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

by A. J. Jacobs

  "You've got to do something," says Julie.

  "What am I supposed to do? Fix the air conditioner?"

  "Something."

  "Sorry, I forgot to bring my power drill."

  But she's right. Something has to be done.

  A quick but relevant digression: Before we left for Italy, Julie and I rented an old black-and-white movie called Ball of Fire. A friend had recommended it to us because it's a romantic comedy about encyclopedias--a genre that doesn't yet have its own aisle at Blockbuster. We loved it. The film--cowritten by Billy Wilder--is about eight professors who live in a brownstone and scribble away day and night on an encyclopedia. These professors, as you might expect, have wire-rim glasses and bow ties and are very adept at bumbling. The only semicool professor is the young one, played by Gary Cooper, who specializes in language. He's writing the entry on slang, but realizes he's been locked in this brownstone for so many years, he's totally ignorant of modern-day slang. So Gary Cooper ventures out into the world, and encounters a hotsy-totsy burlesque singer--played by Barbara Stanwyck--and despite her atrocious grammar and her unfortunate connections to the mob, they fall in love.

  The movie is a weird mix, at once deeply anti-intellectual and pro-education. The movie's anti-intellectual part is smack-you-on-the-face obvious--these professors have filled their heads with information but neglected their hearts, so they know nothing about life. On the other hand, there are some scenes where learning triumphs--specifically a climactic scene (warning: I'm giving away a key plot twist here) wherein the professors are being held at gunpoint by a bunch of thugs.

  The desperate professors think back to the story of the Greek scientist Archimedes, who burned the entire Roman fleet by training a big magnifying lens on the ships. So these dweeby men use the lens from their microscope to burn the wire holding up a painting, which then falls and clunks the villain on the head, knocking him out and allowing the professors to escape.

  I found a couple of things about this scene interesting. First, I know from the Britannica that the Archmides story was a myth--he didn't actually burn the Roman fleet--so that felt good. (Likewise, the film's narrator described these men as "knowing what tune Nero was fiddling when Rome burned." I told Julie that actually Nero was not fiddling while Rome burned.) But more important, I was jealous. I wanted to use my knowledge like this. I wanted to use it to capture the bad guy or save the heroine. In my constant quest to put my knowledge to work, I've had only a handful of modest victories, the herb and crab soup incident being the most impressive.

  Which brings me back to the air-conditioning conundrum. What to do? I thought back to the history of air-conditioning. I could remember only that the Graumann's Theater in Los Angeles was one of the first places to be air-conditioned. And also that, in the days before electricity, Indians used to hang wet grass mats in the window. If life had sound effects, there would be a loud ding right about now.

  I took two big white towels from the bathroom, sprayed them down in the shower, and hung them in the open window. I can't say for sure they lowered the temperature of the room, but I think they did. And regardless, I felt better. I was taking action. I was putting my knowledge to work. I was a hero, just like Billy Wilder's microscope-wielding professors.

  onion

  We've come back to the United States, but Julie's mind is still in Italy. She's yearning for some more of that pizza. She decides to make it herself, with me as her sous chef.

  I chop my eggplant and zucchini. We're both quiet, focused on our chores. Next up, the onion chopping. I peel my onion, take it to the sink, turn on the faucet, and start slicing it under the flow.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I'm cutting the onion underwater."

  "Why?"

  "It says in the Britannica it stops you from crying."

  This was an Heloise-style hint from the Britannica--one of those rare useful ones--and I was quite excited to be putting it into practice.

  "Nope, too dangerous."

  "But it's in the Britannica."

  "Nope, I'm the executive chef. You're the sous chef."

  Here I'm confronted with an unfortunate situation: the Britannica versus my wife. Two big sources of authority. Which do I choose? Well, the Britannica is pretty trustworthy. However, as far as I know, it can't carry my child or ignore me for several days or throw out the T-shirts that it hates.

  So I decide Julie wins this one. The onion will be cut without water and I will cry.

  ooze

  Ooze, I learn, is sediment that contains at least 30 percent skeletal remains of microscopic floating organisms. You've got to marvel at the specificity of that. Thirty percent; 29 percent and you're out of luck, buddy. You may be sediment, but you're no ooze.

