Tell me you’ve never been to the Amalfi coast without telling me you’ve never been to the Amalfi coast.
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With absolutely everything at (near?) absolute zero, nothing could be seen… but that doesn’t really answer your question. (What does a dead black hole and degenerate matter look like?)
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“and I, Laurent, am just Laurent” - barf
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I was mildly fascinated by the prospect as a kid. I eventually grew out of it and into some perspective. But even before that, reading about all the smart but not very wise aging singularitarians desperate for increasingly dubious stop-gaps like the scammy cryonics industry before they ran out of time gave me second thoughts; even at a young age, death seemed preferable to ending up like that.
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I mean, that was a fairly humble response.
Though we will see where this kid ends up. The Michael Kearney mentioned in the article who is the youngest person to get a bachelors degree has several graduate degrees and currently a professor. Kinda curious if he had lofty goals and if he still has them or what.
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At most colleges, you can’t earn a degree in 18 months because of prereq chains and credit hour requirements. In most systems, you need like 120 credits to get a degree, which would be like 30 credits or 10 classes per semester for this kid. That is ostensibly 30 hours in the classroom per week, not counting homework time. Why would an 11-year old need to finish in 18 months? Usually to set some sort of record the parents want him to meet. Now, although it is not universal, there are well-recognized patterns of innovation in mathematics coming before the age 30 and fizzling after that, so if he is a once-in-a-generation math talent, there may be reasons for him to earn a Ph.D by his mid-teens so he can have more time to contribute before his working memory declines and he can’t do crazy math anymore–sort of like a basketball phenom reclassifying to enter college early. But there are very few mathematicians out there who are employed just to do abstract math–most of them are professors teaching and doing research at the same time. So you get a kid through his phd by 14 or 15 and then he has to spend most of his cognitive effort writing syllabuses, grading math tests, etc. for 18 to 22 year olds. If he is smart, he will take 10 years to complete his graduate study.
For physics, which is this kids specialty, a lot research seems to focus on large bureacratic projects using huge teams (sometimes hundreds of coauthors), which needs social skills, management skills, and collaborative skills, and communication skills (writing grants to fund 100 PIs), and long-term reputation (CV length) as much as a single ‘genius’ solving an open math problem. I don’t want to discount the math and music prodigies out there who have gone on to do amazing things–they do exist–but if you search for the numerous stories like this from the past 10, 20, or 30 years, many of these kids ended up successful but unexceptional (doctors by age of 23, professors); some of them cannot be tracked down so maybe they burned out, some have a history of lawsuits blaming administration or advisors others from obstructing their progress (see alia sabur), and some turn into Bond-like villains (Wolfram). Actually I think he earned his phd by 20, but did not finish college and only spent a year at caltech before he got his degree, so he used some loophole for credit hours that probably doesn’t exist anymore.
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Boy, 11, earns quantum physics in 18 months
Did you mean to say he ‘learns’ quantum physics in 18 months, or that he ‘earns quantum physics degree’ in 18 months?
(Sorry, Pedant Pendant in operation.)
ETA I see post now has the word ‘degree’ inserted in headline. Headline changes do not automatically propagate to comments threads, though.
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Eh, I read that (with benefit of age) as prolonging useful, enjoyable life and decreasing the declining functions associated with aging. Which I am totally in favor of. Immortality is not (IMHO) a thing that is reasonable to achieve, but if you shoot high, you will still get pretty far even if you miss. We have humans who have, fairly functionally, reached 125+ or so and so I think that is a reasonable start.
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That may be a linguistic/translation thing.
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I’m not opposed to immortality, but it has to have some strings. No wealth, no progeny.
Richard Morgan did a pretty good job of the danger of immortal oligarchs. At least they die eventually, if people like Bezos or (god forbid) the Trumps had access to immortality…
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I look forward to never hearing about him again in a few years (or months). Child prodigies almost never go on to become earth-changing “geniuses,” and given that most kids in his position are there because their parents pushed them into it, living a quiet life where he does the things he actually wants to do would be the happiest outcome. In ten years he’s more likely to be making pizzas as making medical breakthroughs, and happier for it.
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I also suspect that many corners were cut on the way to “earning” his “degree.” I very much doubt he can do much more than manipulate symbols on paper to produce correct answers on tests. Actually possessing the physical insight that would allow him to produce innovative or meaningful research? Almost certainly out of the question.
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It sounds cool, until one seriously considers the negative aspects of such an existence.
I’m all for that; especially if it’s a benefit that is available to all people, no matter their class or status. (If it’s a privilege only extended to the White, rich & powerful, then not so much.)
That said, improving the quality and longevity of life is not the same thing as trying to achieve “immortality.”
I finally watched the first season of Altered Carbon, and was mortified by their take on it.
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For most kids I think it’s more that the possibilities of things to learn and do seem almost endless and it’s hard for them to imagine fitting enough to satisfy their curiosity into one natural human lifetime. As I would sometimes say at that age, I need at least five hundred years to read all the books I want to. Of course I’ve long since learned that’s a receding horizon and life is about, to quote Captain Picard in The Masterpiece Society, making choices.
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Honestly, it was the bright spot of the story. Trying to measure up to other peoples’ expectations is the source of a lot of unhappy lives.
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The last thing this planet needs is immortal humans.
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Given our current circumstances, elongated, or infinite life would mean hundreds, thousands, etc., years of debt service to ancient rentiers.
No thanks.
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Or English Literature.
Struldbruggs lived forever, but continued aging, and were legally dead and forbidden to own property after age eighty, to prevent them gradually accumulating all the wealth of the nation. From then on, their lives became increasingly wretched forever.
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Oh lay off the kid. He justed wanted to know whether his cat was alive or not.
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