# Christopher Hirata

In hmolscience, Christopher Hirata (1982-) (IQ:225E|190±) (CR:35|94) (LR:52|#1) (SNE:3) is an child prodigy turned astrophysicist, noted for his circa 2000 human chemical thermodynamics and human physics based “The Physics of Relationships” (see: relationship physics) article consisting of five parts:

1. Thermochemical Approach to Relationships
2. Complex Equilibria of Men and Women
3. Reaction Kinetics
4. Neutron Scattering: A Cautionary Tale
5. The Shell Model

on the topics of a thermochemical approach to relationships, complex equilibria of men and women, reaction kinetics, neutron scattering, and shell model, written at the age of about 18 that harks of genius ranking near to that of the great insights of German polyintellect Johann Goethe (IQ=230) and his 1796 human chemical theory. [1] Hirata's “The Physics of Relationships”, to note, is similar (Ѻ), in many ways, to Kaj Lang’s “The Thermodynamic Activity of the Male Housefly” (1956). [15]

Child prodigy | Education
Hirata was noticed to have an accelerated mind at an early age. At age 3, he entertained himself, at the grocery story, by calculating the total bill of items in his parent's shopping cart, item-by-item, by weight, quantity, discounts, and sales tax. He was also reading the Dr. Seuss series to himself, able to recite the alphabet backwards, and had coded the alphabet sequence numerically, e.g. that the letter ‘O’ was 15th in the sequence. In 1st grade, he was doing algebra. In regards to his elementary and middle school years: [9]

"I had some good teachers, but it was mostly a waste."

By age 12, he was talking college-level courses in physics and multivariable calculus. [5]

 A sampling of the some of the main intellectual road blocks a "modern" universal genius needs to grapple with, in order to have a modern "universal' understanding of reality; Hungarian chemical engineer and mathematician John Neumann (IQ=190) being the last of lineage of so-called “last universal geniuses”. The only other person that comes to mind, following Neumann, is American IQ:225+ cited, former child prodigy (as was Neumann), youngest-ever (age 13) winner of the international Physics Olympiad, thinker Christopher Hirata, noted for his age-17 written circa 2000 human chemical thermodynamics based "The Physics of Relationships" theory (see: relationship physics); presently an astrophysics professor at Ohio State University, working on gravitational lensing, relativity, dark energy, and accelerating universe problems, among other topics on modern astronomy. Hirata is also listed, according to OnlineColleges.net., among “the 10 youngest PhDs of all time” (Neumann, similarly, simultaneously completed a BS in chemical engineering and PhD in mathematics at age 23). [33] Presently, as of 2013, however, Hirata has disassociated himself from relationship physics, and seems to now only confine himself to physical-astronomy problems.
Hirata, at age 13, gained fame by winning gold medal at the 1996 International Physics Olympiad (IPhO), an international competition among the world’s smartest math and science students (up to age 19), becoming the youngest medalist ever. Hirata’s showing at the IPhO was considered so record-breaking that IPhO organizers announced a special award for “Youngest Medalist”, awarded that year to Hirata, an award that has since become one of the most-coveted awards. [3] During meetings at the local McDonald’s, during this period, he and his friend Ben Newman, from the Physics Olympiad camp, "sat around writing general relativity equations out on the napkins," recalls Newman. That year Hirata was ranked fifth in the world in physics, math, science. [7]

At age 14, Hirata entered the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and two years later began working with NASA on a project exploring the possibility of colonizing Mars.

In 1998 (Ѻ), age 15, and in 2000 (Ѻ), age 17, Hirata was on the three person Caltech team, which, in each year, took 4th in the Putman mathematics completion.

In 1999, at age 16, Hirata was cited as having an IQ of 225. [7]

In 2000, Hirata, together with Caltech teammates Kevin Costello and Michael Shulman, took 4th place in the famous Putnam Mathematics Competition. (Ѻ)

In 2001, at age 18, Hirata completed his BS in physics (Ѻ)(Ѻ) at the Caltech, with a 4.2 GPA, and his PhD in physics in 2005 with a dissertation on “Weak Gravitational Lensing Theory and Data Analysis” at Princeton. [2] Hirata was an assistant professor of astrophysics at CalTech from 2006 to 2012. Currently, Hirata is visiting professor of physics and astronomy at Ohio State University.

