{"id":60,"date":"2011-03-25T15:25:59","date_gmt":"2011-03-25T19:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/?p=60"},"modified":"2011-03-25T15:32:51","modified_gmt":"2011-03-25T19:32:51","slug":"12-year-old-astrophysics-genius-has-problems-with-the-big-bang-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/03\/12-year-old-astrophysics-genius-has-problems-with-the-big-bang-theory.html","title":{"rendered":"12-year-old astrophysics genius has problems with the Big Bang Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The diagnosis was grim \u2013 little Jacob Barnett was autistic.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t speak until he was two. The doctor said the toddler had Aspergers Syndrome, a disorder often characterized by a lack of communication skills, limited empathy with others and a tendency to take everything literally \u2013 particularly jokes.<\/p>\n

However, there was something else.<\/p>\n

He was fascinated\u00a0with everything. His interest in stars led his parents to take him to a planetarium at age three.<\/p>\n

“We were in the crowd,” remembers his mother, “just sitting, listening to this guy ask the crowd if anyone knew why the moons going around Mars were potato-shaped and not round.<\/p>\n

“Jacob raised his hand and said, ‘Excuse me, but what are the sizes of the moons around Mars?’ ”<\/p>\n

The lecturer answered.<\/p>\n

“Jacob looked at him,” recalls his mom,\u00a0“and said the gravity of the planet is so large that the moons’ gravity would not be able to pull\u00a0them into a round shape.”<\/p>\n

Jacob also had trouble sleeping because he said he constantly saw numbers in his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot keeps me awake,\u201d explains Jake, who is now 12. \u201cI scare people.\u201d<\/p>\n

At age 8, he sat down on his front porch and scanned the local high school\u2019s math textbooks. Then, he took a placement exam \u2013 and qualified to skip 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade math \u2026 as well as high school algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

His parents took him to Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI) where he was soon enrolled in advanced astrophysics classes. According to one of his professors there, he\u2018s the most brilliant student he\u2019s seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs he a genius? Well, yeah,\u201d IUPUI physics Professor John Ross told the Indianapolis Star<\/em> newspaper recently. \u201cKids his age would normally have problems adding fractions \u2013 and he is helping out some of his fellow students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, he began trying to explain to his mother his own \u201cexpanded version of Einstein’s theory of relativity.\u201d Mom, not sure if the boy was talking nonsense, sent a video of him explaining his theory to the renowned Institute for Advanced Study near Princeton University.<\/p>\n

There astrophysics professor Scott Tremaine \u2013 himself a world-renowned expert \u2013 confirmed the authenticity of Jake’s ideas.<\/p>\n

In an email to the family, Professor Tremaine wrote: \u201cI’m impressed by his interest in physics and the amount that he has learned so far. The theory that he’s working on involves several of the toughest problems in astrophysics and theoretical physics.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who solves these will be in line for a Nobel Prize.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacob no longer has to go to elementary school.\u00a0On the university campus, his classroom presence can be unnerving for his fellow college students.<\/p>\n

According to the British newspaper, the Daily Mail<\/em>, Wanda Anderson, a biochemistry major told a reporter: \u201cWhen I first walked in and saw him, I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to school with Doogie Howser.’\u201d<\/p>\n

However, she added: \u201cA lot of people come to him for help when they don’t understand a physics problem. People come up to him all the time and say, ‘Hey Jake, can you help me?’ A lot of people think a genius is hard to talk to, but Jake explains things that would still be over their head.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Jacob\u2019s instructors, Professor John Ross, said the 12-year-old\u2019s performance in lectures has been \u201coutstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he asks a question, he is always two steps ahead of the lecture. Everyone in the class gets quiet. Poor kid. He sits right in the front row and they all just look at him. He will come to see me during office hours and ask even more detailed questions. And you can tell he’s been thinking these things through.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, what does a genius who hasn\u2019t even reached teenage do in his spare time?<\/p>\n

He\u2019s convinced the Big Bang Theory is all wrong.<\/p>\n

He explained his objections to the Star.<\/em> Basically, the popular theory adequately explains the creation of the universe’s hydrogen and helium, however there are big problems with other elements:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Big Bang Theory,\u201d Jacob explains, \u201cwhat they do is, there is this big explosion and there is all this temperature going off and the temperature decreases really rapidly because it\u2019s really big. The other day I calculated, they have this period where they suppose the hydrogen and helium were created, and, um, I don\u2019t care about the hydrogen and helium, but I thought, wouldn\u2019t there have to be some sort of carbon?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>After all, he explains, \u201cthe carbon would have to be coming out of the stars and hence the Earth, made mostly of carbon, we wouldn\u2019t be here. So I calculated the time it would take to create two percent of the carbon in the universe, it would actually have to be several micro-seconds. Or a couple of nano-seconds, or something like that. An extremely small period of time. Like faster than a snap. That isn\u2019t gonna happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of that,\u201d he continued, \u201cthat means that the world would have never been created because none of the carbon would have been given 7 billion years to fuse together. We\u2019d have to be 21 billion years old and that would just screw everything up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, of course!<\/p>\n

Not bad for a kid the doctor says is autistic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The diagnosis was grim \u2013 little Jacob Barnett was autistic. He didn\u2019t speak until he was two. The doctor said the toddler had Aspergers Syndrome, a disorder often characterized by a lack of communication skills, limited empathy with others and a tendency to take everything literally \u2013 particularly jokes. However, there was something else. He…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n12-year-old astrophysics genius has problems with the Big Bang Theory - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/03\/12-year-old-astrophysics-genius-has-problems-with-the-big-bang-theory.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"12-year-old astrophysics genius has problems with the Big Bang Theory - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The diagnosis was grim \u2013 little Jacob Barnett was autistic. He didn\u2019t speak until he was two. The doctor said the toddler had Aspergers Syndrome, a disorder often characterized by a lack of communication skills, limited empathy with others and a tendency to take everything literally \u2013 particularly jokes. However, there was something else. 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