The Know-it-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World

by A. J. Jacobs

  Alex Trebek crying? That is a hard image to conjure up. That's like Henry Kissinger giggling or Vladimir Putin yodeling. Makes no sense.

  "And what the hell's Africa to me?" Trebek continues, asking the very question I was wondering. "Well, I go to Africa--to Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania--and I stand there and I am overwhelmed by the thought that this is where I'm from. I came from here. And I feel comfortable."

  Huh. I'm not sure how to respond to this. Is Alex Trebek black? He sure doesn't look black. He looks pretty white to me. He looks like the quintessence, the very incarnation, of whiteness.

  "You mean...because it's the cradle of civilization?" I ask, taking a shot.

  "Yeah. It's like, hey, I'm home."

  It's a strange story, and I'm not certain why he'd share it with a journalist, but it has an odd effect on me: it makes me like him more. That clinches it. Trebek isn't a mustache-twirling villain, especially since he doesn't have a mustache. He's a guy who's not afraid to look vulnerable, even a little ditzy. My plan for a showdown is in full meltdown.

  If I'm not going to try to humiliate him, maybe I can bond a little. Here we are, two men who spend their days swimming in facts. I tell him that I'm reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica. He seems mildly impressed, if not blown away. He tells me that as soon as Jeopardy! goes off the air, he's going to retire and try to read every book in his house, "even the ones I've read before, because I can't remember them."

  I ask him, of the quarter million clues over the last thirteen years, what's the favorite fact that he's learned?

  "Oh God," he says. After a struggle, he comes up with one: You know how in nautical law, a country has jurisdiction over the first three miles from its coast? (Actually I don't, but I'm not up the N's.) Well, that came about because a cannon's range was three nautical miles. "That's fascinating," I say, though it probably wouldn't be my first pick.

  My favorite line in our two hours together comes when I ask him for his philosophy of knowledge. Trebek thinks for a moment, then responds: "I'm curious about everything--even things that don't interest me." I love that sentiment. It's totally contradictory, but I know what he means. And so, at the end of our talk, I climb in my rented compact and drive back to the hotel to read about friendly societies (the 17th-century forerunners of insurance) and frigate birds (they've got eight-foot wingspans and often catch fish in the air dropped by other panic-stricken birds) and other things that don't interest me. At the very least, they could come in handy if I decide to return to L.A. in a suit and tie and become a beloved five-time champion of Alex Trebek's quiz show.

  Fux, Johann

  I'm proud of myself. When I saw the name Johann Fux--an 18th-century Austrian composer--I didn't giggle. Sure, there was a faint smile, but I'm getting better, I tell you. I didn't ask myself whether Johann Fux on the first date or whether Johann Fux while wearing proper protection. I didn't secretly think that "Fux You" would make a cool T-shirt.

  The more I progress in the alphabet, the more successful I am at stifling that eleven-year-old boy inside of me, the one that still thinks a good Beavis-and-Butt-

  head-style scatological pun is cause for great joy.

  It's not easy. Just the number of asses alone will tempt even the most evolved mind. I've learned about The Golden Ass (a book by a Platonic philosopher) and the Wild Ass' Skin (a novel by Balzac). I've read about the half ass (a type of mule in Asia) and Buridan's ass (an animal in a philosophical parable). But it goes way beyond asses. Asses are just the start. You can also take a trip to the river Suck (in Ireland), where you could fish for crappies (a freshwater bass) while you drink some Brest milk (the town in Belarus is known for its dairies). If you're bored, you can have a stroke-off (while playing bandy, a version of ice hockey) and fondle a bushtit (a small bird). If you're feeling smart, you might want to argue the impact of Isaac Butt (an Irish leader), or debate the merits of the Four Wangs (Chinese landscape painters), who might have been collected by the Fuggers (an art-loving family). Or else, just take a flying Fokker (a German airplane).

  I know this is wrong. This isn't why I'm reading the Britannica. I'm reading it to get smarter, better, more enlightened, not to make dirty puns. Maybe it's because I've read so many of them, or maybe it's because the Britannica is actually making me more enlightened, but I've cut way down on these Beavis moments. The Four Wangs, though--that is kind of funny.

