 8 year old still must worry about wetting his bed, or wanting his mother to be with him. I don't know much about (N or S) Korean culture, but I imagine the developmental cycle of children still is the same.

Re:Annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, sometimes they are qualified. I know someone who was in a math class at UC Davis with a 12 year old, who the professor swore was better than he was in his field. (I don't think he was enrolled in the college as a full-time student, though, I think he was just taking math classes.)

Re:Annoying

[bundaegi]

You're not getting it. Try to picture studying from 8AM to 11PM... Every day of your life from when you're 6 until you get a job... and then do the same during military service (for 3 years) and then as a programmer/ lawyer/ doctor/ whatever. Do you get a feel of how scary this is?

My brother in law is 16. He wakes-up at 6.45 and leaves home at 7.15 to get to school by 8AM. He studies until 6PM then goes to after-school class until 8PM then has another 3 hours of after-class to do his homework (supervised). He comes back at quater to midnight (thankfully his school is only 45 minutes away from home). He sleeps 5-6 hours a night. How long could you go on like this? To me, that would amount to mental torture. I can't go without sleep for very long... or I'd just walk around like a zombie for the rest of the day, being rubbish at my job.
Let's go back to my brother: If he didn't study like that in middle school, he wouldn't have gotten in a good high-school. If he doesn't study now, he won't get into a good university. If he doesn't get good university grades, he won't get into Samsung (or whatever it is he wants to become... Samsung is every Korean's dream of a good job).

You know where it all stops: When (if) you get a good job, then you can breath. If you don't get a good job, there's always suicide.
When does it start,though? How hard is it to get into a good middle school or primary school? or a good kinder garden?

Pre-natal english lessons with speakers against the mother's belly aren't unheard of. That cruel operation supposed to give kids a more agile tongue so necessary to speak english is also something practised in Korea. Peer-pressure leading to stupid diets and crave for plastic surgery or women injecting engine oil in their face or intentional self-mutilation... Yes, it is all happening in Korea. The whole society is going out of control. I'm telling you, parents don't understand what their kids are becoming. How could they when they only see their kids for 1 or 2 hours a day? But somehow, they know it's for their own good and that things will turn-out ok... or not.

If you've never been immersed in the Korean society, you won't get what's happening. Let's just say... it's not about the kids being a bit overworked and needing some Prozac and Councelling help, it goes much deeper than that.

Want something to chill out and help you sleep?

In April 2000, a victim of habitual wife-beating shared her story and photos through the Internet, shedding light on the severity of inhumane violence in Korean homes. The perpetrator, who suffered from the delusion that his wife was unfaithful to him, had been torturing her in the most despicable way. He tied her up and thrashed her, poured boiling water on her body, disfigured her face with a knife, tortured her with electric shocks, pulled out her teeth with pliers, and stabbed her in the abdomen with a butcher knife. The Inchon branch of Korea Women's Hotline took charge of the case and launched an on-line signature collecting campaign. It collected a daily average of 1,000 signatures, succeeding in putting the eradication of domestic violence on the social agenda. Women groups had demanded that the perpetrator be charged with attempted murder, but the Inchon District Court sentenced the man to 15 years imprisonment for violence. This is the highest sentence that can be given for domestic violence that does not result in death.

It'll only get worse. Trust me.

Not so fast..

[mikerm19]

Actually, at least in America, this could be a bad thing. There is a lot of experience you gain and a lot of things you learn about friendships, daily life, and relationships that is only obtainable by going through what everyone else goes through.

Not that I don't think that it is awesome that he is a prodigy as such, but will he not be lacking a lot of "street smarts?"

I know, spelling and grammer...

Re:Not so fast..

[RITMaloney]

but will he not be lacking a lot of "street smarts?"

You're right. He'll surely need to learn how to shuck and jive if he's ever going to make it on the mean streets. Hopefuly he takes time to play Grand Theft Auto.

Bit early

[ivan kk]

8 is too young, the liver hasn't fully developed yet.

Re:Bit early

[Luke Psywalker]

Either has his penis.

Or as he still refers to it, his "tallywacker".

flying cars?

[cryptoz]

I thought *all* eight year olds talked about building flying cars? Seriously, I know I did! I swore I'd never have to learn to drive since by the time I was old enough, we wouldn't even have cars anymore. So much for that. And poor, poor child. Pretty soon I bed he'd give anything to be "normal".

Re:Flying cars are nice but..

[tkittel]

> Too bad he's not involving himself figuring out how to make 50% efficient solar panels..
> with him on the darpa team, they could probably be making these panels for $1.00 within
> 3 years. Good luck to him though.

One could always hope, but so far he has only proven that he is extremely good at absorbing and using existing knowledge.

Whether he will also be able to come up with new insight and fresh solutions remains to be seen. One can always hope of course!

