MEET: Jacob L. Barnett: The World's Smartest Kid

Jacob L. "Jake" Barnett (born May 26, 1998) is an American physics student and child prodigy.

According to a memoir penned by his mother, he was diagnosed with autism when he was 2 years old and was taught privately by his parents.He showed an interest in physics from a young age, and coauthored and published a physics research paper at the age of 13. In a review of Mrs. Barnett's memoir in Skeptic, educator Chris Edwards described Jacob as an autistic savant, but added that there was no solid evidence that he was "anything more than a typical autistic savant." Psychology professor Dr. Joanne Ruthsatz, who studies child prodigies at Ohio State University,in an interview on 60 Minutes estimated that talents like Barnett's occur in about one in ten million individuals.

In 2011, following a series of YouTube videos published by Barnett's mother, news stories appeared in the media with headlines such as "Autistic boy, 12, with higher IQ than Einstein develops his own theory of relativity,12-Year-Old Genius Expands Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Thinks He Can Prove It Wrong",and "Autistic teenager tipped for Nobel Prize". These claims did not hold up under scrutiny.

Barnett was admitted to the Perimeter Scholars International in 2013, a one year masters degree program at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario. At the age of 15, he was the youngest student admitted to the program since its inaugural class four years prior in 2009. He completed the program in 2014 and has subsequently been listed as a doctoral student at the Perimeter Institute.