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“Made Me Feel Like My Brain Was Spaghetti”: 65 People Share The Creepiest Displays Of Intelligence They’ve Seen In Others
Many of us like to think that we’re fairly smart. But it can be a very humbling experience when you’re in the presence of someone who actually has a vast intelligence and knows how to use it. And aside from feeling humbled, you might also feel slightly weirded out.
Folks took to an intriguing AskReddit thread to share the times that they’ve seen geniuses use their IQ in quite creepy ways. Their stories make for a fascinating read, and we’ve collected the best ones to share with you. Scroll down to check them out.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Had a genetics professor as a freshman in undergrad. Class was 100 kids on the first day and ended with 40. She would take attendance in her head—students moved seats every day—and she would also measure how many times each student looked at their phone during every class; she did this while teaching inordinately complex information without a single note. One day, late in the semester me and a friend went to her office hours. She asked him why he had looked out of the window so many times during a class from over a month before, and she knew the date. I never once saw her stumble on a question no matter how out of scope it was. Also, this was not in her first language.
Paul C. 1 day ago
I delivered some parcels to my old Secondary school about thirty years after I had left. The school secretary was still there and I said I used to come here for school, she said yes I remember you Paul and used my surname. I was stunned, there must have been hundreds of kids gone through that school. I definitely wasn't remarkable enough to be remembered, or so I thought.
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#2
I sat next to a Russian exchange student in a college course. She would regularly take notes with both hands at once, in separate notebooks, one in Russian and the other in English, sometimes German too. She would also doodle incredible drawings with one hand while she took notes with the other. She could do all of this with either hand, interchangeably. She often seemed bored.
Firefly 1 day ago (edited)
My dad said that in high school he had a teacher that could put a piece of chalk in each hand and write an entire sentence at once in cursive. The left had would start at the beginning, and the right hand would write from the end "going backwards". The sentence would come together in the middle and be correct.
#3
I used to run a bar that was a little hole in the wall. This guy would come in every couple of weeks and down near a bottle of Jim Beam by himself and stumble home. Never really talked. I always just thought he was a drunk. He looked dirty and unshowered. Old ratty clothes and just a hunched over posture most of the time. Rarely ever spoke to me. One day it was slow so I tried doing a sudoku puzzle in a book I had gotten. I got maybe halfway through one and the bar had a few people walk in so I put it down to take care of them. While I am taking care of them the guy walks in and sits at the bar. It must have been maybe 30 minutes after I had gotten him his drink I go over to ask him if he needed a top off. Low and behold he finished the puzzles. Everyone single one in a brand new book. Must have been a 50 or 60 page book front and back. I was blown away. He says he just kinda sees numbers. That's when I learned his job was balancing nuclear reactors with harmonics. Never judge a book by its cover. He told me so many other stories, that man lived a wild life.
While it’s difficult to settle on a single definition of a genius, it’s often a person who is incredibly intelligent, creative, original, and has the ability to think in novel ways.
According to WebMD, there is likely a genetic component that affects your level of intelligence. “Certain types of genes influence how much intellectual power you have. Your child’s genetic influences affect their motivation, confidence, and other traits. They greatly impact how well they perform in school or on tests that measure intellect.”
Furthermore, geniuses tend to have more gray matter. This is the part of your brain that’s responsible for computing and processing information, directing your attention, memory, language, perception, and interpretations.
#4
I once knew someone who could predict how group arguments would unfold with uncomfortable accuracy. Not just who would get mad, but the exact phrasing people would use once they felt cornered. They explained it as pattern recognition from years of watching small social tells stack up. Nothing supernatural about it, but seeing it play out in real time felt eerie. It was like watching probability applied to people instead of numbers.
Chich the witch 1 day ago
I've suspected that intelligence is nothing but pattern recognition for a long time now.
#5
I was coming back from a high school JROTC competition and we stopped at a Denny's for breakfast. We had 56 students, 2 teacher chaperones, plus the bus driver.
The waiter took down everyone's order, their drinks, etc. with 100% accuracy. Thia included customizations. For those that ordered coffee he asked what flavor creamer pod and how many. He got all those right too.
Guy made more in tips than the manager's salary by a long shot. He said sometimes people would insist he write down their order. He showed us the notepad he would use. Nothing but random doodles and scribbles.
#6
My son has never taken a sculpting, molding, or art class. However he makes/molds perfect 3d models of any and everything at scale down to miniatures with a picture and medium (usually clay). It takes him minutes. Has done this since he was about 5.
