Have you ever know a wunderkind? \ stacker news ~AskSN

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1161 sats \ 8 comments \ @stack_harder 9h AskSN

Have you ever met someone irl that you just knew was on another level, mentally speaking?

In all my 40 years, I think the closest I came to meeting one was a new kid that joined my class when I as maybe 10.

While most of us were pretty average, this kid was something else. Not only did he smoke the then-smartest kid in the class, the teachers were all over him too.

I distinctly remember that he had read all of Tolken (this was obvs before all the LOTR movies etc) and when we had a 'write a short story' assignment, he wrote some 100 page mini book and the teacher actually printed copies for all the other teachers to read.

Now, to be fair, maybe he just seemed so smart because I was pretty terrible at school and was in the remidal reading group with a kid that just arrived from Nigeria, but I think the teacher's fawning is pretty good proof.

To this day, I wonder what he ended up doing with himself.

Have you stackers met any genius-level wizards in your time?

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150 sats \ 0 replies \ @endothermicdev 6h

Yes, a bitcoiner friend's kid described to me step-by-step how to build a CPU from scratch. Complete with a program counter, 8 bit memory, addition, subtraction, multiplication and several other essential operations all starting from discrete logic gates - not even flip-flops were taken for granted. From my EE101 experience, it seemed to check out but honestly I could only barely keep up with his pace. I think he's 12. Oh, and there was no pencil or paper involved, just from his memory of previously trying to build one in simulation.

96 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 7h

I went to college with two and they both flamed out after getting distracted by social stuff.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 7h

What kind of social stuff? Like personal life stuff or woke stuff?

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 6h

One of them just couldn’t balance the freedom of living on his own with getting any school work done. He transferred in so many credits from homeschooling that he was only about a year away from triple majoring in Math, Physics, and Computer Science. To my knowledge, he didn’t complete any of them.

The other did complete his Math and Physics double major at about 17, but got really into MMA and failed out of the PhD program because he spent all his time fighting and training.

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 7h

I think so at my job. This guy did it all. From fighter pilot with the Air Force to civil engineering and now he’s a developer making web applications; completely self taught himself with a coding for dummies book. Also he does scuba rescue diving.

We linked up on Duolingo and he’s already smoked me there as well. I like to do a lot of review thus my Spanish score is low 44 he is already at 71 I had a few years head start on him.

55 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 7h

There was a guy in my Theory of Computation class that routinely outperformed me and was way quicker on the draw when the professor asked a question (I'd never speak up, but I'd always try to come up with the answer). I've always had to work hard for what little understanding I end up with, struggling to accept/organize the rules that make something understood.¹ This guy seemed to do it easily.

I'm sure I've come across many people like this. They can be hard to spot if you're just a peer - most smart people I've met learn to downplay the disagreeable effects of intelligence. I know many stackers are very smart.

The professor of my Theory of Computation class once described an encounter with his wunderkind: a guy, unenrolled in his class, would come in only to take the tests and would do perfectly on them, performing several standard deviations better than the mean. Apparently the guy would do that in other classes too. Rogaway eventually pulled some strings to get him transferred to MIT (CalTech was too elitist to accept a transfer).

With most subjects I never seem to fully organize the rules. Once I get them organized enough, such that I see the implications of fully organizing them, I tend to move onto something else, seeking breadth rather than depth. ↩

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @south_korea_ln 57m

Many, in my job. Some theoretical physicists are really out of this world. It's surreal.

I feel like an idiot more often than not, when talking to them.

I'm good at communicating, but not so smart.

The truly unique ones are the ones that are super smart and can communicate. I've only met a few, and these are truly a joy to interact with.

I'll come back to this if i remember some anecdotes later in the day.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @gmd 1h

Guy a year above me got BS econ, BS math, MS statistics, MS computer science and PhD in business in 6 years at Stanford. He had to petition to take classes for fewer units as he was exceeding the quarterly limit.

Super nice, never had to study, always having a great time chilling in the lounge during finals. He's a professor at Cal->UPenn now.

I remember working with my friend on a math problem for an hour then I knocked on his door and he smiled and answered the question before I finished telling him the problem.

Kind of reminds me of the story Jeff Bezos tells of his friend Yasantha Rajakarunanayake who made him realize he was never going to be smart enough to be a physicist.

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