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Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 2,641 Likes: 3
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Joined: Feb 2010
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I'd like to start a thread discussing the educational paths of intellectually accomplished people, especially those who were accelerated. Ken Wilson, who died recently, won a Nobel prize in physics for his work on phase transitions and the renormalization group. He was accelerated two grades in K-12 and entered Harvard at 16. The book he mentions reading in junior high school to "learn the basic principle of calculus", "Mathematics and the Imagination" by Kasner and Newman, is available as an inexpensive Dover reprint and has received good reviews on Amazon. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1982/wilson-bio.htmlI was born 1936 in Waltham, Massachusetts, the son of E. Bright Wilson Jr. and Emily Buckingham Wilson. My father was on the faculty in the Chemistry Department of Harvard University; my mother had one year of graduate work in physics before her marriage. My grandfather on my mother's side was a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; my other grandfather was a lawyer, and one time Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives.
My schooling took place in Wellesley, Woods Hole, Massachusetts (second, third/fourth grades in two years), Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Mass. (from fifth to eighth grade), ninth grade at the Magdalen College School in Oxford, England, and tenth and twelfth grades (skipping the eleventh) at the George School in eastern Pennsylvania. Before the year in England I had read about mathematics and physics in books supplied by my father and his friends. I learned the basic principle of calculus from Mathematics and Imagination by Kasner and Newman, and went of to work through a calculus text, until I got stuck in a chapter on involutes and evolutes. Around this time I decided to become a physicist. Later (before entering college) I remember working on symbolic logic with my father; he also tried, unsuccessfully, to teach me group theory. I found high school dull. In 1952 I entered Harvard. I majored in mathematics, but studied physics (both by intent), participated in the Putnam Mathematics competition, and ran the mile for the track team (and crosscountry as well). I began research, working summers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, especially for Arnold Arons (then based at Amherst). An obituary is at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/science/kenneth-wilson-nobel-physicist-dies-at-77.html
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squishys
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Great idea! I'm looking forward to reading about accelerated success stories.
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,181
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Let me just say that as a chemist, this is SO not what I thought that thread title meant.  I like this way better, incidentally.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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Joined: May 2009
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Let me just say that as a chemist, this is SO not what I thought that thread title meant. Same here!
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Joined: Feb 2010
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... I learned the basic principle of calculus from Mathematics and Imagination by Kasner and Newman, and went of to work through a calculus text, until I got stuck in a chapter on involutes and evolutes. .. What are "involutes and evolutes"? A potential list of "famous accelerants" is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_child_prodigiesThere is a wikipedia article on "involute" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involute (which also defines "evolute"). Googling "gifted accelerants" shows that my use of the term "accelerant" is not unique  .
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Joined: Apr 2011
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Joined: Jan 2008
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Tangent warning. I linked in to Feynman, thinking he would be an "accelerant" but his IQ was estimated to be 125. It appears that he was like Einstein, PG on the math and physics portion but low on the verbal. Didn't get into Columbia but accepted into MIT. Now you can easily get into Columbia when MIT wouldn't put you on the considered list.
Sorry, I went off topic, but I found this interesting.
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Joined: Feb 2013
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Tangent warning. I linked in to Feynman, thinking he would be an "accelerant" but his IQ was estimated to be 125. It appears that he was like Einstein, PG on the math and physics portion but low on the verbal. Didn't get into Columbia but accepted into MIT. Now you can easily get into Columbia when MIT wouldn't put you on the considered list.
Sorry, I went off topic, but I found this interesting. Interesting example. Low on the verbal? But Feynman was a great teacher and loved to teach.
Last edited by iynait; 06/23/13 05:51 AM.
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Joined: Mar 2012
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Tangent warning. I linked in to Feynman, thinking he would be an "accelerant" but his IQ was estimated to be 125. It appears that he was like Einstein, PG on the math and physics portion but low on the verbal. Didn't get into Columbia but accepted into MIT. Now you can easily get into Columbia when MIT wouldn't put you on the considered list. The Ivies had hard limits on the numbers of Jewish kids they would accept in that era. It was very explicit. Feynman even mentions this in one of his memoirs. That has more to do with why he didn't get in to Columbia than ability. -chris
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