  Opium Wars

  It's Friday night, and Julie and I have rented a movie. We are frighteningly loyal fans of movies, and this year alone have provided some lucky Hollywood executive with enough cash for three Gucci suits and a Bikram yoga class. Tonight, we rented a movie called Shanghai Knights. It's a buddy comedy with Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan set in 1887 England and China.

  In the first scene, the villain breaks into China's imperial palace with a bunch of evil members of China's Boxer gang.

  "The Boxers were nuts," I tell Julie. "They were called Boxers because they thought their boxing training would make them impervious to bullets."

  "Not now, honey."

  I sort of shrug and go back to eating my Indian takeout chickpea dish.

  A few minutes later, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle shows up as a character. He's working as a detective at Scotland Yard, where Jackie Chan has been thrown in jail. Conan Doyle at Scotland Yard? I don't think so.

  "Actually Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a medical student before he became a writer."

  "A.J., please."

  I'm good for the next half hour. But then, the villain reveals his plan to take advantage of China's Opium Wars. That's too tempting. I read about the Opium Wars a few days ago, and they were a memorable tale. One of the causes was a crusading Chinese official who dumped confiscated opium into the ocean to try to squash the drug trade. He was considerate enough to write an ode of apology to the gods of the ocean for defiling their home. I thought that was a nice touch, writing a poem apologizing to nature for polluting it. Exxon should start doing this. In any case, the opium dumping--just like the Boston Tea Party before it--really angered the Brits, who were making lots of money from the opium trade. So England started a war with China.

  This happened sometime in the 1830s. I can't remember the exact dates, but it was in the 1830s for sure--way before 1887.

  "Hey, Julie, the Opium Wars were--"

  Julie pauses the movie. "Okay, new policy."

  "What?"

  "Whenever you give me an irrelevant fact, it's a fine of one dollar."

  "Come on."

  "A one-dollar fine."

  "These facts were relevant," I say.

  Julie thinks for a second.

  "Okay, a one-dollar fine for any irrelevant fact, and a one-dollar fine for a relevant fact that interrupts a movie."

  "This is crazy."

  "I've got to do something."

  opossums

  Opossums have thirteen nipples. Good to know. Also, the notion that the opossum gives birth through its nose probably comes from the female's habit of putting her face into the pouch to clean it just before giving birth. I had never heard of this notion. I was simultaneously illuminated and disillusioned.

  opposites

  I'm dyin' here. That's my fellow editor Andy's favorite phrase to express general anxiety, one he uses several times a week at the start of exasperated e-mails, and it seems applicable right now. I'm dyin' here. To be more specific, I'm still having a hell of a time processing all this information, figuring out what it means. I can't see the forest for the trees, and in this case the forest is the information equivalent of the Siberian boreal forest, which makes up about one fifth of the world's forested a
rea, so that's a lot of goddamn trees.

  I'm looking for answers--and there are answers. That's not the problem. The problem is there are too many answers, thousands of answers, and they all seem to conflict with one another. I'll come up with a thesis, and pat myself on the back for my incisiveness, and then a couple of hours later I'll decide my thesis is absurd, and that the exact opposite thesis is correct. Then I'll switch back to the first.

  I'll give you an example. I'll decide that the Britannica provides evidence to back up the old saw that patience is a virtue. For instance, ticks wait on twigs for weeks, months, sometimes years, for a mammal to pass underneath. And then they drop onto the fur and suck happily away on the blood. So be like the tick. Good things come to those who wait.

  But then I'll read something that supports the opposite side, the importance of being impulsive, making quick decisions, of following that other old saw, "Just do it." For instance, Napoleon. He lost at Waterloo because he waited too long to attack. He waited till the afternoon, when the sun had dried the mud from the overnight rains, but by that time the Brits had received reinforcement. Historians agree: he should have just done it.

