Jacob Barnett, 12-Year-Old College Student, Teaches Math You'll Likely Never Understand (VIDEO)

Is calculus not your thing?

Not to worry. A 12-year-old is here to help you out (scroll down for the mind-boggling video).

The Indianapolis Star reports that Jacob Barnett, who is mildly autistic, grasps some of the most complex concepts in math. He's attending Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, where there is a movement to get him on board as a paid research assistant.

"We have told him that after this semester . . . enough of the book work. You are here to do some science," said IUPUI physics Professor John Ross.

Not only does he love working equations, Barnett believes he can prove Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity wrong, TIME reports. Astrophysics professor Scott Tremaine of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton confirms he's onto something. Another project in the works: disproving the Big Bang Theory.

Time to learn from him firsthand. See this fascinating footage of the boy with a higher IQ than Einstein teach the techniques of integration for Calculus 2:

WATCH:

Comments

[bertvan]

02:50 PM on 04/14/2011

Are Aspies merely non conformists?

Most small children have the ability to effortlessly absorb the language, culture, thoughts and attitudes of the people around them. Isn’t this the talent in which most Aspies are deficient? Ours is a changing society, one in which the ability to automatically absorb culture is of less value than in a traditional society. Could that be the reason for the current increase in autism? Many autistic children devise other strategies to cope with their lack of intuitive abilities. Could such a change be a normal part of the evolutionary process?

A Few Impertinent Questions about Autism, Freudianism and Materialism
http://30145.myauthorsite.com/

[way12go]

11:26 PM on 04/13/2011

I proved that gods can't exist and more but my theory is still not known to masses...
http://sagargorijala.blogspot.com/

[way12go]

08:23 AM on 04/12/2011

http://sagargorijala.blogspot.com/
sagargorijala[DOT]blogspot[DOT­]com

God(s) can not exist.Space can not be infinite and it is timeless.There is no beginning and an end to the existence of the World.Numbers are infinite but number of apples (existence) can not be infinite.....

I invented this theory in January 2000 and as you can see... more than 11 long years have passed and the World doesn't know my theory. I need your help in doing so. Please help me.

I'm an Atheist who proved that god(s) can't exist.

[Bruce Priddy]

10:22 AM on 04/02/2011

Has anyone stopped to think that if the bing bang theory is wrong that means the universe had no beginning. Aren't the first three words in the bible "In the Beginning?" Kind of Ironic isn't it.

[bigfated]

07:46 AM on 04/10/2011

Bruce Priddy:
Is it possible that the bible started out as a book about baseball?
In the big inning?

[Rus Viking]

05:05 PM on 04/13/2011

Wow!

You Lefty~$(um are just so clever.

"In the big inning?"

Such wit!

[way12go]

08:24 AM on 04/12/2011

http://sagargorijala.blogspot.com/

[Bruce Priddy]

10:15 AM on 04/02/2011

see my post on

http://www.freethunk.net/freethunk-news-bites/kid-genius-jacob-barnett-disproving-the-big-bang-1786/comment-page-2#comment-17419

[way12go]

11:32 PM on 04/13/2011

Read my theory
http://sagargorijala.blogspot.com/

[Bruce Priddy]

10:14 AM on 04/02/2011

Has anyone stopped to think that if the big bang did not happen then the univierse has been here forever and will probably always be here. That's right! No beginning and no end. Just like the infinite series Glenn Beck wrote on the board. So ironic. He's so stupid and ill-informed that he may be helping us to prove that the universe was not created but has always been here. Best of Luck Jacob. Maybe Glenn Beck should take a logic course? Doesn't the bible begin with "In the beginning?"

[Bruce Priddy]

10:32 PM on 04/01/2011

Showing a series converges (by the intergal test) is a light years away from publishing an article about the fundamental nature of the universe in a reputible physics journal. I think we all agree that Jacob is very intelligent and I am glad to see bright young people with new ideas. I hope Jacob continues to question everything we know about nature and other related concepts. This is how we progress but I'm a little suspicious that the creationists and intelligent design community have come up with a new theme for an old pursuit. Mainly, the disproof of all scientific theory that contradicts the bible (i.e. evolution, big bang, age of the universe, ...). They are going to do this by indoctrination of young geniuses to disprove current theories. People like Jacob. Intelligent design failed to produce results and in fact a recent laboratory experiment involving self-replicating molecules basically end the discussion on ID altogether. Now a more sophisticated approach must be used. I think this is what we are seeing with Jacob.

[Bruce Priddy]

10:15 PM on 04/01/2011

In case you don't care go to the link below...

Solid support
While general relativity was already pretty well accepted among physicists, the new findings offer more solid support for the theory.

"It's good to know that general relativity is consistent," Reyes told SPACE.com. "Now we have something to hold on to saying the universe really works that way."

The study was detailed in the March 11 issue of the journal Nature.

To further judge between Einstein's theory and other ideas, including f(R), research on more galaxies will be necessary to reduce the margins of error on the data.

"Reyes and colleagues' measurements are significant not just because they are consistent within error with general relativity, but also because they point the way to future high-precision tests that will better distinguish between general relativity and some variant models," physicist J. Anthony Tyson of the University of California, Davis, wrote in an accompanying essay in the same issue of Nature. Tyson was not involved in the study.