(Noticed how I tried really hard to avoid the word "innovate"... and failed in the end of course).

with all due respect

[dermusikman]

At eight years old Song is already talking about building flying cars and defying Newton's law of gravity while others his age are attending the first grade.

i was dreaming up flying cars and defying gravity in first grade. and riding dinosaurs... oh ya.

proof that K1-12 is a crock of pooh

[cheekyboy]

K1-12 is designed to keep things slow and to the level of the teachers.

Kids can learn faster and do it all well, its just the system is designed to make
robots and YES MEN.

The system cannot handle dynamic progress per student, its a FORD assembly plant.

Maths can be sped up 50 fold, first 5 years is ridiculously slow/low tech. Kids can learn 8 years in 12months.
History - that takes more effort/knowledge of the earth, tho skip the bit about remembering dates and its faster.
Languages - well , the whole language can be broken down in 1 4hr lesson into a massive 1 foot sized flow chart and rules, the rest are just like learning C++, all the verbs and nouns and functions.

Re:proof that K1-12 is a crock of pooh

[yog]

I agree with you... to a point. Sure, the public school system--and I assume you're referring to the U.S. system--teaches to the lowest common denominator.

High school kids, including and especially those at "underprivileged" inner city schools, have repeatedly said in study after study that they want to be challenged more.

This attitude flies in the face of the education establishment's approach which is to simply tread water, maintain discipline, try to get kids to behave and be regimented so that they will be able to "fit in" in the job market, try to ensure they have learned their basic literacy skills.

There's also the little issue of teachers' rights; teacher unions have as their priorities their pay, their working conditions, and their seniority. By their nature they care precious little about their productivity, which is so crucial to the future of our country.

Of course, the teachers blame parents, and we must face facts: American parents suck. They are more interested in seeing their kids win accolades and Little League games, whether honestly or underhandedly--it's winning that counts, not how you play the game. The extreme expression of this is the Blair Hornstine case (2003) in which a supposedly overachieving girl was denied "sole" valedictorian spot at her high school, and her parents sued.

What's the solution? Well, this Korean boy is a total anomaly in an educational system even more regimented than ours, and there are many cases of children skipping right to college in the U.S. When I lived in Taiwan in the early 80s, there was a front page news story about a 12-year-old Taiwan-born boy who graduated from Carnegie-Mellon Univ., the youngest person to receive a degree from that school and one of the youngest anywhere. The Taiwanese noted that probably, had his parents not emigrated to the U.S., he would not have been allowed to progress so quickly in their very rigid system.

I believe that we need to harness the things that make our system great--the flexibility, the allowance for creativity and self-expression, and at the same time reintroduce some discipline and high academic standards to both challenge the kids and give them greater self-respect. No one benefits from sailing through school; it's the challenges that make us grow and develop properly.

While this is wonderful and all...

[USSJoin]

I'm sorry, but I can't help but wonder how screwed up this kid will be at oh, say age 25 or so. One of the most important things my parents did for me when I was young was prevent my school district from having me skip... well, about 10 grades. Not as fast as this child, but nonetheless.
The reason? Simply that there are other things in life besides simply rushing through academics. There are issues which can't be handled simply from an academic perspective-- each day the engineers among us solve some new problem while thinking "outside the box," and this kid won't be able to do that. Because he doesn't have an "outside," he has what he's learned in books.
So I'm of mixed feelings on this one: on one hand, I'm happy for him, because he obviously has great potential, and parents that support him.
On the other hand, the best superstring theorists in the world, can't work for more than a few, perhaps 5 at a stretch, years from their start at that level. They simply burn out, every one. So if at 14, this kid's entirely burnt out... will it have been worth it?

Re:While this is wonderful and all...

[An Onerous Coward]

It's not "rushing through academics" if he just gets things faster than everyone else his age. Further, I'd like to know exactly when in his public school education these "outside the box" thinking skills would be installed in this kid. When he's being chased home from school by bullies? When he's spending an hour listening to an uninspired teacher drone on for an hour about concepts he's long since mastered? Or when his teacher gets mad at him for coming up with the correct answer, rather than the wrong answer in the book?

Yes, he needs time to be a kid, to socialize with other kids, and to do kid things. Are his parents giving him such opportunities? The article doesn't indicate one way or the other. But are you seriously asserting that the best way to provide those opportunities is to cage him up in a classroom with thirty other kids (most of whom probably despise him) and let them absorb material geared toward the dumbest kids in the class?

Child prodigies are a mystery to everyone. Nobody really knows how indications of genius at his age are going to translate into adult life, nor do we know how to get the most out of such children, or how to raise them in an emotionally happy way. But he's an extreme case, and as such doesn't fit well into any system designed for the bulk of people, whether that system is elementary school or universities. So I say, let him do what makes him happy.

Re:In Korea only old people?

[marcello_dl]

You kinda wasted the joke, that way... let's see:

"In Korea only old people don't understand the superstring theory"

or

"Imagine a beowulf classroom of these!"