  So what the hell should I do? Should I be patient? Or impulsive? I want a guide, someone to tell me this is right, this is wrong. I watched a little of Dr. Phil the other day, the blunt-talking TV host. Maybe I need a Dr. Phil for the Britannica.

  orgasm

  They can be experienced from infancy. What? Did I have orgasms when I was an infant? Did I smoke a tiny cigarette afterward?

  oyster

  Oysters can change sex according to the temperature of the water. I always knew there was something emasculating about warm baths.

  Ozma, Project

  Project Ozma was an attempt by some American astronomers to find intelligent life in the universe. It took place in the sixties, was named for the princess in The Wizard of Oz--and was a spectacular failure. For the past couple of weeks, I've been conducting my own search for intelligent life here on earth. Since I've announced to the world that my goal is to become the smartest man in the world, I figure I should suss out the competition. Which is why I called a man named Ron Hoeflin.

  Ron is the founder of four high-IQ societies--HiQ, if you really want to sound cool. HiQ societies are clubs for those brainiacs who make the average Mensa member look like a knuckle-dragging, drooling Australo-pithecus. Mensans must score in the top 2 percent on the IQ test. That's nothing. Kids' stuff. Ron started the Top One Percent Society, which is for, naturally, the top 1 percent. His One-in-a-Thousand Society is for the top 0.1 percent. The Prometheus Society is for the top 0.003 percent. And the mighty Mega Society is for the top 0.0001 percent. Ron's IQ varies depending on which test he's taking, but he clocks in at 190 on a good day.

  I found Ron because he was profiled in Esquire a few years ago. Ron later wrote a letter to the editor listing the various egregious mistakes the writer made in the article--Ron uses Wite-Out, not Liquid Paper; his father was a ballroom dance instructor, not a ballroom dancer, and so on. I'm already nervous about meeting him. I vow to myself to take meticulous notes.

  Ron greets me at the door of his Hell's Kitchen apartment. It's tiny, even by New York standards, but his rent is lower than his IQ: $150 a month. Ron lives there with his two cats, Big Boy and Wild Thing, and a radiator that clanks louder than the bassist at your average Metallica concert. On the walls are a series of futuristic drawings of women with pronounced biceps, wearing G-strings and wielding swords.

  "They're from a fantasy calendar," says Ron. "I got tired of seeing all my narcissistic diplomas up on the wall."

  Ron's fifty-nine years old, a bear of a man with graying hair and smudged glasses. He's legally blind, but he can see things up close, which forces him to read with a magnifying glass. He grew up in the suburbs of St. Louis, memorized pi to two hundred decimal places as a kid (he still remembers the first fifty digits) and eventually got a Ph.D. in philosophy from the New School for Social Research. He makes his modest living putting together newsletters for HiQ societies. As he'll tell you himself, he's shy and awkward, not exactly a social butterfly, barely even a social caterpillar; he reminds me of Dustin Hoffman's idiot savant in Rain Man, but without the idiot part. I like him immediately.

  He seems interested in my encyclopedia project. Turns out he's an obsessive reader too. Every day, without fail, Ron reads philosophy at the Wendy's on Eighth Avenue on Fifty-sixth Street over an iced tea, a Caesar salad, and a chicken sandwich. Why Wendy's? "It's got good lighting, and it's more social. Even though I don't talk to people, there are people around me, which I like." It was there that he read the entire Encyclopedia of Philosophy in 420 days, about ten pages a day. "Some articles on logic," he tells me, "were just so technical, I couldn't finish them."

  Sweet Jesus! This is wonderful news. Even a verifiable megagenius like Ron has trouble finishing entries. Next time I'm mired in text about vector bundles and Mobius strips, I've got Ron's confession to comfort me.

  Ron has been working on a book called To Unscrew the Inscrutable: A Theory of the Structure of Philosophy. At one point it was nearly four thousand pages but now he's shaved it down to a fifth of that, about 748 pages. He shows me some of it. The idea--as far as I can figure, and I'm probably wrong about this--is that all philosophical systems can be categorized by a number. So his Chapter 2 covers two-part systems like the yin and the yang and the wave particle duality in quantum physics. His Chapter 3 covers the Christian Trinity and Freud's tripart system (ego, id, and superego). And so on. It sounds smart. He's talking quickly, scribbling diagrams of squares inside circles, shooting off on tangents, dropping phrases like "anticipatory goal object" and "root metaphor" and "super-string theory," and I'm saying, "Right, right, right," because I don't want to look like a moron, but the truth is, I have no idea what he's talking about and no way to judge whether it's a good theory.

