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.

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

ah well

[Triv]

So much for letting the kid grow up.

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.

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: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: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).

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.

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: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.

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:proof that K1-12 is a crock of pooh

[slashjunkie]

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.

I don't know what your C++ coding is like, but as a person who has learned three additional (natural) languages, I can say that learning to speak a foreign language is not just about technical grammar. Pronunciation, syllable stress, and most importantly understanding colloquial meaning or implied meaning play a major role. These things are not so easily expressed as a flow chart.

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: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

[RoboPimp_3000]

I can see several differences. One is that an athlete only has a limited amount of time to make use of his gifts. A scholar, if he isn't overworked, will presumably be as talented, if not more so, as he gets older. So there's really no need, IMO, to rush through education. Another difference is that a 16 year old athlete probably has spent a healthy amount of time growing up with kids his own age. I don't know if a kid who enters college at 8 has that same opportunity.

And really, once he gets his PhD, what's he gonna do? Work? You've got the rest of your life to work, kid. Enjoy your childhood while it lasts.

Of course, if this is what he really wants to do, and isn't being forced into by his parents, then good luck to him.

Re:Like many other kids...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not going to matter if he went to college or rotted in school with kids his age. The fact is he's too smart to be with them as they can't relate to what he's talking about, so he's going to be messed up either way. Better not to stifle his mind let him talk to some people who can communicate with him about some things and get him a good shrink to keep him from going nuts. Hopefully, his social skills won't suck and he can learn some hobbies that he can share with people his one age as he gets older.

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!

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: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: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.

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:Flying cars are nice but..

[Mistshadow2k4]

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

A sad situation, probably with a sad ending

[Anonymous Coward]

See the story of William Sidis:

William Sidis [prometheussociety.org]

Of all the prodigies for which there are records, his was probably the most powerful intellect of all. And yet it all came to nothing. He soon gave up his position as a professor, and for the rest of his life wandered from one menial job to another. His experiences as a child prodigy had proven so painful that he decided for the rest of his life to shun public exposure at all costs. Henceforth, he denied his gifts, refused to think about mathematics, and above all refused to perform as he had been made to do as a child. Instead, he devoted his intellect almost exclusively to the collection of streetcar transfers, and to the study of the history of his native Boston.

This article about gifted children was published on the Prometheus Society website. I'm not a member of that society, but another one with a high level of exclusivity (much higher than Mensa). It's as much a support group as it is anything else, because children with this "gift" are often brought up in ways that are quite harmful to them. I certainly was not the prodigy that this child was, or that William Sidis was, so I can't say that I know what it's like to be a child like that, but from everything that I can tell in this group, putting a child into college at age 8 is wrong in every way. My childhood was bad enough, I can't imagine how awful it will be for this little boy.

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.

String theory and cars?

[lasindi]

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.

DARPA is great, but string theory, should it prove true, would be much more important than DARPA or anything the Pentagon is working on, at least as far as science goes.

That said, I'd really like to know how string theory could be applied to cars. I'm not an expert by any means, but I've read The Elegant Universe and so forth, and I think there are at least two big hurdles before this kid even has a chance with his idea. 1) There is no experimental evidence to support string theory, so we don't even know if it's true yet. 2) If he can make flying cars using string theory, that implies that these cars would serve as experimental evidence for it. Why is he already jumping from "something that might be true" to "let's start an engineering project with it?" So, if he has some magic that he can pull out of his hat, great let's hear it, but somehow I doubt that this will happen any time soon.

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.

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:Hmmmm

[TheCreeep]

I completely agree. Did you read any big scientist's biography that says he finished school in 8 months or whatever? Nah.
What about Einstein? He was a mediocre student. His biggest quality was his immagination. I think that immagination and love for science developed in time because he was allowed the normal growth rate. Now I know this kid loves science, but, is he more that just a computer? I mean learning, drawing conclusions, these are more or less mechanical. A sufficiently advanced AI can do theese things. I wonder if he has immagination. I hope so. It would be a benefit to humanity.

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.

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.

Re:Pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

Because most people are heterosexual by a large margin. Much like how people refer to individuals on Slashdot as male, without checking to see if they are or not, because most posters on Slashdot are male.

Oh no, it's a big prejudicial conspiracy. Down with the gays! Grrr! Gay!

Grow up, please.

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.

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: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: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:String theory and cars?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

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

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: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: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: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

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: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: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:Bored gifted kids...

[Requiem]

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

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: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:Like many other kids...

[Alsee]

Being socially well adjusted is overrated.

FUCK YOU!

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

-

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.

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: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 [stanford.edu].

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: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: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!

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: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.

Re:OK I give up

[Anonymous Coward]

Many good points in your post. I'd like to comment just on this sentence:

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.

I agree with that, on the condition that said person remains the same "shape" after this process. That is to say, you should know what it's like to be forced down the "round" or "square" whole by others, know how to adapt to it and keep your ego in check, but you should always stay true to your nature, be it square, round, or something else.

I think a huge problem with our education system is that most people DO adapt to its brokenness. If they're forced in the round whole, they become round and never go back, not giving any time to question "the norm" of roundedness, or question authority. Obviously you will have to submit to the norm, and put yourself in situations you may deem sub-optimal to accomodate others. But you view these situations as temporary, a necessary evil in order to be part of society.