You insensitive clod.

That's a really intersting question

[SuperKendall]

I wonder myself from time to time - what happens to these people you hear of accellerating through school like this? It seems like they must be capabile of some incredible things... do they just end up in some really esoteric sidetrack of acadamia? Are there any books or studies detailing what has happened to past kids like this?

Re:That's a really intersting question

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can find it, "The Prodigy" by Amy Wallace is an excellent one, though out of print now. It details the life of William James Sidis, who lived around the turn of the 20th century. This guy was smart beyond all fucking belief. Among other things, he was speaking at 6 months, had taught himself Latin by 3 years, spoke 7 languages fluently by 7, lectured about 4-dimensional bodies at Harvard at 11, and graduated from the same at 16. And a shitload of other such feats.

He wrote some academic papers and books under pseudonyms that went wholly unnoticed and un-cared about, even with such topics as postulating black holes well before anyone else. He never had a girlfriend. Never had sex. Never really had much in the way of friends at all. From his twenties onward he completely denied any special intelligence and only worked in manual labor types of jobs, most notably as a calculator operator, wherein he would do all of the calculations in his head and so have most of the day free. The press would openly mock him whenever they could find him.

His life's passion was collecting streetcar transfer tickets.

And the scariest part: it's non-fiction.

Re:That's a really intersting question

[MutantHamster]

The reason he never had a girlfriend and never had sex was because he willfully comitted himself to cellibacy. Which could obviously be considered contrary to normal social development, but not nearly in the way you're portraying it to be. His life wasn't as much of a failure as you make it out to be.

While he obviously didn't go on to fully utilize his talent, I severely doub it's because his gift was nutured. His reclusiveness was inspired mostly because of sever criticism from the media who constantly belittled him; equating his gifts to rote memorization and obsessive cramming, something that his parents had set out to discourage in their child.

Even with all that in mind, I wouldn't necessarily call him a failure. For the most part it was a combination of being too ahead of his time and society in general not being receptive enough to him. He postulated the existence of black holes before anyone else, pioneered the establishment of modern libertarianism, and developed methods of improving public transportation that are only now gaining acceptance. In relation to how incredibly gifted it was it's obviously a huge waste, but not for the reason you're implying. Not because he had an "abnormal social development," but because of distrust and hostility in society.

The notion of the tortured child prodigy is, in my opinion, just a cliche. I don't doubt there are severe problems that are typical in the lives of these people, but it's society in general that's responsible.

Like many other kids...

[Dark Coder]

he will grow up to be socially retarded.

Many studies have shown that rushing kids through grade levels without adequate peers will result in socially developmental retardation and, in some cases, detoriation.

Small price to pay to get the brain for the society as a whole.

Re:Like many other kids...

[HappyEngineer]

Being socially well adjusted is overrated.

Re:Like many other kids...

[Wilson_6500]

Being socially well adjusted is overrated.

Tell that to the misanthropic whiz-kids--even us mundane ones who can correct our physics professors but can't get a goddamn date.

Re:Like many other kids...

[Halo1]

Find a depressed woman and complement her.

Sounds like a great start for a very fulfilling and mutually beneficial relation. Unless you're into women who are completely dependent on you, or if you just want a quick date for sex, of course.

Re:Like many other kids...

[jiaxiang]

What person has been ultra-intelligent and socially "cool"?

In order to socialize in modern society, you almost have to be up to date on the latest entertainment. Otherwise, you would have to talk about something serious or important like whether or not public education is even useful.

Besides, how many of us are are socially retarded ourselves?

Re:Like many other kids...

[Alsee]

Being socially well adjusted is overrated.

FUCK YOU!

Oh, don't take it personally. I say that to everyone.

-

Hah!

[msormune]

I talked about building flying cars at the age of 6. In fact, I built one. It amazing what legos and some good old childhood imagination can do.

Something Missing?

[mosb1000]

"The interview was conducted mainly with the senior Song since Yoo-geun is lacking in his ability to communicate with adults."

Something tells me that he might no be ready for college just yet. . .

Re:Something Missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

In South Korea, one language dialect is used to speak to peers and another to speak to those who are older.

And it is much more difficult than simply injecting a 'sir' into the sentence.

I visited South Korea for about a decade when I was a kid and can still speak fluently to peers--but I don't dare speak Korean to elder Koreans because I'd end up royally pissing them off by not using the proper dialect.

Isn't it amazing how the phrase "lacking in his ability to communicate with adults" takes on a whole new meaning when given the context?

This reminds me of a similar situation we have with lack of context regarding the words and phrases used in the Bible or other religious texts. Yet people try to infect others with their misinterpretations and start wars when others disagree with them.

Re:Something Missing?

[BJH]

The language situation is the same in Japan (and no, it's not a "dialect"; it's just different levels of polite speech), and 8-year-old kids aren't expected to know how to talk to elderly people using correct speech. Just as long as they don't say something deliberately rude, no adult's going to get pissed at them for not knowing the right verb forms.

