hey! i'm jacob barnett, are you guys excited? (cheers) alright! i am here to tell you why you guysshould forget everything you know, right now! so, first thing you guys need to know: suppose you guys are all doing your homework. ok, you know, it's something you have to do; and, you're doing greaton your homework,
you are getting great grades,fabulous prizes, such as you know, benjamins and all this great stuff. i'm here to tell youthat you're doing it all wrong! that's right, i did just say that, you're doing it all wrong! in order to succeed you have to look at everything with yourown unique perspective. ok, what does that mean? that means that, when you think, you must think in your own creative way,
not accepting everythingthat's already out there. by the way, the people i'm showing you in the background are my little brothers ethan and wesley, one of them is a chemist and theother one is a meteorologist. so, your perspective might be the only way you can see art or historyor music, or whatever. so, let me show you one of the ways in which i can see math. so, for example, that's 32 and the rotations represent:
addition, subtraction,division, multiplication, etc. my main reason of coming out here is to do some quantum mechanics, ok? so, today, what we're gonna do is, we're gonna do the schrã¶dinger equation, split it into time independent components, and we're gonna solve it for the boundary conditions of a lattice and a particle in the box. so, let's get to work!
so, i have some lecture notes, which i'd like you guys to pass out. i'm gonna split them into two rows. so, if i can have some peoplecome up and get these? no, wait.before you come up here i need to let you know aboutsomething very quickly. ok, just stay there.i'm kidding! (laughter) i didn't --(applause) i did not come here to frighten you allwith quantum mechanics -- not yet.
so, let's think about something simpler. how many of you here have heard about circles? ok, good. so, why are circles important? they are the shape of cookies. they are the shape of skateboard wheels, and most importantly, they're the shape of the thing that turns on your x-box 360. so, what do we know from school about circles?
we know pi r2, we know they're round. do we know anything else? not really. so, let me tell you something coolyou can do with circles. it's called johnson's theorem. it's not really a theorem, it's just, you know, a way mathematicianscan think of stuff. so, what johnson said was, "you take three circles,
you overlap them in a way so that there's six blue lines" -- where i call each of the circles blue; so there's six lines coming in one point. the other three points are in a circle of the same size; interesting. so, this isn't just pi r2,this is something new. so because johnson didn't just think: "oh, it's gotta be pi r2 and round,that's it," he created math.
and he did it in his ownunique perspective way. so, now i know not all of you are necessarily mathematically gifted, so -- so, let's move on to somemore interesting stuff. by now you might have heard aboutisaac newton in your high school career. you might have heard about him from prisms or whatever he might have done. so, in 1665, isaac newtonwas at the university of cambridge. now, for those of you whoreally know your history,
at that time cambridgehad closed due to the plague. so, isaac newton, he didn't have a way to learn. he had to stop learning,and he was probably, hiding in a dormitory with his cat running from the plague. now, while he was doing this he decided he had to stop learning, but he didn't want to stop thinking. ok? so, because of that he was thinkingabout this problem in astrophysics. and specifically i thinkhe wanted to calculate the motion of the moonaround the earth,
so i sort of revamped that probleminto the case of mercury around the sun. so, ok. what he did was, in order to solvethis problem he created calculus, newton's three laws, the universal law of gravitation, the reflecting telescope to check his work, and optics, and all this crazy stuff in that two yearsthat he had stopped learning. so, i guess that was really good for us, because at that timenewton had to stop learning; but when he stopped learning he startedthinking and he created science.
and, ok, that's just great,we now have a theory of physics! he could have probably been some top scholar, he could have had a 4.0 gpa, he could have been on the dean's list, he could have had his professors proud; but he wouldn't have created anything if he didn't stop learning. newton needed to start thinking, and think of things out of hisown unique perspective,
in order to create his theory. so, now let me formally introduce myself because i did not do that at the beginning of the talk. so, about 11 years ago i was diagnosedwith this thing called autism. what that meant was i was focusingon things in such extreme detail, that it seemed i wasn't thinking at all. basically i'd be like,"oh, look here'sthis reflection of that light, so there's light up here,but, oh, there's my shadow, so there's a light back there"and i looked over and it's over there.