  G

  gagaku

  At long last, the wait is over. If you recall, the word "a-ak," the very first word of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, had no definition, only the recommendation that the reader "see gagaku." I showed remarkable willpower and decided not to flip ahead, but to continue reading the As, figuring I'd get to "gagaku" in good time. Well, three months later, I am here. I have arrived.

  That's got to count for something. That is, without a doubt, an accomplishment. The mystery is about to be solved! Unfortunately, the actual definition of "gagaku" does not provide quite the huge payoff I was hoping for. Not exactly a shocking twist you might find in an O. Henry story or an M. Night Shamalan movie. "Gagaku" is the Japanese term for a type of East Asian music that rose to prominence during the 5th to 8th centuries ("a-ak" is its name in Korean). Gagaku involves flute, drum, and strings, and sometimes accompanying dances. The notations remain obscure, but some form of gagaku can still be heard in Japan. And that's about it.

  Huh. Well, there's always "zywiec" to look forward to.

  gal

  It's Valentine's Day. We don't make a big deal about this holiday in the Schoenberg-Jacobs household. We were both single for so many years that we have residual resentment from all of the date-free Valentine's Days we suffered through. It's a cruel concept, Valentine's Day. It's as if they had a holiday to celebrate rich people or attractive people. Miserable and alone? Sorry, this isn't your day. So in mini protest, Julie and I spend the night at home. We order in Thai and watch some romantic TV--the scene of the coroner on CSI removing a pancreas was particularly enchanting.

  Cards, however, are allowed. Julie gives me a lovely one about how these last five years with me have been the best in her life. In response, I give her my card, which I'd typed that day at work, hovering over the printer as the paper came out. Don't want this one leaking out.

  Julie reads it aloud.

  "You make me suffer tachycardia," she reads. She cocks her head.

  "It's when someone has an irregularly fast heartbeat," I say. "I'm just saying you make my heart beat faster. Keep going."

  "I'm glad we practiced assortative mating together," she says. She looks at me again.

  "It's when you pick a mate who's similar to you. Like fat people mate with fat people. I'm saying we're similar."

  Julie looks back at the printout.

  "You are worth much more than twenty spears," she says.

  "That's the traditional bride price among Africa's Azande tribe."

  She finishes up: "You are my gal--and I don't mean the unit of measurement."

  "Yeah, a gal is a change of rate in motion of one inch per second per second. Or one centimeter. That's right, one centimeter. Anyway, you really are my gal. So what do you think?"

  "A little show-offy," she says, "but the sentiments are nice."

  I'm relieved. It could have backfired, but she seems to have enjoyed it. Which emboldens me to tell her that, though the encyclopedia is taking a bunch of my time and putting a little strain on our marriage, it's made me realize how lucky I am. There just aren't many happy marriages in the encyclopedia. Marriages in history are loveless obligations, something to suffer through in between affairs. The French, of course, raised out-of-wedlock sex to perfection, even creating an official position for mistress to the king. I knew kings had mistresses, but I didn't know that they practically had business cards and an office.

  A surprising number of marriages are unconsummated, and an even greater number end in bloodshed. Once in a while, maybe every couple of hundred pages, I read about a happy marriage. But eve
n these are often tainted with oddness--as in the unlikely union of brilliant poet William Blake and an illiterate peasant woman. I hope they had amazing sex, because I can't imagine the conversations were too lively. I tell Julie the Blake story, adding that I'm glad she's not illiterate, which she takes in stride.

  gall

  Julie's brothers are in town, their families in tow, and they've all congregated at our apartment in preparation for a visit to the Museum of Natural History. Doug has taken out the A volume, and is flipping through it. Doug is smart--he owns a software company, for one thing--but he's not the information freak that Eric is, and he only mocks me half the time.

  "You remember anything from the As?" he asks.

  "Pretty much everything."

  He flips to a random page. "Ankh," says Doug.

  "Egyptian symbol of life," I say. I didn't mention that I actually knew that before reading the EB.

  He flips some more. "How many Aleutian Islands are there?"

  "Four hundred and twenty-three," I say.

  "No, fourteen large islands, fifty-five smaller ones," he says.

