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.

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: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.

Another Sidis in the making?

[lotus_out_law]

Another sidis [wikipedia.org] 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.

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: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: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

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend's girlfriend was one of these child prodigies. She entered uni at 14 and two years later had a nervous breakdown and had to be put on anti-depressants. Now she's back into uni a couple of years behind the average intellegent university girl.

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.

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/ [stephenwolfram.com] "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/ [wolfram.com]

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 [guardian.co.uk]

[...] 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 [hankooki.com]

[...] 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.

I don't believe he understands physics

[Anonymous Coward]

As as physicist, I believe the progidies that come to the university because they never step foot into the physics department. They usually fill their lab science requirement with geology because they can't cut it with real science (usually). But I have hard time believing this kid can actually do real physics.

building flying cars and defying Newton's law of gravity

this statement show a complete lack of understanding of all known laws of gravity.

make flying cars, based on the superstring theory

I doubt he has any understanding what-so-ever of actual string theory. I bet if you asked him to write down any Lagrangian of choice he wouldn't know what you are talking about.

Making flying cars based on superstring theory is a completely rediculous idea. I think he dreams big but understands little.

"It goes against Newton's law. Everything on earth gets drawn to the surface by gravity, but in the case of flying cars, it's different," Song said. "There should exist the same opposite magnitude of power as the earth's gravity-pull. So, a balance is formed between gravity and reaction, which makes flying cars float in the atmosphere"

This shows a simple understanding of basic mechanics. In the case of a flying bird the forces cancel out as well. Flying birds do not defy Newton's laws.

I have strong doubts about this. But I would want nothing more than a new physics prodigy, a new Feynmann. We have none. I don't think Brian Greene cuts it, because he hasn't made any contributions relevant to reality. And unfortunately I don't think Hawking makes the best role model because of his condition.

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:Pointless

[loucura!]

Much like how people refer to individuals on Slashdot as male...

That's more due to the vagaries of the English language than Slashdot demographics, since "he" is the generic pronoun.

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.

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!

Re:OK I give up

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Heh. My dad was one of these kids. Lucky for him he was a Boston native, and his "school near home" was Harvard.

He'll be quite open to admit, though, that it completely screwed him up socially.

Re:How did his parents raise him?

[iamplupp]

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

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

[Coryoth]

A couple of things. First it's been tried [wikipedia.org] 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 [wikipedia.org] 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: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: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 [wolframscience.com]

"At present she is working for Wolfram Research."