When is a hand big enough?

There was a story, some time ago, distributed by a news agency, based in America, about Ainan. They put together this story without checking any of the facts with us - and so it came out, rather distorted.

The story was a simple one. They said that "boy genius" Ainan was too small for the labs at Nanyang Technological University, and that his hands were not large enough to hold beakers and the like.

Well, it is true that NTU have expressed reservations on Ainan with regards to his size, in their labs. The benches, for instance, are rather tall. Yet, simple measures could be taken to obviate this. A simple platform, for instance.

That, however, is not my concern in this post. My interest is in just how big or small my son's hands are, in relation to what they need to be, for NTU's labs (or any other lab).

Today, quite spontaneously, Ainan measured his hand span. He then set about measuring everyone else's. He asked me what the average span for his age was...and that gave me an idea. How, indeed, did Ainan's hand compare to other children's?

Ainan's handspan measured at 18.5 cm. Now, is this too small for a lab? I checked out a website that detailed the mean size of Canadian students. The data was taken from 2004/5. In this survey the mean span of a TWELVE year old CAUCASIAN boy's hand was 18.52 cm. Thus Ainan's hands, far from being small, as declared in the American article (which didn't check with us), are actually very large for his age. He has the hand size of a Canadian twelve year old boy.

Readers should note that Ainan is not Caucasian - he is Eurasian - so the norms for hand size would be correspondingly smaller. In a Singaporean context, therefore, Ainan's hands are even larger than a twelve year old's would be. He has a teenager's hands.

How do Ainan's hands compare to those of an adult? Well, 19 year old male students in Canada had an average hand span of 20.22 cm. Thus an adult span, as typified by a Canadian, is just 1.7 cm greater than Ainan's.

I found that rather revealing. We have been consistently denied access to labs by certain institutions - on the basis that Ainan would be "too small". Yet, this is an assumption. None of these places actually checked his size. None of them actually measured him against the requirements of the labs in question. They just looked at his age and assumed.

Assumption is not a substitute for thinking - but in many places, it does seem to be used as such.

Ainan's hands are more than large enough to handle the physical requirements of experimental work. They are the hands of an Asian teenager - or a small adult. They are not diminutive hands in the least.

This observation is supported by experience. Ainan has had no trouble manipulating his experimental environment on the eight occasions that he has managed to gain access to labs. He has been able to carry out all experiments without any physical problems at all. He may be smaller than an adult - but he is not so small as to be unable to accomplish all tasks required.

The next time someone questions his suitability based on size, I rather think I will point their way to the Canadian handspan chart. Hopefully, that will make the point.

No longer will I let anyone make the "handy" excuse, that Ainan's hands are too small. They are not.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and no months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and five months, and Tiarnan, twenty-two 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, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Does water boil at room temperature?

Ainan, seven, is fond of his home experiments. By this I mean, he is ever tinkering with his world in ways which are often surprising.

Last week, he came to me and showed me a little device he had put together for the manipulation of air pressure. Within it he had a little water.

"Watch Daddy.", he commanded, at the beginning of his demonstration.

He proceeded to lower the pressure in the container. At first, nothing seemed to be happening but then something strange began to happen: bubbles started to form in the water. It appeared to be boiling gently.

"It's boiling." He announced.

Then he reversed the procedure and increased the pressure. At some point, there was a sudden condensation of water vapour on the inner surface of the vessel. "And there," he declared, "is the proof that it was boiling."

Excess water lined the vessel, Ainan's proof that it had boiled away to fill the tube, only to condense again.

Now, I had never seen that done - and didn't expect it to be done by my seven year old, at home - but that's Ainan.

Please note that Ainan did not heat the water to achieve this effect: he simply manipulated the air pressure - and this did not heat the water, either.

(If you would like to know more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and six months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, sixteen 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, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Speed Learning Practical Chemistry

Ainan is now studying practical chemistry at Raffles Institution and Raffles Junior College. Regular readers will know this. What you won't know, however, is the nature of the course he is undertaking.

Ainan is doing an A level practical course, condensed into six sessions. You read right: six sessions. In six lessons he is to acquire the fundamentals of A level practical skills. This thought gives me pause. I would like to see him free to experiment, over the long term, in practical matters, exploring his deep interests in Chemistry. Yet, the present need and opportunity are for him to acquire the essence of A level Chemistry skills in only a few lessons. You may be wondering how he can do this - so perhaps I should give you a perspective.

Ainan is familiar with the theory of all that he does in the lab. Thus his experiences in the lab are no more than a physical embodiment of what he has already come to understand in theory. In addition to this, he is very physically capable, being a very hands-on kind of boy. He has always been one to build things and create structures and experiments with his hands, at home: thus the demands of practical chemistry, come naturally to him.

