WATOTO 10: 10 CHILDREN WHO BECAME VERY FAMOUS

Sometimes it’s wondrous to judge a child until you see what he/she can do. Some kids are just too much blessed if not genetically modified. As I was passing by my reading schedule, I found myself too interested to want to know how some of the most famous ever-talented people on human history were at the childhood. In one way or the other, this list might not satisfy all the needs you wish but from 100% I hope it gives you 97% of satisfaction. Below is a list of Child Prodigies that caught most of the world’s attention.

1. AVICENNA (c.980-1037)

Also called Ibn Sīnā, was born in Bukhara, Samani Empire/present day Uzbekistan in c. 980 and died on June 1037. 

This Persia polymath is regarded as the greatest building block of the Islamic Golden Age.

At the age of 10, he was already an expert in many subjects such as Philosophy, Astronomy, Alchemy, Geography, Logic, Math and many others and at the age of 18, he was already a qualified Physician and was regarded as the Father of Medicines.

His aim was to prove the existence of God and His creation of the world scientifically and through reasons and logic. Avicenna's views on Islamic theology (and philosophy) were enormously influential, forming part of the core of the curriculum at Islamic religious schools until the 19th century.

2. BLAISE PASCAL (1623 -1662)

He was born on 19th June 1623 in Clermont – Ferrand, France and died on August 19th 1662 in Paris, France.

As a young French Mathematician, Physicist, Inventor, Writer, and Catholic Theologian, some of his earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids and clarified the concepts of Pressure and Vacuum by generating the work of Evangelista Torricelli.

In 1642, in his teenage, he started working on calculating machines and after three years of effort and 50 prototypes he built 20 finished machines/Pascal’s calculators later called Pascalines. Later he corresponded with Pierre de Fermal on Probability theory. 

3. MARIA GAETANA AGNESI (1718 -1799)

She was born in 16th May 1718 in Milan, Italy and died on 9th Jan 1799 in Milan, Italy.

On the age of 5, she could speak both Italian and French. At 11, she had already mastered Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, German and Latin and was refereed to as the “Seven-Tongued Orator". She became a Mathematician, Linguist and Philosopher.

As an Italian Mathematician and Humanitarian, she was the first woman to write a Mathematics handbook and the second woman to be appointed as a Professor at a University.

She is credited with writing the first book discussing bot Integral and integral calculus.

4. W. AMADEUS MOZART (1756 -1791)

Was born on 27th January 1756 and died on 5th December 1791 in Austria-then part of Holy Rome Empire.

He was baptized the next day after he was born as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart.

He generally preferred Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as an adult.

Mozart at his early age playing his first pieces

Wolfgang was playing keyboard and the violin at the age of four(4) with his sister Maria and composed his first pieces at the age of five(5) and showed them to his father Leopold Mozart who was his teacher. 

5. JEAN F. CHAMPOLLION (1790 -1832)

J. F. Champollion was born on 23rd December 1790 in Figeac, France and died on 4th March 1832 in the age of 41 in Paris, France.

This French linguist knew 12 languages by the age 16. He was a French scholar, Philologist and Orientalist known primarily as the decipher of the Egyptian Hieroglyphs after Napoleon’s discoveries in Egypt during his campaign there in 1798 – 1801 which brought into light the trilingual Rosetta Stone.

During his life as well as long after his death intense discussions over the merits of his deciphering were carried out among Egyptologists.

The ROSETTA STONE discovered by Napoleon

Some faulted him for not having given sufficient credit to the early discoveries of Young, accusing him of plagiarism, and others long disputed the accuracy of his deciphering.

But subsequent findings and confirmations of his readings by scholars building on his results gradually led to general acceptance of his work.

6. PABLO PICASSO (1881 - 1973)

Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born on 25th October 1881 in Malaga, Spain and died on 8th April 1973 (aged 91) in Mougins, France. He was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright who spent most of is adult life in France.

Trained by his father, Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence.

Among his most famous works are the Proto-Cubist les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937), La Vie (1903), Girl before a Mirror (1937).

Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments and became one of the best-known figures in 20th Century Art.

Girl before a mirror - Pablo Picasso

7. ETTORE MAJORANA (1906 – 1959)

He was born on 5th August 1906 probably died after 1959 in Catania, Sicity. Majorana was an Italian theoretical Physicist who worked on Neutrino masses at early age.

He is defined as a person wider the age of 10 below who produced meaningful output in some domain to the level of an adult expert. Amongst geniuses in human history, he is entitled to be one.

He later worked with Heisenberg and helped the development of Heisenberg’s Theory of the nucleus.

It’s still a mystery if he died or not. He disappeared I unknown circumstances during a boat trip from Palermo heading to Naples on 25th March 1938.

On his disappearance, he sent a note to Antonio Carreli, his Director of the Naples Physics Institute- that it was of his will o disappear but did not explain why.

I hope my goal reached you and you probably got what you wanted to get - brief summary of some people who were great even at their earliest.

[Image Sources: Google, Wikipedia]