  Ron tells me that, after ten years of work, he's just recently finished writing the book, and is ready to print it out, but his printer is broken, and he can't afford a new one. This makes me so sad that I want to hug him, which he'd probably hate.

  He asks me what I've learned in the encyclopedia. I figure I should give him a philosophy fact. "Did you know that Rene Descartes had a fetish for women with crossed eyes?" I say.

  "Well, my mother died on exactly the same date that Descartes did. February eleventh."

  I nod. We listen to the Chopin in the background. Several seconds tick by. "So how would you define intelligence?" I ask him.

  "That's a very difficult question," Ron says. If he has to be pinned down, he tells me, it probably has to do with trial and error, learning from mistakes, moderating our thoughts and actions like a thermostat, like the painter who dabs paint and, if it doesn't look good, dabs in a new place.

  "Do you think I can become smarter by reading the encyclopedia?"

  "Depends what you mean by smarter. You could say a computer can get smarter by feeding it more information. But in terms of hardware, there's not much hope for humans. You're stuck with the brain you were given."

  It's not quite what I was hoping for, but it's not a terrible answer. I've always preferred software to hardware. At least I can improve the programs in my brain.

  I ask him about geniuses. Is there anything to the stereotype that geniuses have psychological problems?

  "Well, yeah," he says. Ron clicks on his computer to show me exactly what problems he suffers from. On the screen pop up the results of his personality test, with a bar graph showing the different aspects of his character.

  "See? I zoomed all the way to the top on the sensitivity scale. I'm too sensitive."

  Ron is shockingly open. I've been a journalist for almost fifteen years, and this is the first time someone's whipped out a personality test to show me exactly where all his flaws lie. If only the celebrities I interviewed at Entertainment Weekly had done this. I would have loved for talk show host Bill Maher to quantify for me exactly
why he's such a huge jackass. Again, I want to hug Ron, but instead I go with an attempt to bond: "I'm very antisocial as well."

  "At least you're married. I never got married."

  "There's still time," I say. Ron hasn't had a girlfriend in a some time, though at one point he dated professional genius and Parade columnist Marilyn vos Savant. I make a mental note to have Julie fix him up with an attractive woman with an IQ bordering 200.

  It's about 4 P.M., time for Ron to go to Wendy's to do his daily philosophy reading. He's dabbling in feminist tracts, but he's not too impressed. On the walk to Wendy's, he tells me that he heard you can raise your IQ by six points if you take a sauna right before your test. Perhaps that's the secret. I should abandon this encyclopedia and just take a sauna. So much more efficient! Ron smiles weakly. I shake his hand good-bye.

  I'm a big fan of Ron's. He seems sweeter and more humble than those Mensans I met at the Staten Island convention. He also breaks my heart. On the subway home, as I flip through a copy of the Mega IQ test written by Ron (three xeroxed pages of absurdly difficult analogies and spatial problems), I make a note in my Palm Pilot to buy an advance copy of Ron's book to help him pay for a new printer. And I come to the ingenious conclusion that maybe it's not such a good thing to be the smartest man in the world--something I knew back when I thought I was the smartest boy in the world. Maybe it's better to be dumb and happy.

  P

  pachycephalosaurus

  In my periodic check on how I'm faring, I stack the Britannicas up on the office floor. Look at how that pile has grown, I chuckle to myself, shaking my head proudly. It's really getting up there. Seems like yesterday when that cute little stack was barely up to my ankle. And look at it now! As I dive into the P's, it's shot to above my belly button, like I've been rubbing the covers with somatotropin growth hormone.

  So I'm getting there. I'm not Ron Hoeflin, but I'm no pachycephalosaurus (a dinosaur with a thick mass of solid bone grown over its tiny brain, also known as the "bone-headed dinosaur").