  I try to deflect with a lame joke about how I was counting in the Mayan base-twenty system.

  "What is Archimedes' screw?"

  This I knew! It's a circular pipe in the shape of a helix, a piece of equipment used to lift water up in ancient times.

  Doug seemed moderately impressed.

  "And why did they want to lift up water?" he asks.

  A low blow. I already got the definition--why is he pressing me for more details? I admitted I didn't know.

  "They used it to lift water out of the holds of ships," Doug says.

  "Let me see that," says Eric. He grabs the volume from his brother and reads it quickly. "This is wrong. The Archimedes' screw was first used for irrigation."

  I couldn't believe it. First, Eric concluded that the Britannica omits key information (see Burke and Hare). Now, he says it's just plain wrong. How am I supposed to deal with this blasphemy? He's questioning the authority of the mighty Encyclopaedia Britannica. Like he's an expert on the early uses of Archimedes' screw? The unmitigated gall ("gall" is also the word for a plant swelling, by the way). I tell Eric to take it up with the editors.

  I need a break, so I go into the office, where my nieces and nephew are playing a game of Sorry. Doug's kids are adorable, no surprise there, and so are Eric's--Gap-ad cute and sweet as butterscotch (named for scorched butter). Eric may treat me like roadkill, yet I have to admit, much as it pains me, that he's a good, caring father and has done a remarkable job raising his kids.

  "Who's up for Simon Says?" I ask.

  They seem up for it, and since I have seniority, I appoint myself Simon.

  "Simon says, raise your right hand," I say. We all raise our right hands.

  "Simon says, touch your toes." We all touch our toes.

  "Simon says, turn around and around and around."

  My nieces and nephew and I start twirling. This wasn't a spontaneous twirling, mind you. I had been planning this twirling for quite some time. I had plotted this twirling ever since I had read about the secret Blasis technique, invented by ballet teacher Carlo Blasis, in which a dancer prevents dizziness by snapping the head around more quickly than the body so as to maintain focus on one spot.

  I knew this was potentially extremely useful information. But how? Since we rarely put on employee shows of Swan Lake, I seldom find an excuse to twirl at work. And I don't run into many dervishes on the Upper West Side. The only thing I could come up with was Simon Says.

  So there I was, spinning around and around, snapping my head, keeping my focus on Julie's painting of Ray Charles. And it worked in a sense. I kept myself from getting overly dizzy, even as my nieces and nephew tumbled to the ground.

  I didn't feel nauseated, but afterward, I sure felt like a bully and a jackass. I was so desperate to put my knowledge to some sort of use, I forced it into a semicruel game of Simon Says. This wasn't organic. This wasn't like when I saved Anna from eating cilantro. What was I thinking?

  I confessed my sin to Julie that night. She wasn't even impressed. She said anyone who had taken a modern dance class knew about the head-snapping technique.

  gamete

  Another one of Julie's friends just got pregnant. Her gamete (sex cell) is now a diploid zygote. These friends of hers are frighteningly fertile. We're in bad moods. I spend the day with my lips frozen in a fake smile, trying some facial feedback. It fails to comfort me.

  Gandhi

  I don't have teenage kids, as is abundantly clear. But someday, God willing, when I do, I'm going to do my best to remember the postpubes-cent Gandhi. When my kids go out and chop down a telephone pole or put a stink bomb in their friend's locker, I'm going to recall this paragraph: "[Gandhi] went through a phase of adolescent rebellion, marked by secret atheism, petty thefts, furtive smoking and--most shocking of all for a boy born in a Vaishnava family--meat eating."

  Gandhi--that little thug! I wonder if other parents in Porbandar told their kids, "For the last time, I don't want you hanging around that bad seed Mohandas!" This gives me Movie Idea Number Three: Young Gandhi, with Frankie Muniz as the cigarette-sucking, burger-eating pick-pocket who eventually accepts his fate as the most saintly man alive.

  Not to make too much of one paragraph, but it does give me a little more hope about human nature. As I've gotten older, I've gotten crankier, and have started to think that personality traits don't change through a person's life. Once a bully, always a bully. But now I'm confronted with Gandhi. You can't get a much bigger transformation than that, unless, unbeknownst to me, Mother Teresa went through a phase as a loan shark.