None of us know how but it’s amazing work and we have hundreds around the house and they are so very good.
Stephanie Did It 1 day ago
That is probably the first of many talents this little guy will develop!
What’s more, geniuses and gifted individuals also tend to have more active white matter, which is responsible for the communication between different parts of your brain. This helps with quick and complex thinking.
Moreover, in some cases, they can also experience so-called ‘superstimulability,’ which is increased sensory sensitivity and emotional processing. In other words, they’re more sensitive to other people’s emotions, which can be overwhelming.
#7
I once worked with a guy who could tell exactly who was walking down the hallway just by the rhythm and weight of their footsteps.
One afternoon, we were in a windowless office and he stopped mid-sentence, looked at the door, and said, "The boss is coming, and he's pissed." Three seconds later, the boss swung the door open looking for someone to yell at.
When I asked him how he knew, he didn't just say he recognized the sound. He broke down the specific "heel-strike" frequency of different coworkers and explained that the boss’s stride was 0.5 inches shorter than usual, which indicated he was walking with "aggressive intent." It wasn't just a lucky guess; he had subconsciously cataloged the walking patterns of thirty different people. It was impressive, but it also made me realize he probably knew exactly where I was in the building at all times just by listening.
Ali 1 day ago
I don't think this is at all strange. A few years ago I was talking to a new teacher and stopped to tell him I could hear a certain child coming down the corridor. Teacher scoffed, like you can tell just from the walk? He brought it up a year later, said he had thought I was full of it at the time, but within a few months he to could tell exactly who was coming and noticed which child in a crowd was missing as well as get a fair idea of any issues. It is a common skill for anyone who needs to know this.
#8
Idk if this counts as “creepy” but my 6 year old randomly spouting the exact note of the clink of a bottle took us by complete surprise. After testing him with a tuner, we found out he has perfect pitch. It blows my mind. I’ve tried asking him how he knows and he just shrugs like it’s nothing and says he can just picture where the key is on a piano and just knows how they sound. It will never not be cool to me.
UnclePanda 1 day ago (edited)
I had perfect pitch as a child. There were nights where I couldn't sleep and every once in a while, I'd whistle up middle C, go tap on the piano keyboard to check it, and eventually fall asleep. I said that at Christmas a few years ago and my mom suddenly gasped, "OMG! I thought that piano was haunted!" Because she'd hear middle C in the middle of the night, run out to see, and there was nobody there.
#9
My Commander (when he was a Captain) a weather guy could predict accurate weather down to the minute. It was scary. Like biblically scary.
One time we were deployed and he forecast a sandstorm 7 days out down to a 5 minute window on arrival and departure. He had this calmness about himself.
For context, his accuracy was at 98% for everything, cloud heights, rain start and stop, dust storms, hail, tornadoes and snowstorms/blizzards. The average accuracy ranged from 70 to 85%.
Funny thing was, he wasnt a typical meteorologist. His bachelor's was in Engineering. He just read all the books on forecasting and atmospheric physics and got good.
I think he is retired now. He was a great dude too for context. He was always trying to teach us and make us smarter and see the world how he saw it.
CP 1 day ago (edited)
I had a friend who was a meteorologist in college, make accurate weather predictions like that all the time. I asked him why they don't tell everyone that accurate of weather. Long story short, the combination of him gauging the immediate weather around us while knowing the forecast helped him to say things like, "it will stop raining in about 5 minutes" and be totally correct.
As per WebMD, some signs that your child might (potentially) be a genius include things like:
- Need for mental stimulation and engagement
- Ability to quickly learn new topics and process new and complex information
- Desire to explore scientific topics in-depth
- Insatiable curiosity and constant questioning
- Emotional depth and sensitivity
- Learning quickly and tackling educational material ahead of the current grade
- Excitement about unique topics or interests
- A mature or unique sense of humor
- Imaginative and creative solutions to problems
#10
My dad told me about the calculus graduate teaching assistant he had in college. Last day of class he asked the class to give him random problems from the text book and he’d solve them in his head, he solved the hardest problem just with a few seconds of thought. The display of brain power stuck in my dad’s head for years. He even remembered his name…Ted Kaczynsky.
Stephanie Did It 1 day ago
Kaczynski was a math prodigy but in his second year in college he was the subject of a psychological experiment that apparently had such a negative effect on him that it altered him permanently. Thanks, Harvard.
