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Book Review, © Copyright 2001, Jim Loy
Ex-Prodigy is volume 1 of Norbert Wiener's autobiography (Vol. 2 is entitled, I am a Mathematician). It is the fascinating story of Wiener's early life as an amazing child prodigy. He was reading grownup literature before he ever entered school, graduated from college at 14, and got his PhD at 18. He had a domineering father, who claimed that he could make a prodigy out of any child. Wiener had great successes and great problems. He found that some people openly hope that the genius will fail. And society puts obstacles in his path. Norbert Wiener is most famous as the founder of the science of cybernetics.
Genius in Residence is by the mother of another such prodigy, Michael Grost, who has an IQ of about 200 (a range where IQ tests are inaccurate). Mike had read all the way through two sets of encyclopedias between kindergarten and first grade (we read of his shock at discovering that his fellow kindergarteners were illiterate). He attended both college and the fifth grade simultaneously, at age nine. He graduated from college at the age of 15. He has received numerous honors. He and his parents also received the extreme, undisguised hostility of some other parents (inferiority complex perhaps?).
All three of the above books are out of print. To attempt to order any of the above books, click Amazon.com and search for the book, as they may come back into print. Try MIT Press for the Wiener books.