Autistic Boy Genius Has Higher IQ Than Albert Einstein
An autistic boy genius has a higher IQ than Albert Einstein after scoring an IQ of 170 and could be on his way to winning a Nobel Prize.
14-year-old Jacob Barnett of Indiana was diagnosed with moderate to severe autism when he was just two years old, and is now on his way to earning a master's degree in quantum physics.
Doctors had told Jacob's parents that he may never be able to tie his shoes or read as he spent years toiling around special education schools that couldn't cater to his needs.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
"For a parent, it's terrifying to fly against the advice of the professionals," Kristine wrote in her memoir, "The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius." "But I knew in my heart that if Jake stayed in special ed, he would slip away."
That's when Kristine Barnett decided to take matters into her own hands and pulled him from school, and began focusing on what the boy could do and not what he couldn't, reported the New York Daily News.
"He would create maps all over our floor using Q-tips. They would be maps of places we've visited and he would memorize every street," Kristine told BBC. Once they visited a planetarium when he was 3-and-a-half, and he was able to answer every question asked by the instructor, including complicated physics theories, she claims.
Jacob was allowed to study what he pleased with the help of his mom whether it was stars, patterns, and shadows, and could speak four languages by the time he really began talking, says his mother.
"I operate under a concept called 'muchness,'" Kristine told the NY Daily News. "Which is surrounding children with the things they love- be it music, or art, whatever they're drawn to and love."
As he rocketed through his new education, he started college at Purdue University in Indianapolis, where he is studying condensed matter physics.
Jacob is currently working on his his own theory of relativity, which as told by his professor, Scott Tremaine, could earn him a Nobel Prize because it contains the toughest questions in theoretical physics and astrophysics.
Along with his mother, Jacob has also written a book about what it's like to attend college at eight years old. Both of them are currently on a European book tour, and Warner Brothers has taken the movie rights to the story.
"My goal for the summer is just to give him a few weeks off," Kristine told The Indianapolis Monthly. "The last time he had that was when he came up with the alternative theory to the Big Bang. So who knows what he'll create?"