ok. so, because of that, you know, people thought i would never learn because it just looked i was just staring into the opening; it looked like i wasn't doing anything at all. so, people told me i wouldnever learn, i'd never think, i'd never talk, i'd never tie my shoes, which -- ok, they might have hada point, you know, i'm wearing sandals.
so --(laughter) you know, but however, at that age, i went to the barnes and noble, and i got a textbook, and from the data that was in that textbooki derived kepler's laws. when i wasn't supposed to belearning or thinking at all. so, basically from the otherpeople's point of view it wasn't really looking too good, i wasn'tfingerpainting, or doing story time, or any of the other stuff the 2-3-4 year olds would do; but, you know, what they did was, because i --
they took me to special ed., which is extremely special in the fact that it didn't educate me. so, during that timei had to stop learning because i didn't have a way to learn, you know, i was just in special ed. so what they would do is -- so, i wasn't able to learnanything at all. however, at that age i startedthinking about things
and sort of the wayof all of these shadows, and i think that's why i like astrophysics,and physics, and math today; because i had to stop learning, i believe that's whyi do what i do today. ok, so let me continueabout gravity. it's a very exciting topic for thoseof us who are in physics. so let me continue. now, what happened was, about a couple of centuries later,
the physicists had enough experimental technology to test newton's orbit. now, newton predicted thatthe orbit of mercury was an oval, or as scientists like to say"an ellipse." however, when we pointed our telescopes out, we saw that thing. for those of you who are scientists you know that's extremely exaggerated, but -- this was not looking good, newton had failed. one of the greatest physicists,of all minds, had failed, he failed! so, we needed someone else,just like newton had done, to forget everything they knew!
and you know, recreate this. that man's name was albert einstein. albert einstein, what he would-- he was also -- he was stopped in his tracks, he was not doing very well. he was jewish and it was pre-nazi germany, so, he was not able to geta position at the local university. he had to work at a patent office; which, ok, that's not theoretical physics, and we're talking about einstein here. so, yeah,
what happened was, einstein, he had all this time to think all of a sudden. he had to stop learning, but he had all this time to think; and so, what he had done was, he liked to have thesethought experiments and liked to think about all these different things. so what einstein thought was, ok, he pictured himself on a trampoline with a couple of friends, which -- they are actually --a failure of my sentence there, and the fact that physicists
that's usually a couple more than they have. albert einstein was probably on a trampoline with one of his friends, and you know, they wereprobably playing some, i don’t know, tennis or something. so, however, you know, they are physicists, they don’t have very good hand to eye coordination, so they probably didn't, you know, catch the tennis ball, andit went rolling around them; and einstein looked at this and said,
"without friction, this is gravity!" he realized, "this is just gravity." so, afterwards, he predicted the motion which is gonna end uplike that crazy thing; but that crazy thing is exactly that other crazy thing. so, einstein had solved the problem just by thinking about it in his own unique perspective, in his own unique way. he stopped learning,and he started thinking,
and he started creating. so now let me get back on the story, you know, i wasn’t really looking too good, so i just kind of brush it over there. so, about three years ago, i -- ok, there was a calculus classi wanted to sit in the back of, so, i decided,in order to sit in the back of this, i am going to learn:algebra, trigonometry, all this other middle school stuff,
all the high school math, and first year undergrad calculus in two weeks, so i could sit in the back of this class. i was ten. okay -- so, also at that time, proving this, i got accepted into the university; and yet again i was still ten. so, ok, then i had to go toan entrance interview,
you know, that’s what you gotta do,its a university. so, i had to goto this entrance interview, and because of parking,i had all these coins, and, you know, i dropped them all over the guy's office; making him think i hadno common sense and he pretty much held me back for a semester. so, i also had to stop learning at that time. ok, what did i do?
