'Immortality is my goal': 11-year-old boy gets bachelor’s degree in physics

Laurent Simons, a kid from the Belgian coastal town of Ostend, has just graduated from the University of Antwerp with a bachelor's degree in physics, making him the world's second-youngest graduate. 

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Eleven-year-old Simons only took a year to complete his bachelor’s degree, which usually takes at least three years.

In a conversation with the Dutch daily De Telegraaf, Simons said that, "I don't really care if I'm the youngest." "It's all about getting knowledge for me."

"This is the first puzzle piece in my goal of replacing body parts with mechanical parts," Simons said.

"Immortality" is his goal, the child prodigy said.

"I want to be able to replace as many body parts as possible with mechanical parts.I’ve mapped out a path to get there. You can see it as a big puzzle. Quantum physics – the study of the smallest particles – is the first piece of the puzzle," he said.

To solve that puzzle, he said, "I want to work with the best professors in the world, look inside their brains, and find out how they think."

He finished high school in just 1.5 years and received his diploma when he was eight years old.

He grew interested in classical mechanics and quantum physics last year, and he became consumed with learning everything he could about them.

He subsequently put all of his other projects on hold to focus only on this.