SINGAPORE: A Singaporean child prodigy scored another success after he became the youngest to pass the ‘O’ level Physics, making him the world’s first binary scientific child prodigy.
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Nine-year-old Ainan Celeste Cawley, although known for being a chemistry prodigy and presently studying chemistry in college, has exceptionally proven himself in a subject other than his main interest.
Despite never attending a single formal physics class, Ainan, of Irish-Malay parentage — whose grandmother Sabariah Abdul Wahab, 52, hails from Parit Yani, Johor, Malaysia — has just become a child prodigy in two science disciplines.
Ainan’s father, Valentine Cawley, told Bernama that it was great that his son was broadening his grasp of the other sciences while deepening his understanding of chemistry.
“All the sciences have something to say to each other, and Ainan is becoming conversant in all of them, over time,” he said.
Prodigies almost always specialise in one subject and they usually have one highly-developed skill but no other.
But it is remarkably unusual that Ainan should be developing other areas of strength while still developing his core interest in chemistry.
Ainan took the Physics ‘O’ level with the London Edexcel board in January this year, at the British Council here, at the age of nine years and one month.
This makes him the youngest on record to pass the Physics ‘O’ level.
Cawley said, he taught Ainan Physics informally at home over the past few months and no school was involved in his instruction.
This was how he passed Chemistry ‘O’ level, also with London Edexcel over two years ago, too, when he was seven years and one month old, he added.
He was entered into the Singapore Book of Records as the youngest person ever to pass an ‘O’ level then.
Ainan then joined Singapore Polytechnic to do a degree level Chemistry at the age of eight.
Cawley has daily updates on his gifted son, ‘The Boy Who Knew Too Much: A Child Prodigy’ at www.scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com. — Bernama
