Anthony Tibbet had issues. Not just every day challenges, but real, deep-seated cognitive issues that rendered him unable to conform to the everyday societal norms the majority of people negotiate without much of a thought.
He was cursed (and had been clinically diagnosed), with a dizzying array of mental conditions which often rendered him unable to function at all, which meant that he was, to all intents and purposes, a shell of a boy. Or that’s how it appeared outwardly. Inside he was in turmoil, immensely frustrated due to his inability to display even the most modest expression of emotion that would provide his mother some maternal joy, however fleeting.
He usually just sat, a prisoner of sorts, locked in his inner consciousness…staring into the comfort of middle distance without so much as an utterance or gesticulation. Consequently, his mother was often bereft of ideas of how to converse with, care for, and nurture him, and this created within her a deep anxiety and hopelessness; a circumstance which remained throughout the early part of Anthony’s childhood.
At some point around his eleventh birthday, however, things began to change. Anthony’s mother had been cleaning his room one afternoon, when she happened upon a notebook tucked neatly down the back of his bed, a notebook which opened a window into the hidden machinations of Anthony’s mind. In it, was scribbled what appeared to be extremely complex mathematical equations, formulae, statistical methods (however you’d like to describe it), which Anthony had been working on in the solace of his room.
Alongside many of the computations were diagrammatical depictions of real world problems that his calculations were purported to solve; these included, amongst other things, engineering and building challenges, solutions to open questions in science and computing, and theories relating to quantum physics. The find was not only a veritable cornucopia of revelatory science, but also much needed emotional relief for his mother. At last she had found the thing that made her son whole. She was ecstatic.
Over the next year or so, she bought Anthony a plethora of books which she thought would encourage him to develop his skills further, and evolve and expand his outlet to the outside world. Naturally, Anthony absorbed this new information, and spent day after day scribbling away in countless notebooks, gradually filling up his bookshelf.
Encouraged by Anthony’s now prolific endeavours, his mother decided to embark on a path of assessment to gain a picture of Anthony’s true, and by now quite obvious genius. She approached a number of institutions who specialised in the clinical assessment of children with extraordinary capabilities, one of whom in particular was willing to assess his work with no fee.
When the day came, Anthony’s mother hand-delivered all of his notebooks (of which there were dozens) to the institute, who explained to her the arduous and rather extensive process they would have to go through to investigate Anthony’s intellectual brilliance. The initial stage, a comprehensive analysis of his papers, would take a minimum of two to three weeks, followed by an in-person assessment with Anthony himself. The initial investigation into his written work, however, would be exhaustive and would dictate the format for the subsequent in-person examinations.
Approximately three weeks following the submission of his notebooks, Anthony’s mother received a phone call from the institute to provide their findings on the documents she had provided them. After some initial dialogue confirming they were indeed conversing with Anthony’s mother, they informed her that they had reached a conclusion on the contents of Anthony’s notebooks, following this with a detailed explanation of the steps that they took to reach their verdict.
Before they were able to finish their explanation, however, Anthony’s mother, growing increasingly impatient to hear the outcome of this initial assessment (and struggling to mask her excitement), asked
“This is all excellent information, but please…cut to the chase. Tell me what level of genius are we talking about here?”
“Well Mrs. Tibbet…” came the reply…
“…after our comprehensive analysis, we found that the calculations in your son’s notebooks were all completely wrong. I’m afraid your son is, in fact, thick as mince”.