Relationship thermochemistry
In his circa 2000 article “Physics of Relationships”, Hirata, in approaching the subject of dating and mate selection, uses the student body at Caltech, observed during this undergraduate years (1996-2000), which he says consisted of N=900 total students, of which 600 were male, and according to his observations about 200 were in paired relationships. He uses the symbols of X = girl, Y = boy, and XY = paired relationship (see: dihumanide molecule), calling the single boys and girls as “basic elements”, of which he says the simplest reaction is:

X + Y ↔ XY

This type of reaction, to note, uses the "reversible reaction" notation introduced by Jacobus van't Hoff in 1884. [10]

 SuperScholar.org’s August 2012 profile of Hirata as one of the 10 smartest people alive. [8] In July 2012, Hirata was two of 96 researchers President Obama named this week as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers—the highest honor given by the U.S. Government to science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their research careers. [6]

Hirata also comments, interestingly, in reference to the subject of queer chemistry (and other poly-amorphous relationships), in his human chemical reaction modeling that he is neglecting “rare and non-traditional” products or compounds (human molecules) that may form such as “the gay molecule Y2, the lesbian molecule X2, and the middle-Eastern polygamous molecule X4Y.” Here, in addition, we see Hirata using not only the dihumanide molecule point of view (two people viewed as one molecule), in his Y2 and X2 formulas, but also the penta-human-ide model (five humans viewed as one molecule), in his X4Y formula. This is a very complex subject, when considered from the free energy point of view (see: human free energy). In any event, on this basis he states that the equilibrium constant K for this reaction is:

$K_{eq}=\frac{[XY]}{[X][Y]}$

where [X], [Y], and [XY] are the concentrations of the single girls, single boys, and paired relationships, respectively. This constant, according to Hirata, can be calculated from the following expression:

$-k_B T \ln K_{eq} = \Delta E + P \Delta V - T \Delta S^\ominus$

where KB is the Boltzmann constant, T the temperature, ΔE the internal energy change, ΔV the volume change, and ΔS the entropy change at standard conditions. He goes on to calculate that KB at Caltech is 4.5. On this basis, he goes on to calculate, assuming that the equilibrium constant is independent of concentration and is a function of only temperature and pressure, that if the female to male ratio were 50:50 the percentage of singe males would drop from 67% to 48%.

Worthless applications?
Some, as discussed further below, have commented, in argument and or debate with American electrochemical engineer Libb Thims, who is also cited in the IQ=225+ range, that Hirata's "relationship physics" and "relationship thermochemistry", as he calls them, are nothing but physics humor or thermodynamics humor, pointing out, for example, that Hirata himself footnoted or rather headed his article as follows: [1]

In the true spirit of Caltech (I'm not sure if this applies to Princeton), I devote this section of my website to the application of basic physical principles to relationships, particularly the romantic kind. Before I do this, I will make a few comments. You should understand them before you proceed. They aren't hard to understand:

• This site is geared primarily toward nerds. If you're not a nerd, this doesn't mean I want you to go away. In fact, it will give you some idea of the types of jokes frequently made in Caltech dorms. You may or may not find it interesting.
• This is not a dirty site. For my younger audience: since this is the Internet, and I recognize that little kids have access to any material I put here, this site contains no sexually explicit material. (This is also because I don't want losers reading my page.)
So enjoy the compilation of worthless applications of physics and mathematics to relationships:

It is bit puzzling why Hirata put this advert above his article? Possibly it is a deflection technique to avoid attack, "violent opposition" being the second stage of in the acceptance of scientific truth as Arthur Schopenhauer commented in 1818 in respect to Goethe's human chemical theory (see: HCT | Truth):

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

In this sense, Hirata's advert may have been done in the same sense as Goethe's anonymous advertisement to his Elective Affinities, Hirata's theory being basically a modern reformulation of Goethe's theory, the Rossini debate being a ripe example of the heated tensions that result what happens when goes beyond the humor stage of argument and into this is real stage of argument.
 Harvard physicistMotl Czech-American theoretical physicist Lubos Motl thinks Hirata's human chemical thermodynamics theory is a joke having no serious content to it.

Motl
In 2010, Czech-American theoretical physics, black hole thermodynamics theorist, and former Harvard physics professor Lubos Motl commented the following, after watching several of American electrochemical engineer Libb Thims' Human Chemistry 101 videos, on topics such as sexual heat and enthalpy, human reactions and chemical thermodynamics, etc., commented the following (his punctuation emphasis): [14]

“You've GOT to realize the blatant absurdity of trying to model the﻿ laws governing human relationships using the rules of thermodynamics, a set of rules that only apply at a molecular level. Human beings are NOT molecules, they are composed of molecules, but we aren't giant molecules. Human relationships are governed mostly by human psychology. I can only assume you're senile or crazy to believe this nonsense. Thermodynamics of human relationships is bullcrap. The stuff Hirata said about human thermodynamics was a JOKE. You don't﻿ seriously believe that he was serious about this, do you ? Your obsession with human thermodynamics is silly.”