did i stop learning and just, you know,start playing video games and stuff? no! i started thinking about shapes! and i was thinking about this specific problem in astrophysics that i was really interested in at that time, which i still kind of am. now, what i did was, over the next two weeks i started thinking about these shapes, i started thinking about this problem,
and after a while i had solved it. so, i have solved this problem in astrophysics, which basically is similar to, you know, what's happening with einstein and newton right now. i am not going to tell you the exact problem due to the fact that i havenot published it, yet. when my paper gets published,you may figure out about it; for those who read scientific papers. i thought about all these problemsand you know,
i only has a 500 cheapthing of paper from officemax; and since i was thinking aboutthese multidimensional things, it filled them up really quickly. so, then i moved on to white boardsbecause i was out of paper. but the white board,it also filled up pretty quickly, so then i moved on to my parents' windows. after that i got chased down byall this windex and stuff and, you know, my equations would get erasedby these horrible windex creators but, so, because of that,
after about a month or so, my parents realized i was not going out to the park, i was just drawing these weird shapes on the windows. and basically i was trying to disprove myself, you know, i didn’t want to end uplike newton; i did not want to, you know, be proven a hundred yearsdown the road, disproved. so, what i did was,i was going on the windows, i was trying to disprovemyself, but to no avail.
after that, my parents, you know, they figured i should be on the park, so they called someguy up at princeton, and they told him to disprovewhat i was doing. unfortunately that wasn't the case, and he said i was on the right track; so, i'm not going to the park. (laughter)(applause) then because i had to stop learning, i started thinking and i solved the problem.
after that i decided to createa calculus video for other people who wanted to still do calculus; the three others out there, and, so that way they could also learn. ok, so, i made this calculus video, people noticed that i was 12 and i was doing a calculus video. after that, the first people thatnoticed was the indianapolis star, and they put me on the frontpage of some newspaper and as you can see from this picture,
i was eating a sandwich, it was really yummy. after that, my calculus video, it went viral. at the time of this photoit had some two million views. so, first of all a calculus video going viral,who would have ever thought? so, after that it got translatedinto whatever this language is. is there anybody who can tellme what language this is? i can't read it.(audience) chinese ok, it's chinese,ok, good to know. so, then after that, i had some guy from fox tv call me up,
and i was able to draw on his windows, and he was glen beck. the thing special about that experiencewas that the windows were huge, 23 floors above the ground, and overlooked the chrysler building, so that was a fun experience. then after that i started having some really strange visitors show up to my house. i had morley safer show up, and he's from cbs sixty minutes. now, for those of you who canreally see this picture very well, you may notice that i am wearing the same sandals. now, let's sort of recapwhat we've done.
have einstein, and johnson, and newton, and everyonei talked about, are they really geniuses? is that really what hasmade them so special? is that really why theydid all their work? absolutely not! they, no! that's not why!(laughter) ok, so, what happened was,all they did was, they made the transition from learning,
to thinking; to creating, which by now the media has translated into, you know, genius. now, i'm pretty sure they had relatively high iqs; but, as some of you may know, there are lots of people out there with high iqs who don't create this sort of thing, they usually just end up memorizing acouple hundred thousand digits of pi. so, first of all, my question to them is:why not memorize a different number? like, i mean, i am wearing phi right now. so, in conclusion,
i am not supposed to be here at all, you know, i was told that i wouldn't talk. there's probably some therapist watchingthis who's freaking out right now. (laughter) (cheers)(applause) ok, i am not supposed to be talking, i am not supposed to be learning; but because i made that transitionfrom learning to thinking, to creating, i am here today; and i am talking to some four hundred to eight hundred people in new york. now, what would i want you guys to get out of this speech?
what i want you guys to do is, for the next 24 hours, i know you guys may have schoolor what not, even though it's a saturday; for the next 24 hours don't learn anything! you are not allowed to learnanything for the next 24 hours. (audience) yes! however, what i'd like you to do is, i'd like you to go into some field, i mean, you all have somepassion, i don't know about it, i've been talking toyou for 11 minutes.
i have no idea what youguys are interested in. but, you guys have somepassion and all out there and you all know what it is. so, i want you to think about that field instead of learning in that field; and instead of being a student of that field, be the field! whether it's music or architecture, or science or whatever;
and i want you to think about that field and, who knows, maybe you can create something. thank you very much.i'm jacob barnett. (cheers) (applause)
If you want to know about herbal product visit IBHIndo Herbal Indonesia. Also best herbal product for diabetes visit Obat Diabetes Alami - Obat Herbal Diabetes Paling Ampuh. Visit Jual Obat for online shoping herbal medicine.