The Boy Who Could Change The World
Don’t you sometimes wish you had a genius friend who could help you with all your tough science and math problems? Students at Indiana University in Indianapolis, USA, have a friend like that. Except, he is only 12 years old, and he is not only smarter than them, he may even be smarter than Albert Einstein!
Jacob Barnett has been studying astrophysics (physics of the universe) at the university since he was 8, and is about to get a job. He has an IQ of 170, higher than Einstein.
A Young Genius
When Jacob was just 18 months, he could recite the alphabet forwards and backwards and calculate the volume of cereal boxes off the top of his head. Soon after his parents noticed his personality changing and discovered that he had Asperger’s Syndrome, a mild form of a brain disorder.
But that didn’t slow Jacob down. By age three, he was solving 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzles, and by eight he was doing college-level mathematics and science. That’s when his parents decided to enroll him at Indiana University where he has been excelling in all his doctorate-level physics and math classes. So much so, that his professors are running out of things to teach him. Top American colleges are now competing with Indiana University to hire Jacob as a researcher.
But before Jacob decides what’s next for him, he is keeping busy working on updating two of the world’s most important scientific theories. If he succeeds, he will change how we see our world forever. Jacob says he is close to proving that Einstein’s revolutionary theory of relativity is not entirely correct. The theory states that two people will see the same event happening at different times and points in space, depending on whether they themselves are moving or still.
He is also working on expanding the Big Bang theory, which explains how our universe came to exist. His professors believe that it may only be a matter of time before Jacob wins the Nobel Prize. Any bets on how old he will be when that happens?
According to the Big Bang theory, the universe was created about 14 billion years ago following a very powerful explosion, the Big Bang, which blasted out hydrogen. In time, the hydrogen started to condense into gas clouds which, when they got dense enough, ignited, forming the first stars. When these early, massive stars died, they blew up into “a supernova,” a really bright gaseous explosion, and created the planets that make up our universe today.
And speaking of relativity, here are some interesting articles.
The amount of time that passes for you, relativity adjusted, is 1-v^2/c^2, where c is the speed of light.
So to time travel in the future, you must go an imaginary speed so you can go faster, which therefore means you are going for an imaginary time or an imaginary distance.
If the time is imaginary, then if you throw an object for that imaginary number of seconds, by the distance equation, you would be ignoring gravity and floating up forever. this can alter travel in space as well by nullifying gravity. That also means the vt term would be imaginary, causing you to go for an imaginary distance. But this is impossible without involving stuff like wormholes.
To go back in time, you must go faster than light, which would require a close to infinite amount of energy, depleting Earth's resources. so don't try that either.
As an object accelerates towards the speed of light, its mass approaches infinity and it requires an infinite amount of force to accelerate it further. Thus, it is impossible to travel backwards in time if you ever move more slowly than light.
For more information about what happenes if a particle always moves faster than the speed of light, check out this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon
Wow! He's cool!
this is so scary i have no idea.
wow, a kid smarter than Albert Enisten.
the big bang theory is so cool.
I'm advanced at math and I'm doing stuff 2 grade levels ahead but I'm nowhere near as smart as Jacob.
aspergers is not a disability i have it . anyone can do great things if they put their mind to it
very great response!! anyone who has a disablity like if they cant talk, they can be smarter than what they actually look like.
I thought the passenger was correct. But I don`t know...
I agree with the observer more than the passenger
How is a 12 year old so good at mathematics and how does he already get so many offers
why couldnt i have been jacob
This is amazing! I have a feeling this kid will get a Nobel Prize before he gets out of his teens.
that was a very different video. but it was a really good video.
thats amazing how that boy could do that
that is right
how would we know he could be the future of the our nation we dont know yet do we
im not complaining cause i get straight A's but i want to be as smart as him
I want to be as smart as Albert Einstien thats not fair he is probably making money.
lol wow get a life
that ie mean. i bet you are not as smart as this boy.
Today, Einstein is a household name for somebody that is real smart but soon Barnett might be a household name meaning smarter than Einstien!
wow, a kid could be smarter than albert enisten ,
you're absolutely correct
I have always asked my parents why another Einstein was never born and why was he the only greatest person who ever lived. They kept saying that perhaps the next Einstein will be born in your generation.
And, now the question is 'Is this boy going to change the course of astronomical science?' It would actually be great to have some thing new discovered especially about the space!
the last video i dont get but dont think im dumb okay ppl
this is so like unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Asperger’s Syndrome is just a mild form of autism which distorts your social life...I think
yeah it is a mildform of autism it's not a problem to me
SO COOL!!!!!!!
OMG!!!!!!!!
omg i just love the things i read on youngzine! but an iq of 170! no way thats not possible to be smarter than einstien. so cool!
Thats what i thought.
wow, a lot of people would like to be that smart.
The video at the end is cool!
Wow! Jeez! Smarter then Einstein!
way genius. man he should be in college
amazing. a 12 yr old smarter than Albert Eisenstein? i wonder what the world will become lol sad though since Jacob was diagnosed with Asperger's :( ;(
I am confused about the theory of relativity.
From different perspectives, the THINKING of the people might be different, but there can only be one right answer, right?
And since the man on the platform sees the train objectively in the video, isn't he right?
Relativity is a very complex topic, even for most adults.
Lets explain the video first. The man on the station sees the two bolts of lightning at the same time. However the lady traveling in the train sees the lightning in front of the train a fraction of a second earlier. Why? Because the train is traveling towards that source of lightning, so from her prespective, that reaches her first.
Both are correct from their frame of reference. With this experiment, Einstein proved that time slows down when one is moving, compared to when one is stationary.
If you took 2 clocks, sent one with an astronaut on a space-shuttle headed somewhere and the left the other with his twin on Earth, the one that is on the space-shuttle would travel slower because it is closer to the speed of light. The closer the clock gets to the speed of light, the slower it tells time. So when the astronaut returns from his journey, he would be younger than his twin who stayed on Earth!!
I thought that the age difference between the two astronauts can only take place if the one who is moving is travelling at the speed of light.
You grow younger if it is at the speed of light.
How does the brain disorder affect him? How could he become so smart with the disorder?
Asperger's Syndrome affects a person's social and communicative skills. People with Asperger's usually have significant difficulty performing well in social situations. On the plus side,they often have a precocious ability to recognize words, numbers, and patterns at an early age (that's how Jacob was able to solve those puzzles at age 3). They also develop fascinations for a certain subject and immerse themselves completely in it, shutting out all other topics. In Jacob's case, I'd say this fascination is for mathematics and science.
Thank you Jacki. You are absolutely correct - matter of fact, we are writing an article on exactly that this week, with April being autism awareness month.
Einstien did horribly in school. I don't think Jacob does.
I think that it is great that he has gotten so far. The often-asked question, "What do you want to do when you grow up?", implies that kids can't do anything now, and that we have to wait for adulthood to really be anyone or do anything. This child shows that that is not true and kids can be contributing members of society just like adults.
Neat how he's so smart. He probably will win the Nobel prize. The Indiana University is so random, though. Why not Stanford or something?
He probably lives in Indiana.
so confusing, jacob is amazing!