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12-year-old takes college physics at IUPUI

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) _ A 12-year-old boy is making quite an impression on his classmates, standing out among fellow students in a calculus-based physics class at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

“When I first walked in and saw him, I thought, `Oh my God, I’m going to school with Doogie Howser,’ “ said Wanda Anderson, a biochemistry major at IUPUI, referring to a TV series that featured a 16-year-old physician.

Jacob Barnett says it’s hard for him to share his understandings with those closest to him.

When he tries talking about math with relatives, “they just stare blankly,” Jacob told The Indianapolis Star for a story Sunday.

Physics professor John Ross said the university wants to move Jacob into a research position.

“We have told him that after this semester . . . enough of the book work,” Ross said. “You are here to do some science.”

Ross said he will work to find some grant funding to support Jacob.

“If we can get all of those creative juices in a certain direction, we might be able to see some really amazing stuff down the road,” the physicist said.

Jacob’s mother said what he’s accomplishing now is far beyond what she and her husband once dreamed possible.

“Oh my gosh, when he was 2, my fear was that he would never be in our world at all,” said Kristine Barnett, 36. “He would not talk to anyone. He would not even look at us.”

“My biggest fear,” she said, “was that he had lost the ability to say, `I love you’ to us.”

He was diagnosed as having Asperger’s syndrome, a somewhat milder condition related to autism.

By age 3, Jacob was undergoing an intensive evaluation from a team of psychologists, therapists and a diagnostic teacher. They concluded that while he struggled socially, he was also showing signs of academic skills that were above his age level.

When he was 3, the family went on a tour of the Holcomb Observatory and Planetarium at Butler University.

“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,” his mother said. “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.”

“That entire building … everyone was just looking at him, like, `Who is this 3-year-old?”’

When he ran into problems with boredom in elementary school, one expert had a radical suggestion.

“Indeed, it would not be in Jacob’s best interest to force him to complete academic work that he has already mastered,” clinical neurophysiologist Carl S. Hale of Merrillville wrote in a report.

“He needs work at an instructional level, which currently is a post college graduate level in mathematics, i.e., a post master’s degree,” Hale said. “In essence, his math skills are at the level found in someone who is working on a doctorate in math, physics, astronomy and astrophysics.”

His parents decided to take Jacob out of Westfield Washington Schools and enroll him in IUPUI’s early college entrance program. It caters to smart high schoolers, but generally not 12-year-olds.

“I flunked math,” his mother said, laughing. “I know this did not come from me.”

___

Information from: The Indianapolis Star, http://www.indystar.com

Copyright Ā© 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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