This is great but...

[knightrdr]

I feel pretty bad for this kid. After all, he will never have a normal life. I've known a genius who burnt out and worked a crappy job. I'm not saying that will happen with this kid, but I fear that there is a strong chance that he will crack at some point. Imagine living your whole life around people who are so much "slower" than you that they might as well be retarded for all intents and purposes. He will likely relate to adults better than kids, which is going to be hard because so many will envy him. There will be many who are threatened by his precociousness. Think of Good Will Hunting x 20. He will never know what it is to have a normal life and that may cause him to envy "normal" people to an extent. That being said, I really hope he does well and can find a good core group of people who will guide him and treat him well. This kind of makes me think that reincarnation truly happens....

Not necessiarily a prodigy!

[Anonymous Coward]

This feat has been accomplished before. Children of only average intelligence, if they are drilled at early enough age, can master the basic GED curriculum by eight years old. They tend not to do well in university however as they usually have not developed the abilty to think critically and independantly. A teenager coming up with a nobel prize worthy idea is a prodigy. An eight year old who gets into university is just an example of a yet to be identified form of child abuse.

Re:Not necessiarily a prodigy!

[HappyEngineer]

If that's true then there's something wrong with the school system. It essentially means that most people utterly waste 10 years of their lives for no reason whatsoever. If what you say is true then what I'd like to see is thousands of 8 year olds entering college. Then they'll have peers while also gaining the benefit of leaving the land of the idiots. Perhaps that sort of thing will encourage change in the system. If that many 8 year olds entered college then someone could start a college for 8 year olds. It'd be like a Harry Potter school.

Re:Not necessiarily a prodigy!

[Tidal Flame]

I don't know if what he's saying is true. I don't know of any evidence to back it up, but it does sound feasible.

Regardless, you must be nuts if you don't already think there's something wrong with the school system. The only valuable part of high school (for example) is learning how to interact with people of all sorts - nice people, assholes, idiots, members of the opposite sex, etc. That's a very important skill, and high school does do a pretty good job of teaching that. But the rest of it is shit. Cramming 30+ kids into a classroom for hours on end with a teacher who doesn't necessarily know the material they're supposed to be teaching (let alone effective teaching methods) is absolutely not the best way to teach kids. It is a waste of time. A huge waste of time. I don't have all the solutions, but I do know that there must be better ways to teach than the school system most countries have right now.

Hmmmm

[Jesus IS the Devil]

Ok every once in a while we would hear about these child prodigies that accomplish a lot while they're still young. Rather than put them down so quickly to salvage your own egos, wouldn't it be better to ask for a study to see what happens when they actually grow up?

Do these kids just max out at age 10 and eventually are equalled or even surpassed by their peers later on down the road? How are they when they are say 25, 30, 40?

Now that is what I really want to know. The final form of the adult.

Re:Hmmmm

[Sycraft-fu]

Depends. Some go on to lead lives of great note. Mozart would be one. He was truly a prodigy in the classical sense of the word, that is a child (meaning pre-teen) that can truly excel in something at an adult level. Many don't, and you never hear about them because of that, unless you dig through psycology jounrals on the topic. Also probably depends on if the kid is really a prodigy or not. There are all kinds of precocious kids that perform well above the norm and develop quickly. However it's very rare to find a child that truly and fully not only performs at an adult level, but excels at it.

In fact I'm not really sure that there ARE any child prodigies on record that aren't a prodigy in mathematics or music. Admittedly this isn't something I've given a lot of study to, but whenever I've been shown a prodigy in another field, they don't meet the criteria. It's a teenager or young adult that achieved something eairly, or a child that's exceptional, but not up to excellent adult standards.

I imagine that will play a role for this boy. If he's just very smart, he may find that being thrown into the adult world is simply too much for him. If he's a true prodigy, then it shouldn't be any problem, intellectually at least. If that's the case, teh big factor will be emotional development. Growing up is hard for most of us, and he's going to have it much worse. It has to be amazingly difficult to have the intellectual capacity of an adult but the emotions and needs of a child.