#11
I would get so mad at my dad for reading further in a book (in his head) than we were reading out loud. He would be reading me chapter 5 of a Harry Potter book but when I would look at the page he was “reading” he would be almost to chapter 6 reading in his head while speaking out loud the chapter we were on but not actually looking at it. He never forgot a single word and had voices for each of the characters that he used for the whole series! When I asked him why he did that he said “sometimes I like to read ahead a little”.
BeesEelsAndPups 1 day ago
I do this with my kids. Not a full chapter ahead. That's insane. Just a page or so. It's so I know who's saying what line of dialog, so I know which voice to do. Especially useful with books that have a lot of characters.
#12
Had a physics teacher who was so smart, he broke down how you could predict collisions in space using complex math. Every lecture I would walk out with a headache trying to keep up with him and his breakdown of things. He was a no kidding genius and saw the world totally different than anyone I met. He was also banned from a ton of casinos for counting cards.
Nadine Debard 1 day ago
Had a physics teacher in HS who was so smart she couldn't explain simply, because it looked so basic to her. I bet she was frustrated, but she was a very kind woman. She even proposed free evening classes. Had to learn from a book, though.
In the meantime, some of the signs of genius in adults may include things like having an excellent memory, valuing alone time, preferring to work late hours, living in slightly cluttered living areas and workspaces, and being fluent in swearwords.
WebMD notes that there are also overlaps between extreme intelligence and being on the autism spectrum.
That being said, “every brain and each person are different. Genius is not a standardized measure.”
#13
In my first job in Australia, there was a guy named William.
The first odd thing I noticed was that he liked to program this old PDP-11 computer we had there, by toggling in machine instructions one at a time on the front panel. He had memorized the whole instruction set, in binary.
Later, I found he knew where every postcode in Australia was located. He had a train hobby, and apparently the postcodes followed the train lines.
Then he moved on to buses. He memorized all the bus routes in our major cities. He had a source for getting periodic updates.
We could ask him how to get from A to B in Australia, and he'd tell you the best train + bus route, down to the street in the bus routes, kinda like we can see in Google Maps today, but this was 1982.
Last I heard , he'd done similar for ISD phone prefixes globally. He claimed to have figured out the Pope's phone number on the basis of this.
Svenne O'Lotta 1 day ago
There's a reason so many autistic people have a hyper focus on trains.
#14
A very good friend of mine is a profiler. The level of accuracy is astonishing. He can pick up information within a nano sencond on your education level, where you where educated (city, county side) your salary range, what you do for work, your positives and negatives skillsets, what your intentions are what your hiding and your injuries to name a few.
#15
When we were kids, our friend Dan was hit by a car and suffered a major brain injury. Afterwards, he could multiply large numbers in his head.
We would do “calculator battles” where we’d try to come up with the answer using a calculator and he’d usually beat us. So something like 1576 x 78 and he was usually faster than the kid trying to punch it in. This was 6th grade.
Dax Darkly 1 day ago
They did a study on one of these "human calculator" types and found that, where normal brains do math stuff in the area of the brain that handles abstractions, this guy's brain did math in the part of the brain that typically handles automatic response stuff (like pulling your hand away from a hot stove)
Who are the smartest people that you personally know, dear Pandas? What’s the coolest or creepiest intelligence-related thing that they’ve ever done?
If you were to be objective, how smart would you say that you think you are, compared to ‘regular’ individuals? What areas and activities do you excel at, and where do you struggle? Tell us all about it in the comments at the very bottom of this post.
#16
I went to college with a guy who would be given a coding assignment and after a few moments thought would type out the whole thing with zero bugs. He’d be done in 15 minutes, the rest of us spent hours troubleshooting. He was the most frighteningly intelligent person I ever met.
Paddy McCarthy 8 hours ago
Back in the seventies, before personal computers; time actually using the computer was limited - I had a few tens of minutes per week. You got used to creating, running and debugging your code - as much as possible, in your head.
#17
My calculus and advanced linear algebra professor probably fits the bill. The guy could solve two completely different problems on the board at the same time with his two hands. As in one problem with his left hand and one with his right hand AT THE SAME TIME. School told him to stop because students could barely follow one incredibly complex problem, let alone two at the same time. Really odd guy, incredibly intelligent though.
#18
I knew a man who we all thought was a know it all, because of how he lacked a filter, and would spew out “facts” he knew about something randomly to those around him. He also had an interesting life, was eccentric, and idolized Einstein, somewhat having a similar look. He said he loves space and sees numbers in various color because growing up etc etc.
