Child genius gets advice from astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Well, this is what I was excited about. Our next guest's dream is to become an

astrophysicist

. Taking the steps towards that dream. He finished high school in less than three years with a 4.0 GPA and finished his first year of college. Here is the trick of I can. He is 9 years old. That's him. In addition to being one of the youngest high school graduates in the company, he is a member of mensa. His parents join us now. My God. Good morning! Hello, David. What is the university like? Good. What was it like graduating high school at 9? Well, everyone started talking about how this is an incredible achievement and I thought all I did was graduate.

And then my mom was like, yeah, you graduated at the age of 9, and then I was like, yeah, I graduated. What is the problem? You graduated at the age of 9. So what is the problem? So what's the problem? Do you know what is the problem? Is this normal for you? It just comes. You just, for me, just do it. So mom and dad, what did they do? Every parent watching says, wait a minute, what did they do and what am I doing wrong? Do you think you did something special or different that puts David ahead of the rest?

I think you just have to listen to your

child

and go outside the box. He was the one leading the charge. He's the one who was motivated. I just had to step out of the box and think beyond normal upbringing, think beyond what people know and what I know growing up and just give him the opportunity to be and do what he dreams of being and doing. What could you mean by that? I'm sorry. Go ahead, dad. Go ahead. In addition to that, there are a lot of factors that we saw very early when David was growing up.

He is the type who is very curious about everything. And wherever we went, he always asked: what is this? What's that? And then if you explain it to him and use big words, he'll want you to break it down and he'll tell me what that means. And when he comes with me to my clinic, I have an outpatient psychiatric clinic. When he comes to me, I mean, to the clinic, he always asks questions. Why do you do this instead of that? And what does it mean? Instead of, you know. And you have to explain without explaining, if you know what I mean, because you still have to pay attention to the requirements of the law.

We keep patient information highly confidential due to hippa law. And I still have to break it down. I never told him to shut up! Or he go and do something else. No. I would take the time to analyze this. Dad, I'm going to clarify this point with Poppy. When I was a kid, my mom would push me back, she would go talk to my dad and she would tell me not to make people afraid. Let him be curious. You do the same. Don't tell them no. We can't do that now, but what else can we do?

David, what do you want to be when you grow up, David? Well, there are some things I want to be. From

astrophysicist

, engineer, nuclear chemist, software developer, to rocket engineer. What is the last one? Web designer. Nothing like... a baseball player would be cool too. He has all kinds of skills. Surely he could do it. David, mom and dad, we have a surprise for you, okay? Ready? Okay. One of the most famous scientists in the world wants to greet you. Astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson is here with us. Hello Neil, good morning! Are you serious? Hello everyone.

Hey! Hi David. Good morning! How are you? Yeah. Hey, David, I was nine years old when I decided I wanted to be an astrophysicist, except he was still in fourth grade, okay? In case you don't know, it's unusual to enter college in that degree. But the biggest value of knowing this early, what you might want to do, is that you're giving yourself some options, and that's great. The greatest value is that you can align decisions related to your life to feed that interest and curiosity. So when you become a professional in that world, you will have invested your entire life in that path and then you will be better at it than anything else you can imagine.

That's why I'm especially intrigued that you know what you want to be when you grow up. So you're older now, so I don't know what that means. David, is there anything you want to say to the great Neil Degrasse Tyson before he leaves? Well, we're really blessed to have you talk to David. I mean, he's read a lot about you and he's heard a lot about you and every time he sees you on TV and doing something somewhere, he's always impressed. Dad, let him talk about it. To talk to you -- Let him talk about it, dad.

Go ahead. How do you feel? Yes. Go ahead. How do you feel? So, I created, that's how it was in my high school Earth and Science class. I created a theory to disprove the "Big Bang theory". Wow! We love new ideas. So the main thing: thank you. Keep going. So the main part of the theory is that matter cannot be created or destroyed. According to the Big Bang theory, I guess we'll call it balcosmic, something like that, it was infinitely dense. For it to be infinitely dense, it has to be constantly creating matter. Oh my God.

But for it to be constantly creating matter, it would have to violate the laws of physics. Since we're technically talking about the universe, not all the space outside the universe, then the laws of physics should still apply. Wait. Neil, wait a second. We have to go, sorry David, we're running out of time. I don't want to be disrespectful from a 9 year old who graduated from college. Neil, is he teaching you right now? We have to run. ING so we love new ideas. That challenge our previous ideas. In the end, David, find a way to test your idea.

Then we can hand it over to people with telescopes and space probes and that kind of thing and we can see if his new hypothesis about the universe is correct, that's how we do it. This is how we move on the border. We roll, we have time. Here we have to deal with time issues, take breaks, and pay the bills. We are very happy to have you all. David, good luck to you. Mom and dad too. Neil, very kind of you. My day has been brightened. By the way. Go ahead. My podcast is coming to the Keswick Theater in Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia, at the end of March.

I would be happy to offer your family some tickets for it. That would be great! That would be amazing. Thank you so much. We would love to meet you all in person. David, keep us up to date with what you're doing. Good luck.