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Re: [Phys-L] video

Very impressive. I can't read 1333 comments to check, but those I've read have mentioned the scientist's gentle treatment of the child prodigy, who clearly has absorbed a great deal of information about physics, both the history of science and physics explanations. I am frankly most impressed by the young Soborno Isaac Bari's "number sense" and ability to correctly perform unit conversions. His knowledge is (or was at the time of the video interview) eclectic, surprisingly complete at the science popularization level. (Which is great for his age, absolutely amazing!) But speaking as a physicist and physics professor, his explanations lack depth, and in several places sound memorized rather than understood. (Not surprising.) It's fascinating how at about 7:00 minutes in he recites and writes down the ground state energy of hydrogen as -2.17 x 10^-18 Joules, and then proceeds to use the conversion factor 1 eV = 1.6 x 10^-19 J to convert this value to -13.625 eV. I'm struck by several things: (1) I've never heard this value quoted in units of Joules, but it is frequently given (to 3 significant figures) as -13.6 eV. If you stopped me on the street and posed the question, that would be my answer. But remember that it's an approximation. So when Soborno comes up with -13.625 eV, I was only skeptical to the extent that one shouldn't claim 5 sig.figs. from a calculation dividing numbers having 3 and 2 sig.figs., respectively. (2) The numbers "ending with 625" clearly caught Soborno's fancy, showing his high sensitivity to patterns in numbers. I have that, too, though probably not at his level! To me, "625" shouts 5_to_the_4th_power, and 0.625 = 5/8, a fairly common fraction. (Those are related facts, by the way, since 625/1000 = (5^4)/((2^3)(5^3)) = 5^2/(2^3) = 5/8. In short, if you see a decimal ending with ....625, you probably divided by 8 somewhere. Aha! He did! In dividing by 1.6 = 16/10 = 8/5, he's multiplying by 5 and dividing by 8. Mystery of the decimal endings of E_1 and E_2 solved! (3) A more accurate version of the conversion factor is 1.602 x 10^-19 J/eV, and Wikipedia cites it as 1.602176634×10−19 J/eV. Clearly if you use more sig.figs. in your conversions, you will not get answers that end with 625. So when the professor is surprised to see multiple numbers ending with 625, and "never noticed that before" (~ 10:00), his surprise is not unexpected. He never noticed it before, because he had never seen it before, because it isn't true. (To 5 sig.figs, the values should be: -13.606, -3.4014, -1.5117, -0.85036, -0.54423 eV. For more than 5 sig.figs., the Bohr model itself is only an approximation and fails to give more accurate predictions. Better use quantum theory.) (4) I am floored by this child's ability to divide numbers in scientific notation, correctly handling the exponents (although he forgot to do it twice in this video), and then actually writing down 2.17/1.6 = 1.3625, without using a calculator or doing the long division on paper. I might be able to do that in my head, but I would have to perform these steps: 2.17/1.6 = 21.7/16 = 10.85/8 = 5.425/4 = 2.7125/2 = 1.3625. And note that I'd probably make a mistake in at least one of the "dividing by 2" steps. I'm sure I couldn't divide by 16 straight off. (5) Going on through the video, I keep thinking: I wish my (university) physics students could so easily answer this range of physics questions! His unwarranted number of digits in different answers is something that can be fixed, in fact, the video is 2 years old -- probably "the youngest professor" has learned how to round down to the number of sig.figs. that can be justified in each case. At the moment, his joy in reading out a long list of decimals is so fun to watch, which is why I would say that the numbers themselves are more meaningful to him than the physics. ("Boy, this calculator is good!" "Lots of lists of decimals!") Also when he multiplied the frequency times the wavelength for a particular frequency of light, he got 2.952 x 10^8 m/s, and didn't correct it to the exact value, 299 792 458 m/s, or round it to 2 sig.figs. Later (~48:00) he uses this incorrect value of the speed of light in a further calculation, meaning that his short-term memory for numbers is excellent, but he's not retaining more important results long-term. There's no telling what numbers will stick in his head, of course. When the professor asks what is the ratio of mass to rest mass for a particle moving at 98% of the speed of light, he remembered "5 times" -- I'm pretty sure he didn't complete the calculation involving squaring .98 (to get ~ 0.96), subtracting that from 1 (to get ~ 0.04), taking the square root (to get ~ 0.2) and then inverting it to get ~ 1/0.2 = ~ 5). I guess it's possible to do in your head for these numbers, but I think this is a more likely to be a memory of previously doing the problem with a calculator! I see that some other videos refer to him as "God of Math", and I would agree that he has a sense for the number patterns that far exceeds his scientific knowledge. One has the sense of what it might be like to talk with Srinivasa Ramanujan as a child. (Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan) For me, Ramanujan is a more apt comparison to Soborno Bari than is Einstein or Newton. I'm not seeing huge intrinsic talent for science here, although he's clearly very interested in physics. (BTW, at ~45:00 he's basically quoting from the double slit explanation in the 2004 cult classic movie "What the Bleep Do We Know!?" That particular explanation is ok, although most of the implications drawn are a bit fishy.) What comes through is an amazing memory, a sense for numbers and a joy in using them in calculations. I'd love to see what would happen if he got started on Number Theory. I have a feeling that he might leave the best living mathematicians in the dust!

