"World's smartest kid" solves rubik's cube

[Tyson]

If you want to demonstrate how big India is, why don't you just say the population of India is 1.3 billion, and the population of the United States is 300 million?

 

[ElectricDoodie]

If you want to demonstrate how big India is, why don't you just say the population of India is 1.3 billion, and the population of the United States is 300 million?

Because that doesn't add any perspective to it and to me, is bland and boring.
I don't know how you missed this point, after I have stated it so many times.

 

[Joker]

I think it's the people that can't solve the Rubik's cube that think he is smart for being able to do it.
You don't have to be smart to solve it.

But, of course the boy is smart, look at the math he was answering.

Well, the same goes for the math he was answering. There are methods for calculating mentally very quickly. Since most of us do not know the methods, we could look at someone calculating quickly and think they are smarter than they really are (relating this to people who consider those who can solve a cube to be highly intelligent)

For example, here's a trick

They asked him 85 x 85 85 square simply take the 10's digit "8" add one to get 9 and multiply the original to get:

9 x 8 = 72 now add in 25 = 7225

You could do this for all the 10's... 45 x 45 -> 4 x 5 = 20 now add in the 25 hence 2025...there are a lot of other methods like this as well. Now if he's working out more advanced mathematical problems is a different story.

Yea, I figured that out when I was 10 by myself (cept it was a little different, but still fast)
And when I was 11 I was able to divide any number (whole) by either 9 or 11 freaking quickly by myself. And a bunch of other tricks (when I was in Grd 4 I was doing Grd 9 math)

 

[Tyson]

If you want to demonstrate how big India is, why don't you just say the population of India is 1.3 billion, and the population of the United States is 300 million?

Because that doesn't add any perspective to it and to me, is bland and boring.
I don't know how you missed this point, after I have stated it so many times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM0dbwDc2FE

Have you heard of Arthur Benjamin?

http://www.math.hmc.edu/~benjamin/

Now *that* guy... he can do math quickly in his head. He actually performs at the Magic Castle (www.magiccastle.com). It's quite impressive. You can race him multiplying two 5 digit numbers, and you'll loose with a calculator because you can't press the button fast enough. I think I could beat him given a www.daskeyboard.com as opposed to a four function calculator.

 

[Bryan]

If you want to demonstrate how big India is, why don't you just say the population of India is 1.3 billion, and the population of the United States is 300 million?

Because that doesn't add any perspective to it and to me, is bland and boring.
I don't know how you missed this point, after I have stated it so many times.

But when you add information that adds no value to the statement, it's meaningless.

The top 25% of Indians at American Football would be more than the entire US. This tells us absolutely nothing about how many Indians know about football. It's just noise that confuses people. Just like bringing up IQ in the same statement. It doesn't really say anything about India's IQ.

Now a statement like: If you take all the illiterate people in India, it would be greater than the entire population of the US. Now, this gives us some information, but not much. India could be about the same size, but completely illiterate, or India could be 100X the size of the US, and only 99% literate. You can't determine core facts from this statement.

If you state that India is 4X the size of the US, and they have a literacy rate of 66%, this gives you cold hard facts.

 

[ElectricDoodie]

If you want to demonstrate how big India is, why don't you just say the population of India is 1.3 billion, and the population of the United States is 300 million?

Because that doesn't add any perspective to it and to me, is bland and boring.
I don't know how you missed this point, after I have stated it so many times.

But when you add information that adds no value to the statement, it's meaningless.

The top 25% of Indians at American Football would be more than the entire US. This tells us absolutely nothing about how many Indians know about football. It's just noise that confuses people. Just like bringing up IQ in the same statement. It doesn't really say anything about India's IQ.

Now a statement like: If you take all the illiterate people in India, it would be greater than the entire population of the US. Now, this gives us some information, but not much. India could be about the same size, but completely illiterate, or India could be 100X the size of the US, and only 99% literate. You can't determine core facts from this statement.

If you state that India is 4X the size of the US, and they have a literacy rate of 66%, this gives you cold hard facts.

I wasn't trying to add meaning or value to it, and I've already stated it. I just found it to be an interesting way to put it.

 

[Tyson]

Hey, did you know that half of the world is below average in intelligence?

(Fine Stefan, measured by median.)

 

[Joker]

The question is: did he figured out by hisself at the age of 7 how to solve a rubiks?
If he really did it himself I would be really impressed...

Looks like reduction on 4x4...

Meaning what?

Meaning he could of looked it up. Then again, he might have thought of it hiself.

 

[ElectricDoodie]

Hey, did you know that half of the world is below average in intelligence?

(Fine Stefan, measured by median.)

Yes, I did.

 

[Tyson]

And is that statement interesting to you?

 

[ElectricDoodie]

And is that statement interesting to you?

