[BITList] Fwd: Extraordinary People

Sat May 23 09:04:16 BST 2009

What makes them tick . Who endows them with these almost supernaural   
Powers and then somehow they seem to rade into obscurity. Do they live  
short lives?

Extraordinary People

1. Kim Ung-Yong: Attended University at age 4, Ph.D at age 15; world's  
highest IQ
  This Korean super-genius was born in 1962 and might just be the  
smartest guy alive today (he's recognized by the Guinness Book of  
World Records as having the highest IQ of anyone on the planet). By  
the age of four he was already able to read in Japanese, Korean,  
German, and English. At his fifth birthday, he solved complicated  
differential and integral calculus problems. Later, on Japanese  
television, he demonstrated his proficiency in Chinese, Spanish,  
Vietnamese, Tagalog, German, English, Japanese, and Korean. Kim was  
listed in the Guinness Book of World Records under "Highest IQ"; the  
book estimated the boy's score at over 210.
Kim was a guest student of physics at Hanyang University from the age  
of 3 until he was 6. At the age of 7 he was invited toAmerica by NASA.  
He finished his university studies, eventually getting a Ph.D. in  
physics at Colorado State University before he was 15. In 1974, during  
his university studies, he began his research work at NASA and  
continued this work until his return to Korea in 1978 where he decided  
to switch from physics to civil engineering and eventually received a  
doctorate in that field. Kim was offered the chance to study at the  
most prestigious universities in Korea, but instead chose to attend a  
provincial university. As of 2007 he also serves as adjunct faculty at  
Chungbuk National University.

2. Gregory Smith: Nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize at age 12
Born in 1990, Gregory Smith could read at age two and had enrolled in  
university at 10. But “genius” is only one half of the Greg Smith  
story. When not voraciously learning, this young man travels the globe  
as a peace and children’s rights activist.
  He is the founder of International Youth Advocates, an organization  
that promotes principles of peace and understanding among young people  
throughout the world. He has met with Bill Clinton and Mikhail  
Gorbachev and spoke in front of the UN. For these and other  
humanitarian and advocacy efforts, Smith has been nominated four times  
for a Nobel Peace Prize. His latest achievement? He just got his  
driver license.

3. Akrit Jaswal: The Seven Year-Old Surgeon
  Akrit Jaswal is a young Indian who has been called "the world's  
smartest boy" and it's easy to see why. His IQ is 146 and is  
considered the smartest person his age in India—a country of more than  
a billion people.
  Akrit came to public attention when in 2000 he performed his first  
medical procedure at his family home. He was seven. His patient — a  
local girl who could not afford a doctor — was eight. Her hand had  
been burnt in a fire, causing her fingers to close into a tight fist  
that wouldn't open. Akrit had no formal medical training and no  
experience of surgery, yet he managed to free her fingers and she was  
able to use her hand again.
  He focused his phenomenal intelligence on medicine and at the age of  
twelve he claimed to be on the verge of discovering a cure for cancer.  
He is now studying for a science degree at Chandigarh College and is  
the youngest student ever accepted by an Indian University.

  4. Cleopatra Stratan: a 3 year old singer who earns 1000€ per song
Clepotra was born October 6, 2002 in Chisinau, Moldova and is the  
daughter of Moldovan-Romanian singer, Pavel Stratan. She is the  
youngest person ever to score commercial success as a singer, with her  
2006 album La vârsta de trei ani ("At the age of 3"). She holds the  
record for being the youngest artist that performed live for two hours  
in front of a large audience, the highest paid young artist, the  
youngest artist to receive an MTV award and the youngest artist to  
score a #1 hit in a country ("Ghita" in Romanian Singles Chart).

  5. Aelita Andre: The 2-year-old artist who showed her paintings in a  
famous Gallery
The abstract paintings of emerging artist Aelita Andre have people in  
Australia's art world talking. Aelita is two (the works were painted  
when she was even younger).
  Aelita got an opportunity to show her paintings when Mark Jamieson,  
the director of Brunswick Street Gallery in Melbourne's Fitzroy, was  
asked by a photographer whose work he represented to consider the work  
of another artist. Jamieson liked what he saw and agreed to include it  
in a group show.
Jamieson then started to promote the show, printing glossy invitations  
and placing ads in the magazines Art Almanac and Art Collector,  
featuring the abstract work. Only then did he discover a crucial fact  
about the new artist: Aelita Andre is Kalashnikova' s daughter, and  
was just 22 months old. Jamieson was shocked and embarrassed but  
decided to proceed with the exhibition anyways.