Re:Hmmmm

[yeOldeSkeptic]

I took a course in BS Physics and I had a classmate like that. He entered University at the age of 10 direct from grade 5. His teachers noticed him sleeping most of the time in classes but when tested he knew more than his teachers. He was accelerated to a special science high school for above-average kids but after 6 months his teachers told his parents that they have nothing more to teach him. He was then sent directly to university where he was enrolled in the BS Math, BS Physics and MS Physics courses at the same time! He is good! He can compute sines and cosines in his head and can sum a taylor series without writing anything down. When he became my lab mate, we would use him as a calculator because he can compute much faster than our electronic calculators. During the time spent entering numbers on the calculator he would be able to tell us the results. We just decided to call out the numbers to him rather than have the calculator do it for us. He is a walking calculator. That was more than twenty years ago. Ever since graduating from university I have sought to find out if he has somehow made a significant contribution to physics commensurate with his abilities. After scouring newspapers and the university newsletters, I have found none. It was a disappointment. I don't know if going to university at such an early age was the right thing he did. Obviously, he was far too advanced to stay in grade 5. However, I doubt it if being forced to study in the university at his age was the right approach. He was interviewed by a newspaper once when he was my classmate. He was asked how he felt about being accelerated from grade 5 to university in less than a year. I can't forget what he said in the interview. He said he felt lonely because he has no friends in the university. All the others guys want to talk about is their girlfriends while all he wanted to do was build a paper airplane and sail it across the classroom.

Re:Hmmmm

[Angstroem]

Not to belittle his achievements, but what you're reporting here to me sounds an awful lot like he's at least partly autistic. Being a living computer comes in truly handy when doing calculations, but it's nowhere near ingenuity.

Or he was indeed a true genius -- and was just effectively ground up by the system. Being research and teaching assistant myself, my steadily growing impression since the late 90s is that university is just one big bureaucracy, but no place for ingenious people trying to work on scientific breakthroughs.

Maybe that's why you never heard of him.

Re:Lacking

[yfkar]

It seems to be the nature's law that if you're really a genius in some aspect, you must suck at something else.

I see..

[deep44]

He's just getting all this school mumbo-jumbo out of the way so he can concentrate full-time on playing Starcraft once he turns 14.

How did his parents raise him?

[brian0918]

Did they follow the same methods that produced the genius of William James Sidis? (similar childhood, IQ estimated between 250 and 300)

Re:How did his parents raise him?

[iamplupp]

Check out this table for example: http://members.shaw.ca/delajara/IQtable.html

Poor kid

[Jessta]

The poor kid is not going to have much contact with other kids his age. I'm guessing he's going to grow up a bit anti-social and with a lack of understanding of general social rules and rituals.
- Jesse McNelis

Another Sidis in the making?

[lotus_out_law]

Another sidis in the making?
I really really hope not ...

How much is this guys IQ? No mention of the same in the article.

Another issue with child prodigies are that they grow up fast, but in the end have the same intelligence as a normal human being.
Anyways, here, I don't think that's an issue since I dont know too many [ normal :-) ] people completely understanding shrodinger's eq at 30 let alone 7 years of age.

Do they really graduate ?

[managedcode]

He is a specialist. Mastering Physics is no doubt the best choice. But how do these kids fair say when they are 20 or more ? Do they really go ahead and get a P.hd ? I have known some extremely bright students in high school now flipping burgers. I don't know what happened to them but they derailed.

eBay Sucks!

Let Me Guess...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're the guy behind that time cube thing, aren't you?

Where are the older ones?

[p0]

From time to time we hear about such brilliant minds. But what happens when they grow up? Was anyone from here a child prodigy?

Re:Where are the older ones?

[ajna]

From time to time we hear about such brilliant minds. But what happens when they grow up? Was anyone from here a child prodigy?

I was almost a child prodigy, but I decided to be "normal".

Say what? Thanks to good performances on the SAT at age 10 and 11, in both 7th and 8th grade (age 11, 12 -- I'd already skipped) I had the choice to continue with the typical schooling path or to jump directly to classes at the University of Washington. The Early Entrance Program is still around if you want to read about it, and has a year of transition, essentially to finish up the loose ends that high school would have tied up.

However, as other posters have picked up, this transition program doesn't magically make kids grow up, especially socially. At some level back then even I knew that being the "cute little kid" in class, having the girls pet my hair and go back to their own, completely incomprehensible lives, would not be what I wanted. For better or worse, I wanted to be normal.

So I went to high school, by choice. I was still always somewhat the odd one out due to being in different classes, but probably not more so than the average Slashdot reader. I was a "normal nerd" if you will. Playing sports, music, and generally learning how to be a social animal were where the true benefit of high school.

Skip forward several years and the interesting bit is that the things that I value most in my life these days _aren't_ what I displayed precocious abilities in. In particular music wouldn't have been such a large part of my life were it not for my experiences in the "normal" schooling system.

It is also true that many pursuits in life, such as my chosen path, require a level of social/emotional/personal stability and maturity that young kids simply don't have. I'm 24 now, and a second year medical student instead of the math post-doc I might have been had I chosen differently, and medicine is one of those areas where being young would have worked against me. Because of all this I feel that I made the right choice way back when.

Flying Cars? Or rushing Zerglings...

[Mingco]

Give a year, two max. He'll be a master StarCraft player, and all that physics education will go down the drain.

Say what?

[Quiet_Desperation]

I'm sorry, but in what parallel dimension do they teach maturity in the school system?