I would, however, like to see a long-term opportunity for him to continue to develop his practical lab experience, allowing him to explore the full measure of chemical techniques and develop the deepest expertise. After this initial course is over, we will see what arrangements can be made and might prove necessary.

For those who are not familiar with the A level: it is of an American college level standard (that is the standard typically reached in an American first degree at University).

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and five months, and his gifted brothers, Fintan, three and Tiarnan, fifteen 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, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children. Thanks.)

Raffles Institution: first lab experience

Yesterday Ainan had his first practical chemistry lesson.

Mr. Ong Chiau Jin of Raffles Institution, the venerable Singapore school started in 1823, taught Ainan the basics of lab safety and took him through many foundational chemical techniques.

At first Ainan was very concerned about safety - which is a good sign, I would rather that than rashness in such an environment - but he grew in confidence throughout the session as he learned to manipulate everything, safely. He was particularly wary of the pale blue, almost invisible, Bunsen (or Desaga-Faraday, as I like to call it) flame.

Mr. Ong took him through quite a few chemical analytical techniques - and Ainan accomplished each on the first attempt, under his careful direction. Mr. Ong explained everything with clarity, demonstrating everything efficiently, for Ainan, so that he might learn by his example.

Ainan was utterly absorbed by the class and, at the end, did not want to leave: he wanted the lesson to continue. Perhaps there could be no greater compliment to Mr. Ong and Raffles than that.

We would like to thank Mr. Ong, Theresa Lai and the Raffles Institution for giving Ainan this chance to begin to learn the practical skills that are such an essential part of a chemical education.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and five months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, or Tiarnan, fifteen 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, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted children and gifted adults, in general. Thanks.)

Ainan's gum arabic flow experiment

Ainan is an incessant experimenter. He never ceases to engage with the world in an experimental manner, testing it, learning about it, studying it in an active, responsive manner. This, however, is something I have come to be used to. It is the daily background of our life with Ainan. What ever manages to amaze me, however, is the degree of control he exerts over nature in his experiments: he seems to have an instinct for what to do to achieve the end he desires.

I will give you an example. About a month ago, Ainan had in his possession something he called: "Gum arabic". Where he got it from I do not know. Yet, he had some. I didn't know anything about this substance so he decided to show me something which he believed he could do with it.

He took the gum arabic in his hand and pinched it with his fingers so that it formed a dumbell shape - two spheres connected by a bridge. He then stretched it out so that the bridge became longer - yet it remained connected. He placed one end of the dumbell at the base of a door, sticking it to the surface of the door - the other he stretched until it was high up and held it there.

"Watch." he said, knowing what would happen but not telling me.

Before my eyes the "gum arabic" flowed down from the upper dumbell to the lower, along the bridge that still had not broken. This surprised me because the bridge was about one and a quarter metres long at this point. The material flowed continuously, the bridge becoming hair thin - perhaps thinner - but still it flowed and didn't break. As I watched the upper dumbell flowed down into the lower one - and, despite the greatly stretched nature of the bridge, it remained unbroken throughout.

This moment is typical of Ainan's gift for experimental interaction with the world. He seems to understand the properties of substances very well and knows how to relate to them to achieve his end - however unlikely those ends might be. Perhaps what I see here is the foundation of an experimental scientist to come, one who will, one day, engage with the world in new ways, with new results that advance whichever science he eventually chooses to contribute to.

(If you would like to read more Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three and Tiarnan, fourteen 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, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Ainan's experimental flair: a practical scientist

Yesterday, Ainan took something out of the freezer, and said: "This is super-cooled water, Daddy."

Now, until Ainan first mentioned it to me, a few months ago, I had never heard of super-cooled water. As is becoming increasingly the case, it is Ainan who introduces me to things scientific.

I looked at the water. It was just liquid, like any other water. There didn't appear to be anything special about it. I went about making a cup of tea.

Then Ainan did something magical. He swirled the water in the vessel - and all at once, it turned to ice, as if some Wizard of old had cast a spell.

I had never seen that before in my life. If I had not been scientifically trained, and I had seen that in a time before science, I would have thought it magic, at work. The liquid crystallized as ice, in an instant. Uncanny.

What I found revealing about this, is that Ainan has good experimental control. He is able to get the world to do things, experimentally, which, frankly, I would have thought unlikely. He has, to use an old word, the "knack" for experimental design and interaction with the world.

Don't ask me how he got the water to do that - but he did. What a curious boy.