6. Saul Aaron Kripke: Invited to apply for a teaching post at Harvard  
while still in high school
A rabbi's son, Saul Aaron Kripke was born in New York and grew up in  
Omaha in 1940. By all accounts he was a true prodigy. In the fourth  
grade he discovered algebra, and by the end of grammar school he had  
mastered geometry and calculus and taken up philosophy. While still a  
teenager he wrote a series of papers that eventually transformed the  
study of modal logic. One of them earned a letter from the math  
department at Harvard, which hoped he would apply for a job until he  
wrote back and declined, explaining, "My mother said that I should  
finish high school and go to college first". After finishing high  
school, the college he eventually chose was Harvard.
Kripke was awarded the Schock Prize, philosophy's equivalent of the  
Nobel. Nowadays, he is thought to be the world's greatest living  
philosopher.

7. Michael Kevin Kearney: earned his first degree at age 10 and became  
a reality show Millionaire

  24 year-old Michael Kearney became known as the world's youngest  
college graduate at the age of 10. In 2008, Kearneyearned $1,000,000  
on the television game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
  Kearny was born in 1984 and is was known for setting several world  
records and teaching college at the age of 17.
  He spoke his first words at four months. At the age of six months,  
he said to his pediatrician "I have a left ear infection" and learned  
to read at the age of ten months. When Michael was four, he was given  
diagnostic tests for the Johns Hopkins precocious math program and  
achieved a perfect score. He finished high school at age 6, enrolled  
at Santa Rosa Junior College graduating at 10 with an Associate of  
Science in Geology. He is listed in the Guinness Book as the world's  
youngest university graduate at the age of 10, receiving a bachelor's  
degree in anthropology. For a while, he also held the record for the  
world's youngest postgraduate.
  But in 2006, he became worldwide famous after reaching the finals on  
the Mark Burnett/AOL quiz/puzzle game Gold Rush, and became the first  
$1 million winner in the online reality game.

8. Fabiano Luigi Caruana: a chess prodigy who became the youngest  
Grandmaster at age 14
Fabulous Fabiano is a 16-year-old chess Grandmaster and chess prodigy  
with dual citizenship of Italy and the United States.
  On 2007 Caruana became a Grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 11  
months, 20 days - the youngest Grandmaster in the history of both  
Italy and the United States. In the April 2009 FIDE list, he has an  
Elo rating of 2649, making him the world's highest ranked player under  
the age of 18.

9. Willie Mosconi: played professional Billiards at age 6
William Joseph Mosconi, nicknamed "Mr. Pocket Billiards" was a  
American professional pocket billiards (pool) player fromPhiladelphia,  
Pennsylvania. Willie's father owned a pool hall where he wasn’t  
allowed to play, but Willie improvised by practicing with small  
potatoes from his mother's kitchen and an old broomstick. His father  
soon realized that his son was a child prodigy began advertising  
challenge matches, and though Willie had to stand on a box in order to  
reach the table, he beat experienced players many years his senior.
In 1919, an exhibition match was arranged between six-year old Willie  
and the reigning World Champion, Ralph Greenleaf. The hall was packed,  
and though Greenleaf won that match, Willie played very well launching  
his career in professional billiards. In 1924, at the tender age of  
eleven, Willie was the juvenile straight pool champion and was  
regularly holding trick shot exhibitions.
  Between the years of 1941 and 1957, he won the BCA World  
Championship of pool an unmatched fifteen times. Mosconi pioneered and  
employed numerous trick shots, set many records, and helped to  
popularize the game of billiards. He still holds the officially  
recognized straight pool high run record of 526 consecutive balls.

10. Elaina Smith: youngest agony aunt aged 7
  Her local radio station gave her the job after she rang and offered  
advice to a woman caller who had been dumped. Elaina’s tip — go  
bowling with pals and drink a mug of milk — was so good she got a  
weekly slot and now advises thousands of adult listeners. The littler  
adviser tackles problems ranging from how to dump boyfriends and how  
to cope with relationship breakdown to dealing with smelly brothers.

When one listener wrote to Elaina asking how to get a man, she  
replied: "Shake your booty on the dance floor and listen to High  
School Musical". Another caller asked how to get her man back, Elaina  
told her: "He's not worth the heartache. Life's too short to be upset  
with a boy."

ooroo

Bad typists of the word, untie.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090523/bfa322df/attachment-0001.shtml 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 16970 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090523/bfa322df/attachment-0010.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 17199 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090523/bfa322df/attachment-0011.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 14648 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090523/bfa322df/attachment-0012.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image004.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 20289 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090523/bfa322df/attachment-0013.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image005.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 27965 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090523/bfa322df/attachment-0014.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image006.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 28481 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090523/bfa322df/attachment-0015.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image007.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 18609 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090523/bfa322df/attachment-0016.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image008.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 40760 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090523/bfa322df/attachment-0017.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image009.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 38099 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090523/bfa322df/attachment-0018.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image010.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 29731 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090523/bfa322df/attachment-0019.jpg 