Motl, related to this Hirata theory discussion, in 2007, also gave his view that he considered American mathematician, electrical engineer, and physicist Alexander Wissner-Gross, discussed below, who in turn thinks his theory is better than Hirata's, as an "interdisciplinary genius".

 Both Former Child Prodigies IQ=225+ citedHirata MIT triple major engineering (1st of 550) valedictorian Wissner-Gross American mathematician-physicist-engineer Alexander Wissner-Gross, noted 2003 MIT engineering school triple major valedictorian (1st of 550 students), BS in physics, BS in electrical science and engineering, and BS in mathematics, thinks his 2013 "causal entropic force" theory of intelligence should be "treated more seriously" than Hirata's version of human chemical thermodynamics theory of intelligence, both having been famous child prodigies.
Wissner-Gross | Battle of the prodigies
On 30 Apr 2013, to exemplify the use of the "not to be taken seriously" pejorative technique to discredit Hirata's theory as a humorous joke, Thims queried American former child prodigy turned physicist Alexander Wissner-Gross, the 2003 MIT valedictorian (of 550 engineering students), who was the last person to simultaneously obtain an MIT triple major (SB in physics, SB in electrical science and engineering, and SB in mathematics), before they outlawed the practice, who recently received considerable press frenzy for his 19 Apr 2013 article “Causal Entropic Forces”, co-written with American mathematician Cameron Freer, wherein they attempt to argue that "intelligence" and intelligent behavior stem from what they call "entropic forces", as to whether or not he thought he was smarter than Hirata as follows:

“Your new articlepopped up on my RSS feed today, so I started an Hmolpedia article on you: Alexander Wissner-Gross. As you seem to be a bit of an accelerated learner, where do you see yourself fitting currently on the genius IQs table? Or have you had estimates made by others of your IQ? For example, do you think you are above or below Christopher Hirata, who similar to you was an age 13 national physics olympiad winner, who also developed his own thermodynamics theory of humans, in intelligence?”

To which Wissner-Gross replied: [12]

“Hard to say where I would fit in your table, but I would say that my causal entropic force theory is intended to be treated more seriously than the Hirata work you mention. :-).”

Interesting point of view expressed here from Wissner-Gross, being that he seems to think his theory is better than Hirata's theory, which, however is not the case. To give some comparison, there is no denying the fact that the great German polyintellect Goethe, also a child prodigy cited with a 225+ IQ did the exact same derivation as Hirata 200 years ago (see: Goethe timeline), considering his finished product to be his greatest publication and something to be taken very seriously as its theoretical implications overthrow the foundations of modern thought (as can be gleaned from some of the commentary of his enemies).

The deeper issue, however, which this type of derivation tends to bring to the fore (see, e.g. the 2006 Rossini debate and 2009 Moriarty-Thims debate), is that the chemical thermodynamic dissection of humanity strips away fundamental beliefs concerning morality, purpose, life/death, religion, etc., reducing them to pure physics and chemistry, leaving the unacquainted reader with a residual anger and irritation. This is exemplified is exemplified by German writer Christoph Wieland’s 1810 comment, found in a letter (which he suggested should be burned after it is read) to his close friend German philologist and archaeologist Karl Böttiger, on Goethe’s Elective Affinities (which gives the same type of derivation as Hirata) that "to all rational readers, the use of the chemical theory is nonsense and childish fooling around."

Anecdote | Mathematics problem
Upon arriving at Caltech in 1997, Hirata registered one of the highest scores in history on the Institute's mathematics diagnostic tests, thereby foregoing freshman calculus and sophomore differential equations (see: prodigies and calculus) for a more difficult upper-division class. (Ѻ) And his early mastery of physics, his chosen field, is even more impressive. On the GRE advanced subject test in physics, he scored a perfect 990. Caltech mathematics instructor Markus Keel recalls his favorite anecdote about Hirata concerning a difficult problem on the final exam, in his class of class of 22 physics and mathematics majors included a couple of graduate students. Before putting the problem on the test, he had consulted two colleagues in the department. One colleague said he didn't see right away how to solve the exercise, while the other said—at terrific volume—that he didn't even believe the conclusion of the problem. On the final itself, Hirata not only solved the problem as Keel had framed it, but left a note saying that he knew of an easier way to solve it, and wrote the easier solution on the back of the page. (Ѻ)

 IQ=225+ citedGoethe Hirata and Goethe were both famous child prodigies in youth, both cited in the IQ=225+ range, and both did work on the elective affinities problem.
Goethe | Hirata | Sidis
There seems to be some correlative evidence that the "elective affinities problem", common to IQ 225+ thinkers, is the new "blue sky problem", which prior to the early 20th century was puzzle of curiosity common to every IQ 200+ range genius (note Hirata "curiosity drives me to inquire" quote, below).

