Nine-year-old prodigy is 'world's cleverest child'

Ainan Cawley, who lives in Singapore with his expatriate family, is studying chemistry at college. He passed a GCSE at the age of seven.

He can recite Pi - the number starting 3.14 that gives the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter - to 518 decimal places. He also knows the periodic table by heart.

His father Valentine Cawley keeps a blog on Ainan's progress titled "The boy who knew too much".

Mr Cawley said: "His vision is wide, ranging across the disciplines of physics, biology and chemistry - though with a particular emphasis on the latter; sometimes his insight seems prophetic, for he sees what is possible, rather than what is merely now.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Your kid may be in honor roll, but their kid teaches your childrens teachers...

Yes but the problem with this is, he knows nothing about life and the world.
Its easy enough to remember things, especially things someone else made up before you.
He didn't discover pi, and he didn't discover the elements of the periodic table.
He will need to learn more about the world, before he can start discovering things of his own.
Many prodigy children like this, who have been forced from birth to do most of this by there parents.
Never end up discovering anything.
Einstein for example, was no child prodigy, and rejected strict rote learning.

Originally posted by Grock
He can recite Pi - the number starting 3.14 that gives the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter - to 518 decimal places. He also knows the periodic table by heart.

Yeah but can he wind surf, skateboard, or hit a home run like normal kids?
I will look this kid up in about 20 or 30 years and if he has not created a better mouse trap then he was just a smart kid.

And with such positive responses in this thread its a wonder anyone succeeds.

The part where is dad says that he looks for what is possible and not what is known shows to me how smart the kid is. If your one of the smartest people in the world and have no vision then you may not achieve as much but if you combine the two then you have somthing special.

It's kind of an odd theory I have but I think that when somebody is like this its because they are tapping into knowledge gained in past lives rather then truly learning it again in this one.

reply to post by whoshotJR

It's kind of an odd theory I have but I think that when somebody is like this its because they are tapping into knowledge gained in past lives rather then truly learning it again in this one.

My beliefs go in the same direction --- cell memory.

Years ago while ridding dressage a phenomenal rider friend of mine remarked as she left the arena "For good dressage you need two life times to perfect, and then some".
It caught me off guard because I'd just been reading some of Rupert Sheldrake’s theories on cell memory.

I too believe the *prodigies* of this world have either 1. Tapped into cell memory or 2. Reincarnated (both?).

Though I believe in reincarnation I lean towards the drawing on cell memory in this case for this child.

The only kink in my theory is in my way of thinking women would have better possibilities in *rediscovering or discovering* their cell memory - *tapping into it* - but - it's widely accepted men are more often found to be in possession of the kind of intellect this child exhibits. (My reasons for thinking women have a better shot at this? Women are born with all their reproductive cells, meaning - they have original cells right back to the first woman).

Maybe this *kid* will really do the world some good!
It's needs it.

And sorry folks, but, not every kid out there is destined to play sports, get skinned knees and kick field goals.

That's destiny (or whatever you might choose to call it) - and - it's a beautiful thing.

Thanks for the post.

peace

reply to post by silo13


I had forgotten about cell memory so thank you for posting that! It gives me something else to google for a bit.

reply to post by whoshotJR


There's a whole lot of jealousy and small-mindedness out there, my friend. It shows up here altogether too often, as we see...

It is clearly stated at the end of the short article that the boy has lots of friends his own age and that he plays normally with them.

Isn't he absolutely gorgeous too? I mean really. I'm the mother of three and my kids are pretty good-looking people. But this kid is perfectly symmetrical, has beautiful skin tone, has ideal shapes to his face. Fantastic! And a brain to match his good looks. That really is something. If he carries with him into this life the wisdom of former lifetimes still intact, we may just have hope. Let's hope there's a large dose of super-ego as well. I wouldn't like him to be all id like so many these days.

Let the evolution begin.

"Imagination is more powerful than knowledge." -- Albert Einstein


I've seen lots of child prodigies that have memorized tons of material all across the board, but the majority of them don't make it anywhere later down the road.

Oh, how precious! It's wonderful to see children excel than the rest of his peers. But I'd like to know if he could create something from his wee mind that would benefit mankind, like vehicles which could run on non-polluting, free energy.

reply to post by Grock

Seeing the title I jumped to the conclusion of what I'd write. The bias was that child prodigies usually amount to nothing. They cruise through their education faster than the teachers can cope with. They end up feeling lonely, isolated and observed as an anomaly when they are on a University campus at a tender age. By the age of 21 their peers have caught up and their intelligence doesn't rise above anyone else's. Their childhood has gone and they become anonymous. If they are really unlucky a cable TV show or newspaper will do a 'where are they now?' to compound the ignominy of their life.

I feel sorry for the kid, especially with his family trying to sneak up on the idea that he's a 'prophet'.

Lucky for me I checked first and found this wiki page of child prodigies. Not all of them have no childhood and anonymous adulthood. At the same time there are no prophets in that list either.

Super smart kids are great! I mean, it's not necessarily cynical to point out the fact that many (all?) of these super-duper smart kids don't actually amount to anything. It might be incorrect because i'm betting the majority of posters to this thread never actually checked to make sure those super smart kids of yesteryear didn't end up doing some really amazing things. Honestly we have no idea.

Does it matter? Smart kids are great! Dumb kids are good too! Symmetrical and smart? Now that's a 1-2 punch. I just hope his parents are raising him the right way 'cause all the good qualities in the world don't mean a thing if you've got bad parents.

reply to post by silo13


Boys are less "necessary" to the reproduction of the species over a length of time. Not so important when there are 7 billion of us, but still a factor in our genetics. Females can only produce a limited number of children, and have lots of resources commited to it. Males have few body resources commited to it, and can essentially have an unlimited number of children. (if you lined it up right, you could literally get a woman preganat every single time you got an erection.)

This makes women more likely to be generalists. Being excessive in any area is not a good use of body resources. Plus, any anamoly would tend to be recessive and women have two copies of everything so a non-anamolous mutation is more likely to rein.

Males are more likely prospects for the genes to try out one-of mutations. The single copy assures that they will always present the traits of the mutation. Males are less necessary to the continued survival of the species. There is always another man, even a relation with a similar gene-type, to provide a couple billion possible variations of that line.

If it works out well, that gene will spread. Easily probably. If it is good but not very socially/sexually good, it will die off right away.

Diamonds in a rhinestone crown.

[edit on 2009/1/28 by Aeons]

Originally posted by silo13

It's kind of an odd theory I have but I think that when somebody is like this its because they are tapping into knowledge gained in past lives rather then truly learning it again in this one.

My beliefs go in the same direction --- cell memory.

what is cell memory, I've never heard of it can you please explain?
(reading over that it sound really sarcastic, oops)

Perhaps these prodigies don't "amount to anything" because they are not trying to amount to what the rest of the world thinks they should amount to.

Why judge these children and assume that because they know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop they should therefore become Willy Wonka?