No, for a couple of reasons.
-No perspective statement.
-Already knew it.

 

[Stefan]

You can race him multiplying two 5 digit numbers, and you'll loose with a calculator because you can't press the button fast enough.

How fast does he do it?

 

[Tyson]

You can race him multiplying two 5 digit numbers, and you'll loose with a calculator because you can't press the button fast enough.

How fast does he do it?

I'm not sure... I haven't seen it in person. I've only heard of his show. He has a few books out, but from what I understand the set-up...

I'd imagine he can do it in under 5 seconds. That's just a guess though... I'm estimating based on what I understand the setup to be. Chris Dzoan would know more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4vqr3_ROIk

I can't actually watch this now because I'm at the office. But I think that clip should give you an idea of the type of things he does.

 

[Stefan]

I'd imagine he can do it in under 5 seconds.

Well, the world record (from a mental calculation world cup) for doing it ten times is 102 seconds:
http://www.recordholders.org/en/list/memory.html#8x8
So I think on average he must take longer than 10 seconds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4vqr3_ROIk

Ah yes, I'm watching that already on his website. And I'm appalled!

At 3:41 he says "457 squared is 205849". That is wrong, but his moron checkers confirm it!
At 4:00 he says "722 squared is 513284". That is wrong, but his moron checkers confirm it!

WTF? He could probably spit out random numbers and nobody there would notice or care!

Watching the rest now...

 

[Bryan]

And is that statement interesting to you?

No, for a couple of reasons.
-No perspective statement.
-Already knew it.

So stuff isn't interesting if you know it? That means you know nothing interesting.

 

[tim]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4vqr3_ROIk

Ah yes, I'm watching that already on his website. And I'm appalled!

At 3:41 he says "457 squared is 205849". That is wrong, but his moron checkers confirm it!
At 4:00 he says "722 squared is 513284". That is wrong, but his moron checkers confirm it!

WTF? He could probably spit out random numbers and nobody there would notice or care!

Watching the rest now...

He got his big final right, though.

 

[Tyson]

I'd imagine he can do it in under 5 seconds.

Well, the world record (from a mental calculation world cup) for doing it ten times is 102 seconds:
http://www.recordholders.org/en/list/memory.html#8x8
So I think on average he must take longer than 10 seconds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4vqr3_ROIk

Ah yes, I'm watching that already on his website. And I'm appalled!

At 3:41 he says "457 squared is 205849". That is wrong, but his moron checkers confirm it!
At 4:00 he says "722 squared is 513284". That is wrong, but his moron checkers confirm it!

WTF? He could probably spit out random numbers and nobody there would notice or care!

Watching the rest now...

Yes, I apologize if I misrepresented anything, but I of course did make it clear that I have not seen him in person. The other thing to keep in mind is that most people in the world are really stupid. Your average person's intelligence is so low, that yes, people aren't used to thinking critically, and you can get away with a lot of stuff during a performance.

I do find it fascinating (and interesting) how much of the world's progress has been driven by such a small percentage of people at the top.

 

[qqwref]

If the performer is fast enough at mental calculation, no normal person (i.e. audience member) would be fast and accurate enough to be sure he made a mistake

I like the idea of ten tasks in a row. I should try that sometime.

 

[ElectricDoodie]

And is that statement interesting to you?

No, for a couple of reasons.
-No perspective statement.
-Already knew it.

So stuff isn't interesting if you know it? That means you know nothing interesting.

I can't believe how much you are misinterpreting everything. Because someone does not find something interesting after already seeing it many times, does not mean that it is not interesting in itself. It could still be interesting to someone else. I cannot believe this is seriously your argument. I believe you are just trying to troll me.

Now, that statement Tyson gave was something that was more common knowledge and made it less interesting for me. If you found it interesting, I'd like to know why.

 

[Stefan]

He got his big final right, though.

Yes, and everything else as well (as far as I can tell, couldn't check the missing digit trick). I'm just astonished that he can get away with that. Once he got two of six digits wrong and his judge loudly proclaimed "Yes". WHY? I suspect she actually failed to check and just tried to hide that. What she should have done is say "wait a moment..." and then do it properly. Nothing embarrassing about it. I remember seeing the same thing in a documentary about Kim Peek ("Rain Man") and another with Ruediger Gamm (mental calculator), they made mistakes and just got away with it.

I'm a bit surprised, btw. It was a nice show, but I didn't know they have that kind of stuff at TED. Guess they need some fun between the serious talks

If the performer is fast enough at mental calculation, no normal person (i.e. audience member) would be fast and accurate enough to be sure he made a mistake

They all had pocket calculators, they just had to square a three-digit number, and they got into TED. They should be able to do that. And again, more importantly: if they can't check it, they should say that! Or at least NOT say he's correct without actually checking!