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WWGD
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I think he meant Einstein as in Einstein Bagels ; ).
IGU said:You have a source for these numbers? Or did you just make them up?
Niflheim said:Tell me that you haven't heard of any modern "child geniuses". Off the top of my head I know of Jacob Barnett, Mikaela Fudolig,and Tanishq Abraham. Look up "modern child prodigies" and look at the dozens of lists of child geniuses. Heck, there have been shows about them. And that's just in the past few years.
Sounds like a good excuse to justify your failure to measure up to that standard.Niflheim said:Just look at the hundreds of supposed child geniuses who go to college at 10. Everyone says that they'll be the next Einstein, but for just about every one of them, either they get burned out, or can only learn and not actually think and do anything useful like real research.
Tell me that you haven't heard of any modern "child geniuses". Off the top of my head I know of Jacob Barnett, Mikaela Fudolig,and Tanishq Abraham. Look up "modern child prodigies" and look at the dozens of lists of child geniuses. Heck, there have been shows about them. And that's just in the past few years.
homeomorphic said:I don't know those other guys, but I can say Jacob Barnett is a PhD student, right now. As far as I'm aware, it would be seriously jumping the gun to say he was a flop at this point, just because he hasn't been in the news for a year or two. Historically, there have been a lot of child prodigies who were very successful, like Norbert Weiner, Mozart, Gauss, and fairly recently, Terence Tao. Your whole idea of people who can think versus people who can only learn suggests a certain naivete about what it is like to actually do research. I think it's almost more a matter of having a strong stomach, so to speak, than being able to think, in my experience. Or 99% perspiration, as Edison put it. Of course, it helps to be really interested in your work, so that you don't have to have quite as strong of a stomach to make it through. Someone who does a PhD in math or physics or even gets into the program is generally relatively good at thinking. Not everyone can solve those textbook problems. It's not just a matter of being able to learn and not think.
montadhar said:Sounds like a good excuse to justify your failure to measure up to that standard.
IGU said:Sure I have. But, as I suspected, you have no idea how many there are, at what age they matriculate, or how well they do in their studies or after. All you know is that you've heard of a few. Please don't spread misinformation here -- there's enough nonsense floating about elsewhere. As well, the successes and failures of such unusual people are not much of a guide to those asking questions here. Even among prodigies, each one is unique.
If you do hope to have any future in science, you'll learn not to make statements like "...for just about every one of them, either they get burned out, or can only learn and not actually think..." without some actual data to support them.
If I succeed, even if I forget everything afterwards, I would have gained something invaluable: a stronger brain; I will easily be able to relearn this material, and anything after that, and master power learning.
I can't read your intent, only what you write.Niflheim said:I think you're misunderstanding my intent here...
Again, I'll suggest that if you have any hope of a future in science that you don't make misleading statements unsupported by data. Defending such a statement by asserting that you were "making a generalization" is just digging the hole deeper.I was making a generalization, and of course I'm not suggesting ...
What you actually wrote is that you wanted to emphasize the importance of thinking (something I quite agree with), but then you produced this bogus illustration. Do you seriously want to defend the position that Barnett (your example) doesn't know how to think?I'm saying that I'm tired of people overreacting every time some kid who went to college early makes the news
The OP wrote:I'm making sure the OP knows that there is more to research than reading textbooks and getting good grades.
Nothing about an interest in grades or research, just learning stuff. An admirable goal for an engineering student.I want to attain mathematical maturity and be really good at math and solving problems, because you never know when it will come in handy.
Loststudent22 said:This sounds unhealthy to be honest and the fact your putting in 10 hours a day to just studying already is also not that healthy.
Why not look for internships instead, they will hold a lot more value for an engineering student then trying to force yourself to study for 16 hours a day which is not likely to happen.
It reminds me of people who do crash diets to look good, while it might work short term long term is not the best strategy.
WWGD said:One thought, most likely my last one. Maybe a good idea to use the posts in here to allow you to consider the possible pitfalls, obstacles you may face in your plan and change the plan accordingly. Good luck on your plans.