When people talk about Child prodigies, little do they know of how many broad categories there are or really what the term in its essence mean. Most people think about geniuses who just memorize everything and get out of college early but really they contribute a mass amount of knowledge to our lives. Also, many child prodigies have the same psychological need for belonging, love, and a sense of community. From Wikipedia, the definition of a child prodigy is: a person who masters one or more skills or arts at an early age. Their work is truly remarkable.
below is a video link to a You Tube video that shows a 1
4 year old art prodigy. This just goes to show that not every prodigy is a mathematical genius.
Through my research, I have narrowed the broad range of specific prodigy talents into the following 3 categories of child prodigies;
Mathematic and Science
A list of notable Mathematical and Scientific child prodigies and their contributions:
Terence Tao- At 8 he was attending year 11 classes and scored a 760 on the math SAT section. He is credited for the Green-Tao theorem which proves that there exist arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions of prime numbers.
Jean-Philippe Baratier- He published 11 works and worked on a method to calculate longitude at sea. He lived only 19 years and lived in the 18th century.
Maria Gaetana Agnesi- was an Italian linguist, mathematician, and philosopher. She is credited with writing the first book discussing both differential and integral calculus(ie finite quantities).
Ernst G. Straus- At age 5 he worked out the formula for the sum of an arithmetic progression.
Truman Safford- At 10 he could square 18 digits numbers, later in life he was an astronomer.
Kim Ung-young: By the time he was 4, he could speak Japanese, Korean, German, and English fluently. He went to college when he was 3 until 6 and Hanyang University. At 7, he was invited to the U.S. by NASA. He got a Ph.D. in physics at Colorado State University before he was 16. After, he began his research with NASA, and switched over to civil engineering and today help's makes NASA's spacecrafts.
Arkit Jaswal: He was India's youngest university student. He carried out an operation at age 7.
The Arts
"When you're that young and you play with an orchestra-- I debuted with the New York Philharmonic-- they call you a prodigy and that name sticks with you even when you're 15 or 15 and beyond. What I liked even then, though, was that the conductors treated me like a colleague, not like a "prodigy,"...Then, when I would be invited back, it became a wonderful cycle for me: I would create friends at these places, such as New York and Berlin, and they have watched me grow up." -Sarah Chang, child prodigy.
Some notable musical child prodigies are:
Emily Bear- Discovered her piano talents at the age of 2, composes her own music, and has played at the white house.
Sean Bennet- Won a Disney song-arranging prize at the age of 5.
Cameron Carpenter- Performed J.S. Bach's Well- Tempered Clavier from memory at age 11 on the Organ.
Lang Lang- Began playing piano at age two; entered Beijing Conservatory at age eight; won international competitions at age 13.
Wolfgang Mozart- Played both Piano and Violin at the age of 6 and composed for the king at age 8.
Raphael Severe- Started playing Clarinet at age 8, played Mozart's clarinet concerto in China at 11, won first prize and jury special prize at the Tokyo international competition at 12.
Linda Brava- World-wide tours at age 8, leader of the prestigious Helsinki Juniorstrings at 13. She played the Violin.
Some notable artistic child prodigies are:
Pablo Picasso- His Picador is from age eight. He started painting at age 3.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini- At 7, his sketches caught the eye of Pope Paul V, he also sculpted Martyrdom of St. Lawrence at the age of 16.
Dylan Scott Pierce- Wildlife art illustrator at 10.
Zhu Da- Prodigy poet by age 7 and later a painter.
Jan Lievens- Painter apprenticed at 8 and an independent artist at 12.
Some notable literature child prodigies are:
H.P. Lovecraft- recited poetry at age 2 and wrote long poems at age 5.
Lope de Vega- wrote his first play at the age of 12. Could read Latin at age 5 and was translating Latin verse at ten.
William Cullen Bryant- Published at ten, had a book of political satire poems at 13.
Here are some exceptional artistic pieces of child prodigies:
Sports and Games
Here are some outstanding sports and game prodigies:
Tiger Woods- He first won the Optimist International Junior tournament at age 8, playing in the 9-10 age group. Now he is a pro-athlete.
Michelle Wie- Qualified for the USGA Women's Amateur Public Links at 10 and won the same event at 13, making her the youngest person both to qualify for and win a USGA adult national championship.
Wayne Gretzky- At age 6 he was skating with 10 year olds. By the age of 10 he scored 378 goals and 139 assists in just 85 games.
Nicholas Nip- Youngest ever USCF Chess Master with a rating of 2207 at age 9. He began chess at age 2.
Here are some pictures about the prodigies I have mentioned above;
Also, there are many references to fictional prodigies, in works of literature, movies, T.V., and video games such as:
In literature: Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer, A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, Battle Royale by Koushun Takimi, and The Chronicles Of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis.
In Movies: August Rush, Star Wars, Magnolia, Dear Brigitte, and Shine.
In T.V.: Zoey 101, X-Files, Malcom in the Middle, Numb3rs, Avatar, Sailor Moon, Max Steel, Heroes, CSI, Bones, Bleach, and The Big Bang Theory.
In Video Games: Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, Mother, and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
Conclusion
As my project comes to a close, I would like to point out one last interesting fact about child prodigies. Many of the child prodigies in the world lived in centuries before the 21st. According to a Princeton University Study, child prodigies and plain out geniuses are dying out during the passing of century's due to the fact that in the society we live in today, there is not a big emphasis on the use of self-intellect. Though most people would argue that it is an unfortunate thing, they would also argue that without our current technology, child prodigies wouldn't help us out as much as back then. In my overall findings, I came to a conclusion that child prodigies come in all types, fictional and non-fictional, mathematic and artistic, athletic and poetic, and that most of all, child prodigies are human beings after all in that they feel the same need we do to have belonging, love, and a sense of community.