Historically, to explain, in circa 1995, American electrochemical engineer Libb Thims, as an undergraduate chemical engineering student, out of an insatiable curiosity, began working on a variant of the elective affinities problem, specifically in terms of how the human reproduction reaction (man + woman → child) could be mapped out and predicted in terms of free energy differentials per unit time; in 2006, through prolonged research efforts, Thims eventually found Goethe, via footnote 2.5 of of the work of Ilya Prigogine, the first human ever cited with an IQ of 225, by Catherine Cox (1926), and how he had worked on the very same problem from 1796 to 1809, the result of which he considered his greatest work (see: best book).

On 15 Feb 2010, Thims, via specifically searching for individuals cited with an IQ of 225, after previously finding that both Goethe and William Sidis where independently cited with 225+ IQ estimates, and thereafter being "curious" as to exactly how many people have been estimated in such range of intelligence, found Hirata, and therein, via digging around in the personal pages of his faculty page, found that Hirata, in his "The Physics of Relationships" (c.2000) article, did work on the elective affinities problem, as did Thims, Goethe, and Sidis (in a partial sense) before him. In May 2012, Thims began to be cited with an IQ of 225± or specifically as the "highest IQ" ever, by YouTube vote. (Ѻ)

While some may dismissively find it but coincidence that Goethe, Thims, Hirata, and Sidis, three of the four former child prodigies, each, independently, cited at the IQ 225 level, each independently produced the same essential theory, in regards to human chemical thermodynamics, and that Goethe, Thims, and Hirata, the more apt conclusion is that the modelling of human interactions in chemical reaction terms is something seen only through great erudition, foresight, and perspicacity; the average person remaining but forest blind to this higher vision of reality.
 Left: the 2010 video IQ=200+ | Smartest Person Ever (3 of 4), wherein Hirata is discussed (3:57-6:14). Right: the 2014 video 25 Smartest Person Alive | Existive (2014) (5 of 5), wherein Hirata is discussed (11:49-17:28).

Quotes | On
The following are quotes on or about Hirata:

“If I were to say that Chris Hirata is one in a million, that would understate his intellectual ability.”
— Vincent Malek (1997), Deerfield High School science chairman, on Hirata at age 14, during his last semester of high school, prior to going to CalTech (Ѻ)

“It seems that some of the smartest people of all time, e.g. see: top 30 or so geniuses of all time playlist [2010] (Ѻ), spent some of their IQ parsing away the problems of social behaviour. As you get near the top, three names stand out. Turns out Christopher Hirata (#16) has developed a social model outlined in ‘The Physics Of Relationships’. William Sidis (#8) also discussed ‘chemical affinity’ [enthalpy and entropy] as being a formulaic basis for human relations, and before them both and Einstein’s personal favorite Johann Goethe (#1) not only [explicated] a vast model of human behaviour [see: Elective Affinities], but demonstrated its function in his fictional work Faust.”
— Matthew Newhall (2013), “Real Genius” (Ѻ), Nov 25

“This kid [Hirata] was in my high school AP class, near Chicago. He carried two backpacks, one on the front and one on the back. He was in third grade at the time.”
— PipeLayersUnion (2014), reddit “today I learned thread” (Ѻ)

Quotes
The following are noted quotes:

“What I want to do is actually find the equation instead of using the same equation over and over.”
— Christopher Hirata (1996), age 13 comment (Ѻ) on trying to figure out how long it takes to a pendulum ruler to make one swing

“The consideration [of] the nature of the forces involved in [human] relationships is not an easy subject. There are numerous pitfalls in applying what we know about ordinary human behavior to love, or even to sexual desires; and so to reinforce this fact I provide you with the following to consider: these processes occur on human time [human time] and length scales which are well known to us, and yet extrapolating (or interpolating?) from the known into the unknown may be dangerous. So one asks, what is the nature of sex and love and so on, and their relation to the other everyday experiences around us? And the answer, of course, follows only from an observation of this world and the processes that occur in it. It must be noted, if it is not obvious, that I have never experienced any sort of romance. It is also true that I [likely] never will, and yet my curiosity drives me to inquire as to the nature of the experience. And it is true that physical theory is the only way in which to answer this question, other than direct experience. While direct experience is undeniably a more reliable way to answer such questions, a few major problems with direct experience must be addressed: first, that it is [probably] not going to happen; and second, that various other people whom I know have been involved in romances, and in some cases they have been involved in many consecutive romances, but have failed to take data during those treasured minutes of sex. Love lasts longer but they don't want to analyze their relationships for fear of destroying them. More seriously, they do not take time to step back and make objective and scientific observations. Thus, for all practical purposes, the mysteries of sex and love can for the time being only be revealed by theory.”
— Christopher Hirata (c.2000), “The Physics of Relationships” (§4:Neutron Scattering: a Cautionary Tale) (Ѻ)

