Life of a Non-Genius

1. Life of a Non-Genius SaMyia Smith

2. Chris Langan • Mother was estranged from family • Had four brothers all with different fathers • His father disappeared before Chris was born he was said to have died in Mexico “To this day I haven’t met anybody who was as poor when they were kids as our family was,” Chris Langan Says. • Offered two full scholarships to Reed an the University of Chicago • Went to reed for a whole school year but dropped out cause his mother was confused of the parents’ financial statement paper so his scholarship money was no more • Enrolled in Montana State University But only went for a semester because the transmission fell out of his car and he didn’t have a way to school • Dropped out of Montana State cause he decided he could do without an higher level education

3. Robert Oppenheimer • Parent considered him a genius • Was doing lab experiments by the third grade an studying physics and chemistry by the fifth grade • Once when he was nine he told one of his cousins, “Ask me a question in Latin and I will answer you in Greek.” • Went to Harvard and then on to Cambridge University to pursue a doctorate in physics • Struggled depression his life, grew despondent • Had a gift for theoretical physics • His tutor Patrick Blackett forced him to attend to a minutiae of experimental physics which he hated • Grew more emotionally unstable and then in an act so strange oppenheimer took some chemicals from the laboratory and tried to poison his tutor

4. What’s the difference between these two? Two brilliant young students each who runs into a problem that troubles his college career. • Langan’s mother has missed a deadline for his financial aid while oppenheimer has tried to poison his tutor. To continue on they are required to plead each of their cases to authority Langan gets his scholarship taken away and oppenheimer gets sent to a psychiatrist. • Both are geniuses but other ways could not be more different besides the way they were raised

5. ‘He’s a Genius” Chris Oppenheimer Chris Langan • Twenty years later he was appointed to be the director of the Manhattan Project that lead to the atomic bomb effort. • Married and now Lives in rural Missouri on a horse farm • On a typical day He gets up make a cup of coffee and sit in front of the computer then begin working on whatever he was working on the night before

6. Would Oppenheimer have lost his scholarship at Reed? Would he have bee unable to convince his professors to move his classes to the afternoon? “Of course not.” And not because he was smarter than Chris Langan. It’s because he possessed that kind of Savvy that allowed him to get what he wanted from the world.

7. Practical intelligence -Knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it and knowing how to say it for maximum effect (For Example) The practical skill that allows you to talk your way out of a murder rap, or even convince your professor to move you from the morning to the afternoon section Analytical Intelligence Which is an ability measured by IQ you can either have lots of it and very little of practical intelligence or lots of Practical Intelligence and not much Analytical Intelligence • Which in a Lucky case someone like Robert Oppenheimer had both

8. Where does something like practical intelligence come from? We know were analytical intelligence comes from its something at least in part that’s in your genes. -Chris Langan started talking at six months and taught himself to read at three years of age. He was born smart. • But social savvy is knowledge. It’s a set of skills that have to be learned where most people seem to get these kind of attitudes and skills from our families

9. Annette Lareauwho is a sociologist who conducted a study of a group of third graders. She picked both black and whites and children from wealthy homes and poor homes. Lareau visited each family at least twenty times for hours at a stretch. • She found that there were only two parenting philosophies and they divide almost perfectly along class lines. The wealthier parents raised their kids one way and the poorer parents raised their kids another way. The wealthier parents were heavily involved in their children’s free time. While the lower class parents saw as if it was their responsibility to care for their children but to let them grown and develop on their own.

10. in conclusion…. In Lareau study the working-class and poor children were characterized by “They didn’t know how to get there way, or how to customize” while the Higher Class knew how to interact, and ask questions if they are curious.

11. This is the advantage that Oppenheimer had and that Chris Langan lacked. Oppenheimer was raised in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Manhattan, the son of an artist and successful garment manufacturer. His childhood was very exciting

12. While Chris had only the bleakness of where he lived and a home dominated by an angry, drunken stepfather. And that was the lesson Langan learned from his childhood: distrust authority and be independent. He never had parents to teach him how to speak up for himself. -If Langan had been born into a wealthy family, if he was the son of a doctor who was well connected in some major marked and if he was he would have been one of those guys you read about knocking back PhDs at seventeen. • It’s the culture that he was in that determined that