From preschool to PhDs, a look at famous child prodigies

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/11/2015 (3856 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You’ve probably never heard of Oratilwe Hlongwane, but it’s only a matter of time.

Fortunately for Oratilwe, time is definitely on his side.

Better known by his stage name “DJ Arch Junior,” Oratilwe made global headlines earlier this month when he became this season’s winner of the TV reality show South Africa’s Got Talent, one of more than 50 international versions of Simon Cowell’s Got Talent franchise.

DJ Arch Junior drove the audience and the judges wild and took home the top prize of 500,000 rand (C$47,000) with an upbeat dance mix and an overdose of cuteness.

Not bad for someone who can’t read and hasn’t learned how to tie his own shoelaces. Which isn’t surprising, because the little music man is only three years old.

The world’s youngest licensed DJ, the pint-sized performer’s career began at two, when his dad, Glen Hlongwane, who is also a DJ, began posting clips of his son on YouTube.

“When he was four months old, we bought him an iPad Mini just to educate and empower him,” Glen said after his son took the crown. “When he was eight months old, I downloaded a DJing app for myself, and he started playing with it.”

Chances are we’ll be hearing a lot from this talented toddler in the years to come. Until then, here’s a look at the Top Five Child Prodigies You’ve Probably Never Heard Of:

 

5) The prodigious prodigy:

Michael Kevin Kearney

 

THE REMARKABLE RESUMÉ: Born in 1984 in Honolulu, Hawaii, little Michael wasn’t about to let a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder slow him down. According to online accounts, this home-schooled prodigy spoke his first words at four months and at the age of six months informed his pediatrician: “I have a left-ear infection.” He was reading at 10 months, and at four was given the multiple-choice diagnostic tests for the Johns Hopkins University’s precocious math program. He achieved a perfect score. He graduated high school at six. Next, he enrolled at junior college and graduated at age eight with a degree in geology. Then it was off to Alabama, where, at the ripe old age of 10, Michael earned a bachelor degree in anthropology at the University of South Alabama, which earned him a spot in Guinness World Records as the world’s youngest university graduate. At 14, he picked up a master’s degree in biochemistry. By age 17, he’d added a master’s in computer science from Vanderbilt University, where, naturally, he taught as well as took classes. “We put him in college to keep him normal,” his father, Kevin, told ABC News years ago. “He needed to be in high school when he was five to be normal, and he needed to be in college when he was six to be normal.” As a child, Michael dreamed of being a game-show host. In 2006, he won $1 million on AOL’s online trivia-puzzle contest Gold Rush, and he picked up $25,000 in 2008 on TV’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire? The prodigy is now reportedly an improv comedian.

 

4) The prodigious prodigy:

Kim Ung-Yong

 

THE REMARKABLE RESUMÉ: What were you doing at age three? Little Kim Ung-Yong, who was born in 1962, was taking courses as a guest physics student at South Korea’s Hanyang University. Which is probably what you would expect from someone who may well be the smartest man alive today. The so-called super-genius was listed in Guinness World Records as having the world’s highest IQ at 210. (That category was later retired after Guinness deemed IQ tests too unreliable; for the record, Albert Einstein’s IQ was listed as 160.) Kim started speaking around the age of six months. By age four, he was able to read Korean, Japanese, German and English. At eight, the wunderkind was invited by NASA to study in the United States. He earned his PhD in physics before he turned 15. During his studies, he spent four years as a researcher with NASA, but news reports suggest he began to feel a sense of emptiness, which prompted him in 1978 to return to South Korea. He could have gone to the top universities, but instead chose a provincial school. He earned a degree in civil engineering and, since 2007, has been an adjunct professor at Chungbuk National University. He is now an advocate of the simple life, saying: “When I was in NASA, every day I just repeated daily equations and research. I had no friends, I was lonely and exhausted. I lost a sense of purpose along the way. And I discovered there is really nothing special about being special.”

