An unexpected architect.

Ainan has long been a designer of buildings, either drawing them or making them. The other day, however, I discovered something unexpected.

I came across Ainan sitting in the kitchen. Next to him, on the dining table was a model of a building - a most exotic construction. It was of the most otherworldly design, looking at it felt like one had glimpsed a tower from an alien city. It was both bizarre and beautiful.

"That's lovely, Ainan." I said, assuming him to be the creator of the work.

"It's Fintan's.", he said, looking at it with respect.

"Fintan's?" I said, to check what I had heard.

"Yes. Fintan's."

I felt, perhaps, we were both impressed. There was something very sophisticated about the design - and something original too. This building had a vision all of its own. It was unlike any building I had ever seen. Fintan had taken the idea of a building and made it his own.

Fintan is only five years old. Yet, I can see something happening in him, that happened in Ainan, too, when he was a younger boy: his mind is starting to come alive, he is starting to express himself and show a unique character and viewpoint. Fintan's viewpoint is different to Ainan's. That building, for instance, which Fintan had designed, was unlike any that Ainan had ever made. Fintan's was made to fulfil an inner aesthetic, Ainan's were always designed to be structurally sound and solid. Fintan designed for beauty, Ainan designed for longevity. They had a different outlook on what a building should be - but each also had their own viewpoint as to what a good building was. Ainan's buildings had their own characteristic personality and flavour - and now I had discovered that Fintan's did, too - but a very different one.

It is funny to think that they are brothers and therefore share 50% of their genes - because there are both great differences and great similarities between them.

I don't know how Fintan is going to develop, but I am already seeing the beginnings of a boy taking his own path, in his own way, to his own destination - even if it is not yet clear, to us, where that might be.

It is interesting to note, though, that Fintan is showing high spatial skills - for that is one of Ainan's attributes, too. Yet, they each make different use of those skills.

Though I wonder at the future, the present is interesting enough as a parent. It is good to see each of them flower in their own way, yet also just as interesting to see the inter-relationships and commonalities between them. They are brothers, after all...

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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The mathematical savant who isn't a savant

I believe from the evidence of my life, and from the evidence of science, that great gift is a gift of the genes. It flows through families by inheritance: it is not something made, laboriously in a life, toiling day by day. It is there, or it isn't. It shines or it doesn't.

I have posted before about the inheritance of IQ, in Genius IQ and Genetic Inheritance at:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/genius-iq-and-genetic-inheritance.html

However, it is not just IQ that is inherited - all our mental gifts are - especially the unique gifts that show themselves to a wondering world every now and again, in people we know as geniuses or prodigies. This blog is about my children and their gifts - but occasionally I will also post about their relatives to show what is very clear to me: a pattern of genetic inheritance of gift flowing through my family. You may very well see the same pattern in your own family - and if so, please comment about it, to expand our understanding of this issue.

I have many relatives, but I shall focus on one, who shall not be named. He doesn't know I am writing of him, so I will not reveal any details of his life, except the one that pertains to this post. He has shown a very special gift, that he has never thought much of, since he was a child. You see he is a "lightning calculator". He has a savant-like gift for number. He is a very intelligent man. When tested by his employer on an adult IQ test, he maxed the test. So he is not a savant for only one reason: savants usually display some form of mild retardation. He is not retarded. He is profoundly gifted. However, he shows the gift of a mathematical savant, too. I find this interesting, for it shows that savant type gifts can exist in people of normal or even extraordinary intelligence.

Ever since he was a young boy he could do something very strange with numbers. If you asked him a calculation, using the normal mathematical functions, he would be able to give you the answer straight away, without hesitation and without error. What was strange about this was that he could do so quicker than you could type the question into a calculator. He could do it for large numbers - and he was always right. In earlier days, this gift of his would have been much prized, but in the age of computers, it is something that is not valued, despite the fact that he could beat you on your calculator to the answer. Whether or not our society values this gift, it indicates a special quality of the mind, that is very rare.

When he was training in London for a financial institution, the lecturer noticed his gift for numbers and gave him a very long, multifunctional calculation to do, which he wrote on the board. As he finished writing it, he gave the answer. The lecturer then asked if anyone in the audience had a calculator and got them to check the answer. He was right. The lecturer observed that in the twenty years he had been training the entrants to this financial institution, most of them with strong mathematical backgrounds, he had never encountered anyone so fast with numbers as him.

When he was at school, there was a child mathematical prodigy there, whom the press had hailed as "the brightest boy since the middle ages". This boy challenged my relative to an arithmetical duel. He duly accepted. A third boy chose two very large numbers for multiplication and called them out. It was not long before the prodigy shouted out an answer. My relative said, at once: "You are wrong!", then a moment later gave his own answer. The calculator was duly set to work. My relative was right. Upon being pronounced the winner, he then turned to the prodigy and told him exactly which step the other had made a mistake in, what the mistake was, and how the miscalculation had come about. While working out the calculation for himself, he had followed the other's miscalculation and worked out the solution of which step, out of all possible steps, and which error, out of all possible errors, would have resulted in the answer the other had given.

There was an embarrassed silence. My kin had won.

(If you would like to learn more of the Cawley family, in particular, my son Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged six, and his gifted brothers go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html )