  Garibaldi, Giuseppe

  I knew Garibaldi had something to do with uniting Italy. I could probably have come up with the fact that he led an army of Red Shirts. (Incidentally, someone needs to write a history of the world according to colored clothing. In addition to Italy's Red Shirts, I've read about the Yellow Hat Order in Tibet; the Black and Tan police force used against the Irish; the feared Seneca leader Red Jacket; those fascist scum the Brown Shirts; the Great Yellow Turban rebellion in China; and, for a little variety, the Shirtless Ones, who supported Argentina's Juan Peron. I think it would make a great doctoral thesis, or at least a lovely spread in Harper's Bazaar.)

  Back to Garibaldi. I'm ashamed I was so ignorant of this man, because he led an inspiring life, one that intersected in a surprising and--to me, at least--profound way with the life of Abraham Lincoln.

  The sixty-second Garibaldi:

  Born on the fourth of July, Garibaldi first got into trouble as a sailor in the Piedmont navy. After taking part in a socialist-inspired mutiny, he fled to South America to avoid a death sentence. There, among other things, he eloped with a married Brazilian woman and led a group of Italian soldiers in Uruguay's revolution against Argentina. These were the first Red Shirts. In other fashion news, Garibaldi adopted the gaucho costume he'd wear for the rest of his life.

  Garibaldi returned to Italy in 1848 to help in its fight for independence from Austria. He scored some astounding underdog victories before being exiled again, landing in, among other places, Staten Island. But Garibaldi was a tenacious man. He returned to Italy and in 1860, he fought his most famous battle: he conquered Sicily and Naples with his tiny band of a thousand Red Shirts and the support of the local peasants, who, taken by his charm, saw him as a god who would deliver them from feudalism. By 1862, he had effectively united the country.

  Garibaldi's love life wasn't so successful. In 1860, says the Britannica, he married a woman named Giuseppina, but abandoned her, within hours of the marriage, when he discovered she was almost certainly five months pregnant by one of his own officers. A shorter marriage than most of Shannen Doherty's.

  By the end of his life, Garibaldi had become a pacifist, a champion of women's rights, racial equality, and religious freethinking. Not bad. The most likable revolutionary I've encountered so far.

&
nbsp; But I haven't even brought up my favorite fact about Garibaldi, which is this: in July of 1861, an embattled Abraham Lincoln offered to make Garibaldi a Union general in the American Civil War. Garibaldi turned Lincoln down, partly because Lincoln wasn't ready to abolish slavery yet, and partly because Garibaldi wanted supreme command of the federal troops.

  This is an appealing tidbit. Not just because it raises the question, what if an Italian had led the Union troops to victory? Would the South hold a grudge against his country? Would there be no pizza parlors in Alabama? It also appeals to me because I would never have guessed Honest Abe was going to make a surprise cameo in the life of Garibaldi. I love when this happens. It's always exciting, like when there's a special guest star on a sitcom. The Britannica is packed with weird ways that great lives intersect. I love reading how Arthur Conan Doyle had a venomous feud with Harry Houdini (the occult-hating Houdini thought Conan Doyle's seances were a sham.) Or that Winston Churchill wrote the obituary for Ian Fleming's father. Or that Bach and Handel were both treated by the same quack doctor. I like the more random connections as well, like the one between Esso and Erte and Eminem (all have names derived from the pronunciation of letters). The Britannica reminds me of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, but for all of life. In the words of Donne, John (1572-1631), no man is an island. I find it comforting to know that I'm not alone, that I'm part of the big fabric, and that it's a lovely fabric, like the intricate carpets that Abbas commissioned in Persia.

  Garrick, David

  Famed 18th-century Shakespearean actor who also managed the Drury Lane Theatre. He fought to "reform" the audience, discontinuing the practice of reduced entry fees for those who left early. I don't like this guy. His reform is terrible. We need to go back to the old system: You stay an hour at a movie, you pay half price. You stay a half an hour, quarter price. Leave after ten minutes, the theater has to pay you for your trouble.