APS News

November 1999 (Volume 8, Number 10)

Mr. Smith Goes to College

Ten year old physics major.

This year's crop of college freshmen at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, VA, includes one particularly unusual student: 10-year-old "boy genius" Gregory Smith, who will be taking a full course load including calculus I, physics, French and an honors course on warfare in antiquity. He plans on being a physics major. According to his parents, Smith began memorizing and reciting books at 14 months, adding numbers at 18 months, and "tested off the bell curve" in an IQ test taken when he was 5. Since starting the second grade three years ago, he has skipped most elementary grades altogether, and completed the standard high school curriculum in just 22 months, becoming the youngest person to graduate from a public high school in Florida. His unique intellectual ability has already won considerable media attention: Smith has appeared on "60 Minutes," "The Today Show," "NBC Nightly News," and "Late Night with David Letterman."

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Editor: Barrett H. Ripin
Associate Editor: Jennifer Ouellette

November 1999 (Volume 8, Number 10)

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Articles in this Issue
New Education Officer Joins APS
Ripin to Leave the APS
Largest Industrial Employers of PhD Physicists
APS Journals Divide and Multiply
Festival Profile
APS Creates Physicist Networking Database
High School Physics Enrollments Hit Post-War High
Mr. Smith Goes to College
Schawlow Honored in Special Memorial Session at ILS-XV
Tiny 'Bow-Tie' Microlasers Make it Big
In Brief
Physics Works!
Physicists To Be Honored at November Unit Meetings
APS Statement on Creationism
Letters
Viewpoint
The Back Page
Zero Gravity: The Lighter Side of Science