In all the schools I went to, the clique-ized and institutionalized immaturity was actively supported by the teaching staff that openly favored the "popular" kids. The end result when this cancer has fully metastasized is national news stories of the football team stuffing foriegn object up the asses of other students while the coach looks on approvingly. Google on "mepham high football". And that's the best case. Worst case is Columbine.

Maybe that's teaching about the real world, but don't you dare call it maturity.

Re:Say what?

[Guppy06]

"Worst case is Columbine."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the only reason Columbine made copy is because they were pointing their guns at someone other than themselves for once.

Re:Flying cars are nice but..

[Mistshadow2k4]

He's only 8. Barring disaster, he's got plenty of time.

while others his age are attending the first grade

[frovingslosh]

while others his age are attending the first grade

Really? That would have them getting out of high school school 12 later at age 20. I suspect there are not really many Korean first graders at age 8. But then this is /. and it's not like the editors check for any accuracy.

The classical grass and the fence

[Steeltoe]

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Being a genius, doesn't mean you're happy, or have a happy life, or even that you can choose your life. Did this kid really choose to be sent to college at age 8? What other choices will be made, in order to "optimize his future possibilities"? Rich people usually have the greatest debts. It's really amazing how paradoxial the world is..

This is why envy does no good to a man, it only makes you drop your innocence and thus happiness. Envy can happen to this boy, as well as his peers, leaving all of them ravaged. Or the opposite might happen, which would be truly great.

The real geniuses I admire are those who can be happy while contributing to the benefit of all. That has nothing to do with the type of IQ or school grades being measured by scientists, yet.

Your question has been studied

[cerebis]

Your question is a good once and it has been studied. I believe that current science believes that the brain doesn't completely mature until around 20 years of age. In that intervening time, between birth and full maturity, there is a potential for one brain to develop more quickly in certain aspects than the average, and consequently produce very high IQ children. However, as everyone's brain reaches maturity, that gap tends to narrow dramatically. That's not an argument that smart kids don't become smart adults, just that extraordinarily intelligent kids don't seem to maintain that same gap on the majority in adulthood.

Basically, people make the mistake of treating the brain's functional power as a linear equation (something like),

P(t) = m t + Po.

Where the implicit assumption is that the scalar factor m is equal between all people, and the initial condition Po is the soul source of variation in function. So for a kid identified as very smart (a high Po), we reach the false conclusion that following this relationship above, the freakish gap in funciton will remain constant. We ignore that m (which for simplicity's sake I am treating as a simple scalar) is just as significant and allows for what we observe in nature.

Re:Prediction:

[nollaigoc]

That is somewhat negative. He could do very well. Think of musical prodigys including W.A Mozart. In more recent times; Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica http://www.stephenwolfram.com/about-sw/ "Born in London in 1959, Wolfram was educated at Eton, Oxford, and Caltech. He published his first scientific paper at the age of 15, and had received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Caltech by the age of 20. --" Went on to create the computer algebra system http://www.wolfram.com/

Fortunately (maybe)..

[utenaslashed]

I heard that his father had quit his job so that he could help his son studying (or whatever). I don't know but it seems he isn't a total publicity whore after all. Good for him? That I'm not sure. (If there's nothing I can do to protect the kid, at least I can hope his family get some money)

Re:while others his age are attending the first gr

[truedfx]

From the article: "While other children his age are first graders at elementary school, he is a freshman at the Physics Department of Inha University in Incheon, west of Seoul."

If that's wrong (I don't know), there's no point in blaming /. for it... It would be rather hard to spot such a mistake for someone not familiar with the Korean school system.

Re:Flying cars are nice but..

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Seriously, do these guys ever end up making significant scientific contributions?

Re:String theory and cars?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

...and yeah, he is the first 8 year old ever to dream of flying cars.

Re:Prediction:

[xSauronx]

unless he becomes the craftiest womanizer ever.

Re:Flying cars are nice but..

[corvair2k1]

Gauss was a child prodigy... As well as Erdos, Pascal, Euler, Neumann, Maclauren, etc.

On my own observation...

[aepervius]

It is usually a logarythmic curve, where you reach a "flat" at adulthood. The bottom line being that "flat" part being more or less high, and it is true some people will be smarter than other in adulthood, but I saw very bright kid go very high (for their age) and them not rise again, and other start below as normal kid, but getting slowly brighter and brighter until they rise over the former.

Re:What happens to these kids?

[tomstdenis]

Usually the news blows this out of proportion. Remember that Sarah chick from Ireland that was a "crypto prodigy"? Yeah, she fell off the radar something hard. Never published, never pokes up in discussion forums, etc.

It isn't because she's stupid or something. It's because she had a high school project and the news blew it up to something it wasn't. It was just that. She heard of RSA and thought "this would be neat". Her idea didn't work out in the end but it was still an intelligent project none the less.

