12-Year-Old Genius Expands Einstein's Theory of Relativity, Thinks He Can Prove It Wrong

[BridgeTheGap]

Could Einstein's Theory of Relativity be a few mathematical equations away from being disproved? Jacob Barnett of Hamilton County, Ind., who is just weeks shy of his 13th birthday, thinks so. And, he's got the solutions to prove it.

Barnett, who has an IQ of 170, explained his expanded theory of relativity — in a YouTube video. His mother Kristine Barnett, who admittedly flunked math, did what every other mother would do if her genius son started talking mathematical gibberish. She told him to explain the whole thing slowly while she taped her son explaining his take on the theory.

While most of his mathematical genius goes over our heads, some professors at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey — you know, the U.S. academic homeroom for the likes of Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Kurt Gödel — have confirmed he's on the right track to coming up with something completely new. For now, they're encouraging Barnett to continue doing what he likes to do, which is explaining calculus using a whiteboard marker and his living room windows as seen in the video above.

“I'm impressed by his interest in physics and the amount that he has learned so far,” Institute for Advanced Study Professor Scott Tremaine wrote in an email to the family. “The theory that he's working on involves several of the toughest problems in astrophysics and theoretical physics.”

“Anyone who solves these will be in line for a Nobel Prize,” he added

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/26/12-year-old-genius-expands-einsteins-theory-of-relativity/#ixzz1IljxsTKd

[Lucinda]

1. Bookmarking to read when I come back! Thanks!

[xchrom]

2. i don't know what he's saying -- but he's saying it real good. nt

[thereismore]

3. The video at the link has nothing but basic calculus. No physics. IDK where this talk of Einstein's

theory of relativity is coming from. :shrug:

[yodermon]

7. this maybe?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iazsabmd9tk

or this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcY17MIqIvU

[thereismore]

8. I would love to have him for a student, but truth be told, there is nothing there yet.

In the second video he calls some algebraic formula "the Schroedinger equation", which is in fact a differential equation.

He is definitely a curious young boy, and he needs a good physics teacher.

[Speck Tater]

4. I was that smart when I was 12.

By the time I was 16 I knew everything there was to know.

What I should have done is become a millionaire while I still had all the answers. But alas, I grew up and became average. Now it's too late.

[TheMadMonk]

9. I groked Quantum at ten. Unfortunately it didn't survive classical...

...physics.

[jberryhill]

5. Damned 12 year old kids break everything

Get off my lawn!

[postulater]

6. Grumpy today?

shit, we WON!

[groovedaddy]

10. I think this is what the twin toddlers were discussing in the video

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/toddler-twins-secret-language-or-babble/

[laconicsax]

11. That's actually an in-depth theological discussion. n/t