12-Year-Old Rewrites Einstein's Theory of Relativity

rhathar writes "A 12-year-old boy by the name of Jacob Barnett is a math genius. Mastering many college level astrophysics courses by the age of 8, he now works on his most ambitious project to date: his own 'expanded version of Einstein's theory of relativity.'"

Comments

Primary Source

[dtmos]

The Indianapolis Star

Re:Primary Source

[gstoddart]

[blockquote]The boy wonder, who taught himself calculus, algebra, geometry and trigonometry in a week[/blockquote]
I call bullshit.

How so? It's not unprecedented for people to be savants, and to have singularly amazing mathematical abilities. The human brain is an amazing thing ... I don't even think this is the first time I've heard about a teenager with some form of autism who is a math prodigy.

According to the article:

At this point, Jake's math IQ -- which has been measured at 170 (top of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) -- could not get any higher.

"You could tell right off the bat, his performance has been outstanding," said Ross, who, at age 46 with a Ph.D. from Boston University, has never seen a kid as smart as Jake.

Sure, it's rare. But, I don't think it's unprecedented to see this.

Of course, I can only imagine that between being this smart (for math) and having some degree of autism is going to make it difficult for him -- I can only imagine how messed up it would be to be doing graduate-level mathematics, and still have all of the other crap a 12 year old has to go through on top of that.

But, I don't dis-believe that he taught himself high school math in a week or two. Some of these kinds of problems are well documented as something that occasionally someone with autism or something similar just "see" and work with naturally.

Re:Primary Source

[IceNinjaNine]

The History Channel is the bible/alien abduction channel, not the documentary channel.

I thought it was "All Hitler, all the time..."

Re:Primary Source

[PaladinAlpha]

It's not about being "smart (for math)".

Let me put it like this. What if the kid was a whiz programmer, and they said he had taught himself "C, C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, Lisp, Prolog, and x86 assembly in a week"? It's nonsense. There's more information there than can be read in a week, let alone applied and digested.

What does that imply about the claim, then? Well, for our hypothetical whiz programmer, it means he knows how to write "hello, world" a lot of different ways, but lacks the capacity to use the strengths of each language. He's committed the grievous error of the breadth-first search in an expertise-driven field. And I submit that the same thing holds for our actual math genius, here -- which I would further claim is a tragedy.

If they held this kid accountable and really put him through the full coursework, he could turn into a very powerful mathematician, or physicist. But if they're letting him skate by with thinking he's taught himself everything there is to know about every major branch of mathematics inside of a week, they're ruining his ability to carry his investigation with scientific rigor. What he's learned is no doubt the trigonometric identities, the power and chain rules, and similar "first brush" material, and will spend the next two decades with mistakes and discoveries that have already been made countless times before.

Genius is a reason to work more, not less. Removing responsibility from our best and brightest is one of the biggest threats to our prosperity.

Re:Primary Source

[Ben4jammin]

Well, I don't know if you read the article or not, but I did. I assume you are basing your response partly on this:

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

I would take that with a grain of salt. He obviously has something akin to a photographic memory. FTA:

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.

So a more likely explanation is that he ran through the books very fast because he only needs to read it once to memorize it. I would agree with your point that memorizing facts does not automatically mean you know when to apply them.

But I think they are holding him accountable as evidenced by him attending lectures and providing tutoring services. If he is given the information about the mistakes and discoveries so far there is no reason to believe he can't assimilate it and push it further. He will need to learn scientific rigor, sure, but he is already on his way if the article is accurate when it reports that he seeks out the professors after class to ask questions...what else can he do at this point?

I guess what I am trying to say is your response reeks of "sour grapes" :) I too wish I had a photographic memory. Although my hypnotherapist has helped me greatly in remembering names

Re:Oh sure.....

[WrongSizeGlass]

What's the theory? How does it "expand" on relativity?

I think he made relativity object oriented.

Re:Aspergers Syndrome

[strack]

well, the real measure of this is to see where he is when hes like 25 or roundabout. theres been a lot of boy wonders who burnt out.

Nonsense!

[gestalt_n_pepper]

He doesn't even have his deriver's license yet!

Jebus

[SomePgmr]

I now feel like a barely functioning, non-contributing member of society. Thanks slashdot.

Sounds like he's good at math.

[pclminion]

So, the kid seems to be great at math. Question is, is he great at physics? Manipulating equations in startling ways is cool and all, but if the result doesn't agree with reality, or if it produces nothing testable, then you're just messing around. Period.

Einstein always struggled with the mathematics and didn't consider himself to be very good at it. Einstein's contribution was the physical insight behind relativity.

Evolution..

[daitengu]

I've been saying it for years.   Autism isn't a disease, it's the next step in human evolution.

Re:Evolution..

[smelch]

I've been saying it for years, Autism is what uncomfortable people use to make themselves feel ok about never quite understanding humans because they were too busy thinking instead of experiencing. Also, in rare cases used to refer to a mental disorder.