Chances are this kid is doing the bare minimum to pass exams or something and when you actually ask him to solve a problem not listed in the textbooks he'll get stumped. It takes a very short time to memorize data, it takes longer to form the patterns in the brain to be able to manipulate the data.

So the reason you don't hear about them in the future is because they end up fluttering into "blandness". He'll get his degree at age 12 or whatever and it'll take him 20 years to actually know what to do with the knowledge.

And I'm not trying to shoot down these people. I just hate how the media focuses on all the wrong qualities and blows things way out of proportion....

Tom

[OT] Ate the cat, possibly

[kanweg]

Well, it is Korea, so perhaps the cat got eaten.

Bert

i've been there- i know what its like

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to university on my 8th birthday, started in computer science.
I taught at teachers college when I was 12.

I was a CA (Course Assistant) for many years inbetween,
and a TA (Teaching Assistant) for many years inbetween too.

I "ran" the whole department for an entire term one year.

I was labelled "borderline genius/insanity". the IQ test registered me at an
insane (literally) level of "497". I was labelled emotionally unstable.

I was in and out of psych groups for many many years, even in the hospital with various doctors, etc

I never had a childhood, I never really had friends. I have been completely inept socially. I have no idea how to meet people, how to make friends, etc.

I don't understand feelings or emotions at all. I don't understand basic humor even.

My university records were destroyed by the chairperson of the university, because her son was in the same classes as me (he wasn't smart - she just put him there, he was the same age), but he couldn't do it, always failed.

I also took psych in university, although only for a year or two. I got a score of 78 on the final exam even though I had missed about 2.5 years of classes.

I feel the psych course has hurt me more than it has helped. I over-analyze everything.
I am rational to the point of hair-splitting.

I don't "get" basical linear concepts. I can't wrap my head around them. But complex non-linear things, wow those ae easy!

I understood the nature of black holes when I was 8. I really "got" it. it was all so simple really.

I've spent years unemployed. I've been on welfare more than once.

I've never known what to do with my life, what I'm supposed to be doing, or why...
I've never fit in anywhere, in any situation.
I'm an introvert, quiet, shy, bashful, etc.

I don't know how to talk to people. i don't "muck" or "mud" or do online games.

I'm not fat, i don't drink, don't smoke, don't do drugs. But I've known a LOT of prostitutes...
When I was in high school (I went to high school AFTER university), although the first few years of HS I was doing both at the same time.

I wrote my HS exams remotely via computer from the university. I crashed the HS computer systems writing my exams - it wasn't intentional. No one had done this before, or since, they really weren't designed for it.

During high school, the owner of the pinball place across the street also owned a strip joint, I knew the owner, got in free (due to constant visiting of the pinball place), a guy from school was a cook in the kitchen at the strip joint. so free entry and free food, plus lots of naked women, what more could a young geek want?

Strippers would sit at my table, in large groups, and talk about their problems, some about their boyfriends, but mostly about their "female problems", like their periods, even hysterectomies (so I can't spell it), within a few months I knew more about female anatomy than any man had any right to know (or desire for that matter).

and yet, I am still a stranger in this world. I really feel like an "alien", I don't fit in, I don't belong. I don't have friends, I have no clue about how to make friends, totally completely socially inept.

I spenty decades, literally with counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, you name it. I never got anywhere. I was always told they can only help people who can help themselves. I can't help myself.
And being a psych major from university, I know all the common answers, I know all the questions, I over-analyze what I'm asked and what I say. it really doesn't help.
and I can't turn it "off"...

And I have no idea what to do about it. or how. etc etc.

I'm SCARED! yes, scared shitless. Because I don't know. and I don't know if I'll ever be able to relax, and be stable, and happy. I know being normal is over-rated, but still I need SOMETHNG...

so I really don't know what to do. so here I post for help. maybe someone out there has the

skipping K1-12 might be good for string theorists

[SaXisT4LiF]

Maths can be sped up 50 fold

Come to think of it, this could be the best possible thing for an aspiring string theorist. The kind of mathematics he'll need to understand string theory could completely replace the standard K1-12 curriculum, at least the one I went through anyway.

Pre-School and Kindergarten could introduce little kids to logic and set theory. Concepts like 'true', 'false', 'and', 'or', and 'not' should be fairly easy to teach to children of this age group. It might even be possible to do this indirectly through other actities.

Elementary shool math could be replaced by an gentle introduction to number theory and abstract algebra. Getting kids familiar with the concept of fields (i.e. Q, R, and N p) by K5 sounds like a reasonable goal since in the classical K1-K5 classes, the topics covered in math would include addition, multiplication, division, exponentiation and roots anyways. Why not do them a favor and give them more precise definitions? It'll come in handy later.

Middle school math is basically an introduction to polynomials and planar geometry, and the current high school curriculum struggles to expand into higher dimensions. Why not replace all of this with a proper introduction to linear algebra? Teach kids how to work directly with inner products and cross products instead of bothering with angles and classical trigonometry. Introducing high school students to calculus and statistics seems the current standard, but wouldn't college level physics classes benefit from a freshman class that was already familiar with differential geometry and probablity theory?

