college station when it comes to explaining cosmology and other dynamics of the universe dr david toback can hold his own as an associate professor of physics and thaman professor of undergraduate teaching excellence at texas a&m university who specializes in high energy physics he rarely finds himself at a loss for words when answering questions from students during one of his lectures especially when that student is only nine years old adam atanas is his name and physics is his passion while most kids adams age would be more enthralled by toys or video games this unique houston youngster can be found most wednesday afternoons in a texas a&m classroom attending tobacks physics 289: intro to cosmology course by his own request adams mother katya makes the weekly trip to campus just so her son can sit in on tobacks class something which has proven to be a real treat for both student and instructor adam atanas is a special kid and its easy to forget that hes only nine years old toback explains he just opens his mouth and its just stunning what comes out toback first encountered adam in january while delivering a guest lecture on the universe and the large hadron collider (lhc) as part of texas a&ms saturday morning physics (smp) program led by fellow physics professor dr ralph rapp after his presentation toback was taking questions from the audience when the boy stunned him with a question about how stars were affected by the deuterium process after meeting with adam at the end of the lecture toback realized this was no ordinary kid and invited him to sit in during his regular semester course lectures to have a child his age asking questions such as these is incredible toback notes this kid has all of the tools to be a world-class scientist one day and he needs a mentor he just has to be nurtured and his mother has been doing a wonderful job of encouraging him with something he enjoys learning about katya says adams fascination with physics began with a love of mathematics one of his favorite subjects in school from there his interest escalated to particle physics a lot of which had to do with tobacks lectures she notes the attendees have attended the saturday morning physics lectures for the past three years and adam has also participated in texas a&ms annual chemistry open house since he was four most kids spend their allowance on games or toys but adam spends his on lectures and documentaries katya says he cant wait to officially become a student here dr toback has been so nice about adam coming to class adam just loves it adam has had no trouble adjusting to the college environment at such an early age although he does not participate in examinations because he is not officially enrolled in the course about a decade younger than his physics 289 classmates adam sits side-by-side with them during lecture and continues to surprise toback with thought-provoking questions about any number of subjects from einstein to timed-dilation effect hes nine with the intellectual property of a 22-year-old; the other students get a kick out of him toback says but theyve been wonderful to him they let him ask questions so im proud with how theyve let him be a part of the class -atm- contact: chris jarvis (979) 845-7246 or cjarvis@sciencetamuedu or dr david toback (979) 845-1179 or toback@tamuedu the post class act: 9-year-old gets jump-start on lifelong learning at texas a&m appeared first on texas a&m college of science