This article was published on April 3, 2011

Meet the 12 year old with an IQ higher than Stephen Hawking’s


Meet the 12 year old with an IQ higher than Stephen Hawking’s

As a three year old with a passion for stars he went on a tour of the Holcomb Observatory and Planetarium at Butler University in Indianapolis.

This is the day his mother Kristin Barnett would never forget (via the IndyStar):

“We were in the crowd, just sitting, listening to this guy ask the crowd if anyone knew why the moons going around Mars were potato-shaped and not round.

Jacob raised his hand and said, ‘Excuse me, but what are the sizes of the moons around Mars?’ ”

The lecturer answered, and Jacob looked at him and said the “gravity of the planet . . . is so large that (the moon’s) gravity would not be able to pull it into a round shape.”

Silence.

Meet Jacob Barnett, now 12 years old, mildly autistic and with an IQ of 170 – higher than Stephen Hawkings and Albert Einstein. At age three, he was solving 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzles and now he’s already got a paid research position at Indiana University.

For a taster of this little man’s out-of-this-world genius, watch this (and enjoy his mother’s comedic timing). There are plenty more videos on his mother’s YouTube channel too.

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