Think you're smart?

Growing up in the Silicon Valley, there are a lot of smart people. High school was full of overachievers. Cal was crammed with brilliance. I had a friend in my fellowship at Cal that double-majored in physics and chemical engineering, and is now going for a PhD... that's pretty darn smart.

But all of that's really nothing compared to this guy. For those of you not inclined to read the article, here's the summary:

Dude graduated from the University of Virginia.

With a double major in math and physics.

In one year.

He took 23 units his first semester, 37 his second, and then summer school to fill out the rest of the degree. Now he's in grad school at age 18.

Have you ever wondered how you would raise your kid if it seemed he/she had a genius-level intellect? Apparently this kids' parents wanted him to do more "kid stuff" growing up, but he was too motivated and ended up reading/doing homework during dinner and such.

Thing is, he might not even truly be a genius. Check out the Howstuffworks article to see the difference between being really really smart, and being a genius - basically, a genius needs to be able to be creative and innovative, as well as being really knowledgable in their field. It's also interesting to read about the theories of different types of intelligence:

Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences
* Linguistic
* Logical-mathematic
* Musical
* Bodily-kinesthetic
* Spatial
* Interpersonal
* Intrapersonal

Sternbert's triarchic theory of human intelligence
* Creative intelligence, or the ability to generate new, interesting ideas
* Analytical intelligence, or the ability to examine facts and draw conclusions
* Practical intelligence, or the ability to fit into one's environment

Based on these definitions, you can kind of see what category some famous peoples' genius intelligence would be in - for example, Federer in Bodily-kinesthetic, Gaudi in Spatial, Mozart in Musical, Einstein in Logical-mathematic, etc. Can you see your relative strengths in these defined areas of intelligence?