“I want to prove to everybody that God does exist”
William Maillis, College Student at Age 9, Budding Physicist
William Maillis is a 9-year-old with a lot more on his plate than most kids his age. Most are in the fourth grade, tackling nothing more challenging than multiplication and division, but William is contemplating the origins of the universe.
Having graduated high school in May, the Penn Township, PA native is now one of the youngest ever to attend college. A full-time student at Community College of Allegheny County, William will enroll at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh next fall to ease into college life as his father Peter Maillis, a Greek Orthodox priest said, as reported in People magazine. William told People, “It doesn’t bother me” being the youngest student in class, “I’m used to it by now.”
With plans to study physics and the chemistry of space, William has set his academic goals about as high as any student can.
He plans to earn his doctorate and become an astrophysicist. Already challenging the theories of geniuses like Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking when he talks about black holes not being “super massive” William uses “displacement of space-time,” “singularity,” and “pure gravity” in his explanations effortlessly.
By demonstrating that only an outside force could form the universe, he said, “I want to prove to everybody that God does exist,” as People reported.
Maillis said William “was our 17-year-surprise.” He and wife Nancy have two elder children, daughter, Marianna, 29, and son, Elias, 26. Maillis soon realized that their youngest was advanced when at 6 months old he started accurately identifying numbers and speaking in complete sentences at just 7 months old, he said.
“William was just very sharp; [he] remembers everything he sees,” his father noted.
The impressive milestones continued with math feats like addition at 21 months and multiplication at 2 years old. William was also reading and writing at age 2 and by age 4 he added algebra, sign language, and reading Greek to his academic repertoire. Geometry followed a year later and trigonometry by age 7.
Though he was obviously advanced, William was turned down at age 4 when he applied to kindergarten. He missed a couple of questions on the admissions test, calling gray a shade, not a color, and not identifying a thermometer, his father observed because the family didn’t use the kind depicted on the test. A college psychologist who studies whiz kids administered IQ tests, declared William a “pure genius” and the elementary school allowed him to attend. Maillis noted that his son finished third grade last year, then simultaneously attended fourth grade and high school while also taking some college classes and this year enrolled in college full-time.
According to his dad, William is allowed to choose his areas of study. “Whatever classes he wants to take, that’s okay with me,” Maillis said. “I don’t want to push him.”
Aaron Hoffman, William’s history professor, said William is not treated differently from his classmates. “We haven’t steered away from any topics: Hitler, Mussolini, the Holocaust, wars,” Hoffman said. “If he’s here for college, he’s going to get college-level material.”
Hoffman noted the only difference is that William doesn’t take notes like the other students, but simply listens, reads, and absorbs the material.
Maillis observed about his remarkable son, “I just want him to appreciate the gift he has, which I think he does. I tell him, ‘God gave you a gift. The worst thing would be to reject that gift and not use it for the betterment of the world.’”
Source: thenationalherald.com