An math education up to this point would be sufficient to start teaching high school graduates M-theory, especially if the physics program was accelerated at a similar rate. If this is where Song Yoo-geun is at 8 years old, I am thoroughly impressed.

I'd guess that Song Yoo-geun's math education was sped up about 64 fold commared to the public education system in the US, so a 50 fold increase sounds like a reasonable goal.

Language in a 1-foot box? Ha!

[MisterSquid]

Languages - well , the whole language can be broken down in 1 4hr lesson into a massive 1 foot sized flow chart and rules, the rest are just like learning C++, all the verbs and nouns and functions.

This shows how little you understand the complexity of human languages. Grammar is a more-or-less coherent fiction invented in the eighteenth century to try to freeze language. Fortunately for us, languages are living and break elitist notions of "grammatical usage" every second of every day.

In fact, the complexity of human languages is so great that while child prodigies can master and pioneer mathematics, music, and physics by their twenties, literary masters are rarely so young. Communicating to other sentient beings (basically, a 24/7/365 Turing test) practically guarantees that what you think you know about language in that "1-foot sized flow chart and rules" is next to meaningless.

Re:Language in a 1-foot box? Ha!

[RetroGeek]

24/7/365

If something is 24/7, how does adding the 365 make it more so? And what about leap years? Does 24/7/365 skip a day every four years?

<pet peave...>

Re:Bored gifted kids...

[Requiem]

99.5%+ and you can't even spell "colleagues" correctly?

i've never heard of him either...

[Jippy T Flounder]

but to be fair, it's also possible that he got scooped up by some secret government / military / illuminati type organization, and is currently reading your post and giggling insanely. the fact that you can't find anything out about him doesn't indicate a damn thing!

Value of failure

[Funkadelicon]

I believe that attending school and living out a normal childhood teaches a person something far more important than academics and social interaction. I believe it teaches a person the value of failure.

From a young age, Einstein loved to play the violin. He was never really good at it, however, and one might imagine what it would have been like for the brilliant mind of this child to be challenged by a piece of wood and catgut. Though I'm no scholar of Einstein's life, I'm sure that somewhere in-between skipping school to play the violin and the various odd jobs he took before becoming a physicist, he learned the value of failure, a crucial skill for anyone who aspires to be someone great.

Unfortunately, this kid will probably be forced to study what he's good at and will never be challenged to learn anything else. Seeing how the adults in his life are treating him, as if raising him with latex gloves, I doubt he's been pushed into an area of study where he'd be bound to fail. Then, one wonders, what will happen when he reaches his mental limit? I fear he will crash and burn.

Re:skipping K1-12 might be good for string theoris

[Coryoth]

A couple of things. First it's been tried and it failed, miserably. There are many complicated reasons for why it failed as badly as it did, and of course the failure of New Math doesn't mean some sort of reform of the math syllabus might not be beneficial, but I think it shows you really need to be rather careful about all of this.

As a mathematician I can tell you that there's something I would call "mathematical maturity" - it's a hard thng to pin down and different people develop it at different rates, but it tends to amount to an ability to really grasp various abstract concepts at a deep conceptual level (rather than just as surface definitions). From my experience teaching math, and those of people I know, I would suggest that large chunks f the program you outline require a little more mathematical maturity than is generally deevloped by most people at the required age.

Secondly: ...high school curriculum struggles to expand into higher dimensions. Why not replace all of this with a proper introduction to linear algebra? Teach kids how to work directly with inner products and cross products instead of bothering with angles and classical trigonometry.

So you're worried about the inability to expand into hiher dimensions and you want to teach them cross products? Tell me how to take a cross product of vectos in anything other than 3 dimensions. I think what you're after is Geometric Algebra which defines a vector product as a combination of inner (dot) and outer (wedge) products. As soon as you have outer products and exterior algebras working early in the piece then generalisation to hgher dimensions becomes easy.

Next, that doesn't obviate the need for trigonometry in any real way. In case you hadn't noticed trigonometric functions are quite fndamental for a great deal of mathematics.

Jedidiah.

Re:What happens to these kids?

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Remember that Sarah chick from Ireland that was a "crypto prodigy"? Yeah, she fell off the radar something hard. Never published, never pokes up in discussion forums, etc.


Hey, she's been busy.

http://www.wolframscience.com/summerschool/2003/pa rticipants/flannery.html

"At present she is working for Wolfram Research."

Re:What happens to these kids?

[tomstdenis]

I'm not trying to speak ill of her. But I'd expect more from this genius crypto prodigy. I mean Dr. Wagner has more publications to his name and he hasn't really had any press the way she has had [he's been cited I think a few times but that's it].

To be fair I think the press is to blame and not her in this respect.

Tom