My friends keep posting videos of Jacob Barnett, a child genius (TEDx video; YouTube channel) on facebook. I’d like to have your opinion about what kind of a genius precisely he is.
From my short googling, seems to me that the kid has an Asperger syndrom, he probably enjoys reading a lot about maths and physics, he probably does it most of his day, and he seems to have some kind of photographic memory, so he remembers a lot and then goes to impress people. His mother is doing a very good marketing campaign for him. There are videos of him talking about quantum physics, relativity, black holes, and other similar stuff on YouTube. He is believed to have mastered the high-school mathematics in two weeks, or something like that. And there seems to be a lot of comment spam about him on various websites (e.g. over 400 google hits on StackExchange, most of it later deleted). On his webpage, you can buy a book about him (written by his mother) or contribute to a charity for autistic children.
If someone wants to see his videos about physics, I would like to know your opinion whether what he speaks seems correct, and whether it shows deeper understanding, or just repeating something he memorized from the book. (I am not good at physics. The YouTube videos make it difficult to read what he writes; but it wouldn’t help me even if I could.) Most people’s reactions are: “oh, the kid seems so smart, I don’t even understand what he’s saying, but it’s so smart”. So, I’d like to have an opinion of someone who does understand.
I watched one of his videos explaining the path integral. It was definitely all correct, and the way he presented it convinces me that he wasn’t just repeating something he had memorised from a text book. He was presenting it informally and in his own words. He even had a way of motivating the path integral hat I hadn’t seen before. So I’d say that he genuinely does have a deep understanding.
Watched the path integral videos as well. The procedure he follows is pretty much straight out of e.g. Altland and Simons. But you can see he knows what the procedure does.
My first thought after Oscar’s reply was: “Well, just because Oscar didn’t see it before, that doesn’t prove it’s not copied from some book.”
Then I was ashamed: “Oh, this is a textbook example of motivated thinking. You ask experts to evaluate the claim you are not able to evaluate. If someone told you the kid is fake, you wouldn’t doubt it for a second. But when an expert tells you the kid is genuine, you just find a way to ignore the evidence.”
Next iteration: “Well, I definitely should increase my probability that the kid really is genius. However, it is not completely unlikely that an autistic kid who spends almost literally all his life reading scientific books could find and remember a book an expert haven’t heard about. So I should update, but it’s probably okay to update just a little, and wait for more reports.”
Now I feel more sane, thank you!
Although, on the second thought, I should have considered not just the probability that the kid read a book Oscar doesn’t know about… but also the probability that this would happen to be the first video Oscar randomly chooses to watch. And that is much smaller.
So, at this moment my belief is… well, pretty much what pragmatist wrote: “He knows what he is talking about (which is still only a weak evidence for deep insights).”
Also, I should update that not everything I find in a discussion of out local Mensa is necessarily bullshit.
Here’s a previous comment I wrote expressing skepticism about the whole Jake Barnett phenomenon (also see here and here). I haven’t been keeping up with what the kid has been doing lately, so maybe my concerns are now moot. Briefly skimming some of the recent videos on his channel, he seems to basically know what he is talking about, although there’s no evidence of any particularly deep insight into the topics.
My friends keep posting videos of Jacob Barnett, a child genius (TEDx video; YouTube channel) on facebook. I’d like to have your opinion about what kind of a genius precisely he is.
From my short googling, seems to me that the kid has an Asperger syndrom, he probably enjoys reading a lot about maths and physics, he probably does it most of his day, and he seems to have some kind of photographic memory, so he remembers a lot and then goes to impress people. His mother is doing a very good marketing campaign for him. There are videos of him talking about quantum physics, relativity, black holes, and other similar stuff on YouTube. He is believed to have mastered the high-school mathematics in two weeks, or something like that. And there seems to be a lot of comment spam about him on various websites (e.g. over 400 google hits on StackExchange, most of it later deleted). On his webpage, you can buy a book about him (written by his mother) or contribute to a charity for autistic children.
If someone wants to see his videos about physics, I would like to know your opinion whether what he speaks seems correct, and whether it shows deeper understanding, or just repeating something he memorized from the book. (I am not good at physics. The YouTube videos make it difficult to read what he writes; but it wouldn’t help me even if I could.) Most people’s reactions are: “oh, the kid seems so smart, I don’t even understand what he’s saying, but it’s so smart”. So, I’d like to have an opinion of someone who does understand.
I watched one of his videos explaining the path integral. It was definitely all correct, and the way he presented it convinces me that he wasn’t just repeating something he had memorised from a text book. He was presenting it informally and in his own words. He even had a way of motivating the path integral hat I hadn’t seen before. So I’d say that he genuinely does have a deep understanding.
Watched the path integral videos as well. The procedure he follows is pretty much straight out of e.g. Altland and Simons. But you can see he knows what the procedure does.
Thanks for saying this!
My first thought after Oscar’s reply was: “Well, just because Oscar didn’t see it before, that doesn’t prove it’s not copied from some book.”
Then I was ashamed: “Oh, this is a textbook example of motivated thinking. You ask experts to evaluate the claim you are not able to evaluate. If someone told you the kid is fake, you wouldn’t doubt it for a second. But when an expert tells you the kid is genuine, you just find a way to ignore the evidence.”
Next iteration: “Well, I definitely should increase my probability that the kid really is genius. However, it is not completely unlikely that an autistic kid who spends almost literally all his life reading scientific books could find and remember a book an expert haven’t heard about. So I should update, but it’s probably okay to update just a little, and wait for more reports.”
Now I feel more sane, thank you!
Although, on the second thought, I should have considered not just the probability that the kid read a book Oscar doesn’t know about… but also the probability that this would happen to be the first video Oscar randomly chooses to watch. And that is much smaller.
So, at this moment my belief is… well, pretty much what pragmatist wrote: “He knows what he is talking about (which is still only a weak evidence for deep insights).”
Also, I should update that not everything I find in a discussion of out local Mensa is necessarily bullshit.
Here’s a previous comment I wrote expressing skepticism about the whole Jake Barnett phenomenon (also see here and here). I haven’t been keeping up with what the kid has been doing lately, so maybe my concerns are now moot. Briefly skimming some of the recent videos on his channel, he seems to basically know what he is talking about, although there’s no evidence of any particularly deep insight into the topics.