Cheers,

Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: Phys-l <phys-l-bounces@mail.phys-l.org> On Behalf Of Bill Norwood via Phys-l
Sent: Monday, 13 September, 2021 11:48
To: Phys-L@phys-l.org
Cc: bnorwood111@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Phys-L] video

[External sender. Exercise caution.]

Brian,

My memory is evaporative.

If you will write something which makes clear the following, I will better understand.

1. The recent people lineage of the child genius 2. The educators of the questioner 3. The education history of the child genius 4. The present family situation of the child genius.

Is the child’s genius characteristic merely a symptom of being taught nothing else but selected physics topics?

Can this child tie his own shoes?

(I used to be married to a concert pianist who was taught virtually nothing else, from the age of three. She suffered gravely in all other aspects of living.)

Bill Norwood
U of MD
1966 - 2018

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 13, 2021, at 11:18 AM, Brian Whatcott <betwys1@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Professor Soborno Bari is a visiting professor at Ruia College of Mumbai University. He has a Bangladeshi Moslem background.His father is a mathematician. He was at school at the New York School. He was commended to Harvard by an Oxford University reference.'Isaac' is a nickname.
On Monday, September 13, 2021, 04:51:18 AM CDT, Anthony Lapinski <alapinski@pds.org> wrote:

Well, maybe do an online search and see what you can find.

On Sun, Sep 12, 2021 at 9:02 PM <bnorwood111@gmail.com> wrote:

I believe that the mere viewing of genius increases in value if one
understands where that genius comes from and how it comes to pass.

A repeat of my inquiries:

[image: image1.png]

[image: image2.png]

[image: image3.png]


Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 12, 2021, at 8:01 PM, Anthony Lapinski <alapinski@pds.org> wrote:

I don't think this was rehearsed. Check out his other videos. The kid
seems fairly smart.

On Thu, Sep 9, 2021 at 8:24 PM Bill Norwood via Phys-l <
phys-l@mail.phys-l.org> wrote:

Hi all,

That’s a phenomenal display of precocious memory management,
knowledge of history of physics’ major players, and spontaneous
application of physics principles.

But I still need to know
1. the degree to which this presentation was rehearsed, 2. the
degree to which the props were supplied in accordance with what was
going to be talked about.
3. who were the prodigy’s primary teachers?
4. how much of a physics reader is he?
5. how much of a physics writer is he?
6. does he challenge any present/day physics dogma?
7. does he have any students?
8. does he learn just as voraciously in other sciences: biology,
paleontology, medicine, statistics, and others?
9. Is there any normalcy to his family life?

Just a few thoughts.

U of MD Physics Dept 1966-2018

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 9, 2021, at 5:52 PM, Anthony Lapinski <alapinski@pds.org> wrote:

I hope your school year is/will be off to a good start, whether in
person
(like myself) or remote.

Wanted to share this video that was sent to me. It shows a kid
(genius!) interviewed by an MIT scientist. Remarkable what this
young person
knows.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaRvMaXK5VI

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