Stephen Wiltshire vs Jacob Barnett
Two savants, compared on what is actually documented: field, era, country and record. No invented numbers.
The record, side by side
| Stephen Wiltshire | Jacob Barnett | |
| Field | Science | Science |
| Sub-field | Astronomy | Physics |
| Born | 1974 | 1998 |
| Died | living / not documented | living / not documented |
| Country of birth | - | - |
| Star sign | Taurus | Gemini |
Who they are
Stephen Wiltshire
In October 2005, a thirty-one-year-old autistic British artist was flown by helicopter over Tokyo. He did not speak during the flight. He stared at the city. He held a sketchpad. When the helicopter landed, he was asked, in a Tokyo gallery the following week, to begin drawing what he had seen. He drew, over the next several days, the entire Tokyo skyline — every building, in correct architectural detail, from a single forty-five-minute aerial observation. The drawing, when finished, measured ten metres long. It was, in technical terms, complete. Stephen Wiltshire had, by then, been…
Full biography of Stephen Wiltshire →
Jacob Barnett
At two, Jacob Barnett stopped talking. He had been an unusually attentive infant — staring at patterns of light, fixated by repeating shapes — but the verbal regression that followed his second birthday was severe enough that his parents were told he might never speak again. The diagnosis was autism. He was eventually evaluated as having moderate to severe autism with associated learning impairment. By eleven, he was an undergraduate at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. By thirteen, he had completed a master's thesis in theoretical physics. By nineteen, he was a doctoral student at the…
Full biography of Jacob Barnett →
What they share
- Both are held here under Science.
- Their lifetimes overlap.
Where they part
- 24 years separate their births (1974 and 1998).
Questions people ask
- Who came first, Stephen Wiltshire or Jacob Barnett?
- Stephen Wiltshire. Stephen Wiltshire was born in 1974, Jacob Barnett in 1998.
- What field is each of them in?
- Stephen Wiltshire is filed under Science (Astronomy). Jacob Barnett is filed under Science (Physics).
- Were they contemporaries?
- Yes - their lifetimes overlap.