Hirata timeline
Julius Davidson (1916)
Lawrence Henderson (1935)
Frederick Rossini (1971)

References
1. (a) Hirata, Christopher M. (c.2000). “The Physics of Relationships” (section: Fun) (abs) (WB) (Yumpu) , Tapir.Caltech.edu; (WayBack Machine).
(b) Hirata, Christopher M. (2010). "The Physics of Relationships", Journal of Human Thermodynamics, 6(5): 62-76.
2. Hirata, Christopher M. (2005). “Weak Gravitational Lensing Theory and Data Analysis”, thesis/dissertation. Princeton University, Department of Physics.
3. Schwab, Tracy. (1996). “Pen”, Physics Education News, American Institute of Physics.
5. Duch, Margaret van. (1995). “The Head of the Class: Having a Super-bright Kid Brings its Own Challenges to Parent”, Chicago Tribune, Apr. 02.
6. Staff. (2012). “ASC Researchers Named PECASE Winners”, Ohio State University, Jul 23.
7. Susan, Goldsmith. (1999). “The Wizard of Pasadena” (abs 1) (abs 2), New Times Los Angeles, Jun 17.
8. Staff. (2012). “Meet the 10 Smartest People in the World”, OMGGhana.com, Aug 28.
9. Woods, Vanessa. (2001). “Balancing Life as a Teenager and a Graduate Student” (WB), The Daily Princetonian, Sep 21.
10. (a) Nernst, Walther. (1895). Theoretical Chemistry: from the Standpoint of Avogadro’s Rule & Thermodynamics ($\leftrightarrows \,$, pg. 358). MacMillan and Co.
(b) The exact publication of Van't Hoff likely being his 1884 Studies in Chemical Dynamics.
11. Note: The "update" engagement announcement part seems to have been added to the page in 2006 or before, as Hirata has 19 Aug 2007 photos of him and Annika and their moving-in-together trip to Pasadena California.
12. (a) Wissner-Gross, Alexander. (2013). “Causal Entropic Forces” (abs), Physical Review Letters, 110(168702):1-5.
(b) Gorski, Chris. (2013). “Physicist Proposes New Way to Think About Intelligence”, 3QuarksDaily.com.
(c) Kosner, Anthony Wing. (2013). “From Atoms to Bits, Physics Shows Entropy as the Root of Intelligence”, Forbes, Apr 21.
(d) Press – AlexWG.org.
13. Email communication with Libb Thims (30 Apr 2013).
14. (a) Motl, Lubos. (2010). “Comment: IQ 200+ | Smartest person ever (3 of 4)”, HumanChemistry101, YouTube, Nov. 16.
(b) Motl, Lubos. (2010). “Comment: Group Application Michael Kearney”, HumanChemistry101, YouTube, Nov. 19.
(c) Motl, Lubos. (2010). “Comment: Sexual heat | pop quiz”, HumanChemistry101, YouTube, Nov. 20.
15. Linderstrom-Lang, Kaj. (1956). “The Thermodynamic Activity of the Male Housefly” (pdf), Conference / Banquet Lecture, America.

● Staff. (1996). “Gold-Standard Genius at Physics Olympiad: Deerfield Teen Compiles Best Score.” Chicago Tribune, Aug 11.
● Susan, Goldsmith. (2001). “Update on a Genius: at 18 he’s off to Princeton for a PhD in Physics”, New Times Los Angeles Online, Jul 19.

Videos
● Hirata, Christopher. (2008). “Non-Gaussianity with Large-Scale Structure” (V), 42-min, CITA 106, Aug 28.
● Hirata, Chris. (2013). “The CMB Power Asymmetry” (V), 58-min, The Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University California, Santa Barbara and Caltech, Apr 08.
● Anon. (2015), “Top 5 Most Intelligent People That Have Ever Lived” (Ѻ), Fact5, Jun 29.

Christopher Hirata – Mathematics Genealogy Project.
Chris Hirata (faculty) – Ohio State University.
Christopher Hirata (faculty) – CalTech.