Re:The Big Bang

[PvtVoid]

Explanation at http://www.indystar.com/article/20110320/LOCAL01/103200369/Genius-work-12-year-old-studying-IUPUI

Here is his "debunking" of the big bang:

"So, um, in the big-bang theory, what they do is, there is this big explosion and there is all this temperature going off and the temperature decreases really rapidly because it's really big. The other day I calculated, they have this period where they suppose the hydrogen and helium were created, and, um, I don't care about the hydrogen and helium, but I thought, wouldn't there have to be some sort of carbon?"
...
I calculated, the time it would take to create 2 percent of the carbon in the universe, it would actually have to be several micro-seconds. Or a couple of nano-seconds, or something like that. An extremely small period of time. Like faster than a snap. That isn't gonna happen."

This is total gibberish. There is no carbon created in the Big Bang, only hydrogen, helium, and lithium. This was understood in the 1970's. All of the carbon in the universe is created in stars. This is likewise well understood. Also, the earth is mostly iron, not carbon. If this kid's new theory of relativity is anything like his theory of cosmology, he needs to be back in school getting an education, not doing independent research.

Stick this boy in a proper school...

[denzacar]

And away from sensationalist reporters going for "OMG! Big Bang didn't happen says genius kid!".

http://www.indystar.com/article/20110320/LOCAL01/103200369/Genius-work-12-year-old-studying-IUPUI

Meanwhile, Jake is moving on to his next challenge: proving that the big-bang theory, the event some think led to the formation of the universe, is, well, wrong.

Wrong?

He explains.

"There are two different types of when stars end. When the little stars die, it's just like a small poof. They just turn into a planetary nebula. But the big ones, above 1.4 solar masses, blow up in one giant explosion, a supernova," Jake said. "What it does, is, in larger stars there is a larger mass, and it can fuse higher elements because it's more dense."

OK . . . trying to follow you.

"So you get all the elements, all the different materials, from those bigger stars. The little stars, they just make hydrogen and helium, and when they blow up, all the carbon that remains in them is just in the white dwarf; it never really comes off.

"So, um, in the big-bang theory, what they do is, there is this big explosion and there is all this temperature going off and the temperature decreases really rapidly because it's really big. The other day I calculated, they have this period where they suppose the hydrogen and helium were created, and, um, I don't care about the hydrogen and helium, but I thought, wouldn't there have to be some sort of carbon?"

He could go on and on.

And he did.

"Otherwise, the carbon would have to be coming out of the stars and hence the Earth, made mostly of carbon, we wouldn't be here. So I calculated, the time it would take to create 2 percent of the carbon in the universe, it would actually have to be several micro-seconds. Or a couple of nano-seconds, or something like that. An extremely small period of time. Like faster than a snap. That isn't gonna happen."

"Because of that," he continued, "that means that the world would have never been created because none of the carbon would have been given 7 billion years to fuse together. We'd have to be 21 billion years old . . . and that would just screw everything up."

Plenty of time for Carbon at the beginning of things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallicity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-alpha_process
http://www.solstation.com/x-objects/first.htm

IANAA, so my GUESS here is that kid lacks the knowledge necessary to put the whole thing in perspective.
As indicated by astrophysics Professor Scott Tremaine's reply to his theories that suggests "Jake to spend as much time as possible to learn more and to further develop his theory".
It's a polite way to say "Well thank YOU Mr. Smartypants. Us poor astrophysics scientists here would have NEVER thought of THAT had YOU not come along. NOT!".

And the journalist simply doesn't have a clue on the subject and is clearly going for a sound-bite.

Re:Stick this boy in a proper school...

[SETIGuy]

I feel sorry for this kid, because these stories/videos aren't going to go away. The kid is talking about things he partially understands, and maybe he has some insights or ideas, but other people have probably already had those insights. He's got a lot more to learn before he'll be reworking general relativity. Maybe he'll be working on it in graduate school. The problem is, that these videos will follow him there.

I think this happens to all the physics freaks at that age, but we old timers didn't have video cameras following us around when we were explaining to the rest of the class why the detection of cosmic ray muons at ground level is good evidence for special relativity. I tried to build a version of special relativity with quantized space-time when I was in middle school. Of course I didn't succeed, but I've still got the papers somewhere. It's extremely stupid and I did learn things in the attempt. But with a little more knowledge I wouldn't have even tried it. But fortunately I (and more importantly, my colleagues) don't have video of TV interviews with a 13 year old me saying things that any physicist undergrad would know were wrong.

So let's leave the kid alone and let him fail at these unattainable goals without us looking. Then he will go to college and grad school and become a scientist that might actually do some of these things. If we keep bothering him, and make his inconsequential failures public, he'll probably end up an accountant.

Re:I think he's saying there is.

[rk]

As smart as he is mathematically, his ignorance of high-school level geology is rather shocking* if he's going to make pronouncements like this. The Earth is 62% iron and oxygen, not carbon. Carbon's not even in the top ten. Even in the lithosphere, carbon is only 0.03% (yes, three HUNDREDTHS of a percent) of it. I'm not qualified to say if his hypothesis would have issues with the oxygen and iron abundance, however. I recall iron being a sort of low energy state with respect to nuclear reactions, where fusion reactions with elements with atomic weights below iron being generally exothermic and fission being generally endothermic, and the reverse being true of elements heavier than iron. But in thinking the earth is primarily carbon when it's not he's starting out with a false premise.

*- Well, however smart he is, he's still a 12 year old boy so I should cut him a little slack.