3) The prodigious prodigy:

Paul Erdos

 

THE REMARKABLE RESUMÉ: Before he became one of the most brilliant mathematicians of the 20th century, Paul Erdos (pronounced “air-dish”) was a quirky kid. Born in Budapest, Hungary, to Jewish mathematician parents, three-year-old Paul multiplied three-digit numbers in his head just for kicks. By the time he was 20, he was a world-famous mathematician, known as the Magician from Budapest. The so-called “lovable oddball” was the subject of an illustrated children’s book, The Boy Who Loved Math, which described how he lived with his mom, who did his laundry and buttered his bread into his 20s. “When Paul was 21,” the book recounts, “some mathematicians invited him to go to England to work on his math… They all went to dinner. Everyone else talked and ate, but Paul stared at his bread. He stared at his butter. He didn’t know how to butter his bread.” For most of his life he lived out of a suitcase, having little interest in money or possessions. In the biography The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, Paul Hoffman wrote: “Before Erdos died on Sept. 20, 1996, at the age of 83, he had managed to think about more problems than any mathematician in history. He wrote or co-authored 1,475 academic papers, many of them monumental, and all of them substantial.” To this day, mathematicians assign themselves “Erdos numbers,” which indicate how closely a person has worked with the former prodigy: co-authors get No. 1, their collaborators earn a No. 2, and so on and so on. We don’t know Kevin Bacon’s number.

 

2) The prodigious prodigy:

Gregory R. Smith

 

THE REMARKABLE RESUMÉ: If you want to feel as though you haven’t done anything in your life, take a look at a few of this prodigy’s accomplishments. At 14 months, little Greg was solving math problems; at the age of two, he was reading and correcting adults’ grammar; at five, he was explaining photosynthesis to kindergarten classmates. In 1999, at 10, he received a scholarship to Randolph-Macon College worth about $70,000 and that same year founded International Youth Advocates, an organization devoted to promoting peace and understanding among youths throughout the world. Because of his work as an advocate for children and peace, Greg, who was born in 1990 in Keswick, Va., has been able to meet with world leaders, including former U.S. president Bill Clinton and former Soviet boss Mikhail Gorbachev. Notes TheRichest.com: “It was that and other advocacies that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize nomination four times.” OK, he hasn’t won, but he was first nominated at an age (12) when most of us were trying out for peewee hockey. At 13, he graduated cum laude with a B.Sc. in math. “Through his many appearances, Greg appeals to governmental leaders to value their children as their country’s greatest resource,” his biography on the website Starwheels.com notes. “He teaches about ending the cycle of violence and has pledged his life to the pursuit of peace.”

 

1) The prodigious prodigy:

Akrit Jaswal

 

THE REMARKABLE RESUMÉ: When it comes to playing doctor, this child prodigy took things to the next level. When he was just seven years old, Akrit Jaswal, reputed to have an IQ of 146, added the unofficial title “surgeon” to his resumé when he performed a complicated medical procedure at his family home. The patient was an eight-year-old girl whose poor shepherd family couldn’t afford a doctor. The girl had been badly burned as a toddler and the fingers on one hand had fused together. According to online reports, seven-year-old Akrit, despite lacking any formal training, managed to free the girl’s fingers and she regained the use of her hand. His mother has told the media her son, born in 1993, was reading Shakespeare at five. “At age 11, Akrit was admitted to a Punjab University,” says an article on HowAfrica.com. “He’s the youngest student ever to attend an Indian university.” At last report, he was studying for a science degree at Chandigarh College. He also appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show. He has reportedly boasted: “People saw my potential and wanted to help me excel in life… I think they’re of above-average intelligence, but not as clever as me.”

 

As for the rest of you, it is obvious from the thoughtful way you are reading today’s column that you were a genius from Day 1. Hey, we used to be a prodigy back in the day, and we’d love to tell you about that… but it’s past our bedtime.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca