I nominated Stephen Wolfram
>At the age of 12, he wrote a dictionary on physics.[25] By 13 or 14, had written three books on particle physics.[26][27][28] They were not published.
>By age 15 he began research in applied quantum field theory and particle physics and publish scientific papers. Topics included matter creation and annihilation, the fundamental interactions, elementary particles and their currents, hadronic and leptonic physics, and the parton model, published in professional peer-reviewed scientific journals including Nuclear Physics B, Australian Journal of Physics, Nuovo Cimento, and Physical Review D.[29] Working independently, Wolfram published a widely cited paper on heavy quark production at age 18[3] and nine other papers,[15] and continued research and to publish on particle physics into his early twenties. Wolfram's work with Geoffrey C. Fox on the theory of the strong interaction is still used in experimental particle physics.[30]
>He was educated at Eton College, but left prematurely in 1976.[31] He entered St. John's College, Oxford at age 17 but found lectures "awful",[15] and left in 1978[32] without graduating[33][34] to attend the California Institute of Technology, the following year, where he received a PhD[35] in particle physics on November 19, 1979 at age 20.[36] Wolfram's thesis committee was composed of Richard Feynman, Peter Goldreich, Frank J. Sciulli and Steven Frautschi, and chaired by Richard D. Field.[36][37]
I nominate myself.
>At the age of 10, he wrote a dictionary on physics.[25] By 11 or 12, had written three books on particle physics.[26][27][28] They were not published.
>By age 13 he began research in applied quantum field theory and particle physics and publish scientific papers. Topics included matter creation and annihilation, the fundamental interactions, elementary particles and their currents, hadronic and leptonic physics, and the parton model, published in professional peer-reviewed scientific journals including Nuclear Physics B, Australian Journal of Physics, Nuovo Cimento, and Physical Review D.[29] Working independently, he published a widely cited paper on heavy quark production at age 17[3] and nine other papers,[15] and continued research and to publish on particle physics into his late teens. His work with Geoffrey C. Fox on the theory of the strong interaction is still used in experimental particle physics.[30]
>He was educated at MIT, but left prematurely in 1976.[31] He entered Harvard at age 17 but found lectures "awful",[15] and left in 1978[32] without graduating[33][34] to attend the California Institute of Technology, the following year, where he received a PhD[35] in particle physics on November 19, 2016 at age 19.[36] His thesis committee was composed of Edward Witten, Stephen Hawking, Leonard Susskind and Lee Smolin, and chaired by Michio Kaku[36][37]
>>7950757
How do we measure and compare the different fields of intellect?
>>7950835
Level of intellectual ability required to not only understand the concepts but to make profound leaps in understanding leading to new ideas
me
>>7950781
holy shit OP this guy is the real guy right here
>>7950781
OP got rekt.
>>7950757
The uneducated population:
>Oh wow, he went to college so young and finished his PhD when he was 20!
People who understand what this means:
>He took the minimum number of courses at various colleges and used transfer credit to boost his credit hour count (a community college class might give 5 credit hours for what a typical college would give 3 credit hours. These are still all counted toward minimum graduation requirements.) He received a PhD without an undergraduate degree, which isn't even possible under most systems.
Don't get me wrong, he's brilliant (as can be seen from his papers), but most of the "accomplishments" listed there are just him abusing the university system.
>>7950857
I don't think a review board with those men sitting on it give a flying fuck about whether or not you sat through some undergrad physics lectures which is not abuse of the system it's recognizing talent for what it is
It's about performance, or at least it should be
>>7950857
Not necessarily, if you're an exceptional case many universities are happy to bend rules to get you where you want to go faster.
Von Neumann did a similar thing, completing his chemical engineering diploma while doing a PhD in mathematics, which shouldn't be possible due to the practical work which is normally required, but there's no university staff who would say no to a man with a brain like Von Neumann's. Likely similar stuff happened for Wolfram.
