Math prodigy, 14, poised to graduate from UCI next week, will seek doctorate next

DO NOT let Kevin Spacey be involved in producing, directing, writing, co-starring in any capacity of a proposed biopic of the kid. I said what I said.

He looks like an illegal Chinaman to me.

These math prodigies aren't that rare, you get articles like this one every couple of years. He won't upend the world of math because it's a collaborative discipline, but he will probably end up teaching and researching at a prestigious university. So he's set for life.

It's similar with musical prodigies. What some of these kids can do is astonishing, but in a world of 7 billion people there are still hundreds of thousands of kids with these extremely rare abilities.

I always think about how much socializing with their same-age peers these kids miss out on. It's got to impact them socially for the rest of their lives, and not in a good way.

Did we learn NOTHING from "Young Sheldon"?

^^hundreds OR thousands...

"They enrolled him in the online charter school Connections Academy. There, he could work at his own pace (super fast) and roll through multiple grades in a single year."

Mmmm....they make it sound like it happened just organically, but they purposefully put him in an academic environment where he was independent of others and could go faster.

I often wondered what I would have been like if I had been put into a program like this. For many of us who were academically-inclined, school was easy and sometimes boring. And having to go through 'socialization' at school which is sometimes just learning to deal with bullies, dumb kids and jocks/cheerleaders who were only focused on popularity - he may have been saved from some unnecessary bullshit.

But do any of these prodigies ever have real success? I don't recall reading about them after they graduate with degrees at an early age - and many do not have good social skills at all and don't know how to work with others.

I think many kids in the top 5-10% of their high school classes could have proceeded on an accelerated path as well and graduated much earlier. It's a toss-up, because I don't know if junior-high and senior-high 'socialization' is ever a positive for really bright kids. People act like kids get so much out of it - when actually a lot of kids are traumatized by their school experiences, develop lower self-esteem or doubt because of peer bullying and shitty comments.

School socialization is important - but I think its importance can be hyped up and the harmful impact of it is not fully considered.

It think many of them go on to success. They just end up being one among many top tier researchers or mathematicians that you have no reason to hear about. They aren't newsworthy once they reach adulthood.

An Asian prodigy. Groundbreaking.

R10 Reminds me of this Family Guy cutaway.

Don’t call me until you be doctor!!!

USC is not exactly known for having a powerhouse math graduate program.

PENNY!

knock knock knock

Yes, yes but is he nice?