[Bruce Priddy]

10:14 PM on 04/01/2011

Confirmation of one of Einteins prediction...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35805184/ns/technology_and_science-space/

[Bruce Priddy]

10:07 PM on 04/01/2011

I'm amazed by the amount of misinformation on the internet. The FACT that light bends as it travels near the boundary of a large mass was CONFIRMED on April 29 1919 by the astronomer
Sir Arthur Eddington of the Royal Society of Astronomers. Additionally, there have been thousands of experiments all confirming various consequences of both special and general relativity over the past 100 years or so. The reference given below (http://phy­sicsnext.o­rg/) is not a disproof of anything but rather a paper that was rejected (and thus never published) by the entire physics community. In physics, a theory must withstand all future tests of its validity. Furthermore, a theory in physics is more than a collections of equations but a working model of reality which can be updated with new information as the information arrives. To say relativity is wrong might actually mean the collaspe of the entire arena of physics and mabye even some of the mathematical theory that supports it. That is, Newton, Einstein, Hawking, ... were all worng.

[caesar bc]

11:59 PM on 03/31/2011

This kid thinks he's got "alternative theories" to the Big Bang -
I do too!!!

It's call the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM). See! I can do it too!!

[Khairn]

02:43 PM on 03/31/2011

Why do adults feel the need to try and discredit this kid? Jake didn't petition HP to do a piece on him because he has intentionally set out to disprove Einstien's theories.

The video of Jake that I saw was simply a kid asking a question. Albeit a profound one.
He worked out one of Eienstien's formula's and came up with a random bunch of letters ( to me ) that equaled " force " He understood that. What he didn't understand is how the statement that light travels at a constant speed, Yet, Jake has observed, or reasoned, that at times, light has to travel faster. Don't ask me how.
So Jake is working on solving that problem. He isn't intentionally setting out to disprove the big E so he can get a Nobel Prize ( which isn't as prestigous as it used to be ). Jake is only attempting to correct some math that someone else did that is wrong. Or he is striving to find out where his calculations are wrong. You guys need to take it easy. Sheesh.
He's just a kid doing math in his head.
The second thing I read was that Jake feels 14 billion years isn't enough time to produce all of the carbon that is present in our universe. So he is working on figuring that out too. The big bang theory only supports the introduction of hydrogen and some other element but NOT carbon.
Don't blame Jake for poor Journalism.

[Demarcus Jackson]

11:28 PM on 03/31/2011

I agree. Don't we want kids to actively question?

[angela seeger]

10:21 AM on 04/01/2011

Yes but their questions should be treated as just that, questions. Not media claims about being the "next Einstein". As I see it, the kid has questions about relativity because he hasn't fully understood it yet. To take this and spin it into him being about to correct Einstein's theory is the worst example of media sensationalism.

[angela seeger]

10:17 AM on 03/31/2011

For those of you who think this kid is special, take a look at another HuffPo article about a kid called Moshe Kai Cavalin who graduated from college at 11 (with 4.0 GPA) and learned calculus before then:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/06/moshe-kai-cavalin-the-11_n_212239.html

[way12go]

11:33 PM on 04/13/2011

I want you to read my theory and add some comments... here you go... http://sagargorijala.blogspot.com/

[Ashbert]

09:22 AM on 03/31/2011

Einstein's theory (his famous derivation taught in all physics text-books) has already been recently disproved. Most physicists in power are covering up or are in denial of the shown error that Einstein made, but some (including one Nobel Prize winner) are open to acknowledging reality. Professors and Journals they run will not acknowledge that the paper has a counterexample that disproves Einstein's reasoning, nor can they find an error in the paper that shows the counterexample is invalid. Details at http://physicsnext.org/

[lcr999]

08:39 PM on 03/31/2011

Relativity has been known to be wrong for about 50 years. Nobody is covering it up. It is old news.

[angela seeger]

08:33 AM on 03/31/2011

This kid isn't special. There are tons of kids his age that have IQs higher than 170. I've seen kids who scored as high as 210 on the Stanford-Binet Form L-M Test. Besides, his score of 170 is not his full scale IQ score, just his score on the math subtest which they selectively quoted to make it appear as though he's smarter than Einstein who, by the way, never took an IQ test. The spurious score of 160 assigned to him was an estimate by Catherine Cox in her 1926 study titled "The early mental traits of three hundred geniuses". In this study, she estimated the IQs of famous philosophers, scientists, etc. who lived between 1450 and 1850 and she based these estimates on their childhood achievements before the age of 17. Since Einstein was sort of a late-bloomer (he didn't display any rare/exceptional traits until he became an adult), his IQ estimate based on his achievements before age 17 was bound to be low.

Lastly, it is not that unusual for kids Jacob's age to know calculus. I've personally met and taught kids his age who do. In the late 90s I tutored for a couple of summers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY) and accelerated calculus courses were routinely taught to kids ranging from age 8 to 15. Hell, I knew a kid who got a perfect score on AP Calculus at 10. His name's Reid Barton.