I bought a great course on space, out of interest, and we watched it together. I don’t recall the specifics of the question, but it asked along the lines of “how long would the sun burn if it were made completely out of coal?”
I paused the video, and mockingly asked him “alright Heinstein, cuz his last name was Heine, and that was his nickname, “how long?” He got this look on his face, looked to the sky while doing some finger movements, and 8 seconds later blurts out an answer. I unpause the dvd and the lecturer says the exact same answer.
He had no access to the video previous, and long story short he doesn’t surf the web, well not very well, because of various life problems like recovering from a traumatic brain injury, and working and raising kids, not enough time to learn, etc. and he said he didn’t already know the answer. It took knowing all of this for me to believe him, and after that I never doubted the random facts he would blurt out, wasn’t bothered by his abrasive personality, and would try and learn to learn for myself.
Stardust she/her 1 day ago
I also have synaesthesia, it allows me to see colours when reading, doing maths or repeating sequences in order. It also allows me to see colours when listening to someone’s voice or any random sound. I can also associate sound with visuals which can allow me to “hear” gifs or sometimes even hear static images. I find it easy to memorize things as I just have to remember certain colour or sound sequences associated with what I’m trying to remember
#19
I had a professor who remembered the names of about 100 students in our class after saying their names once on the first day of class.
#20
My brothers are both crazy good at math. One time we were at a restaurant with a group of my older brother's friends (seven of us in all), and after our meal my brothers started debating the best way to split the check. Not only were they able to calculate how to split the whole check seven ways, but they could also calculate other splits, like the three of us paying together while the other four paid seperately. And then they could calculate AN %18 TIP for every sum they came up with in these theoretical check splits. They did this in their heads and very fast.
Stardust she/her 1 day ago
I’m currently preparing for a national engineering exam and preparing for it eventually forces you to be quick at mental arithmetic. I was anyways good at it before but now I’ve gotten much faster
#21
I'm a guy and my best friend in my teens was a girl. She was that nice, but cliché dumb blonde girl. Always extremely naive. The better I got to know her the more she acted differently, but only towards me. I could have highly intellectual discussions with her about nearly anything. But as soon as other guys were around, she acted like barbie again. I asked her why that is and she very bluntly told me "Well, guys feel threatened by intelligent woman, it is easier to play dumb to get my way around them.". And she told that in that calculated, manipulative, ice-cold manner. I was convinced I was talking to a real psychopath. She ended up with a full scholarship and studied in a prestigious university. She is now working for a very well known IT company.
Multa Nocte 1 day ago
She realised what it took to make it in a sexist world and was subsequently labelled a psychopath. That's great. 😡
#22
My roommate could recite every lie I’d ever told him, word for word, years later. Never used it against me.
Just liked knowing he could end me anytime he felt like it.
The silence was louder than any threat.
Michael Largey 1 day ago
Being able to recognize a lie every time is more impressive than just remembering all of them.
#23
My Greek teacher in high school had an endless memory. One morning I ran into him on the train and told him I couldn’t chat because I had a history oral exam (not his subject). He asked what topic it was on and then started explaining, in incredibly detailed fashion, the dynamics behind the decisions made by the rulers of that particular period.
He never prepared a lesson: he would walk into class and ask, “Where did we get to?” and from there he’d start explaining whatever came next. About anything.
Once he told me that this ability of his was also a curse, because he could feel any pain he had ever experienced in his life — including losses — as if they had just happened.
#24
Wasn’t creepy really but I did a group coding assignment with a guy who was as logical as a computer. He could just know where a mistake was and fix the error in an algorithm. Made me feel like my brain was spaghetti.
#25
My 9 year old non-verbal son can pinpoint where a certain number is on his math square blocks (that aren’t numbered and are about the size of a large sugar cube with different colors) He lines them up in different patterns and more than 400 so it ends up being a long rectangle. One day I asked where some random number was and he immediately touched one so I counted and he was right. He’s never been wrong. I’m not a math person so maybe it’s common but I can’t look at 400 blocks and tell you where 233 is without counting every block 🤣.
#26
Those people who can look at like a twig on the ground in someone’s video and somehow pinpoint their exact location.
UnclePanda 1 day ago (edited)
For me, it came down to tiny shadows. Generally considered to have a strong sense of direction, when I got the equator, where your shadow is directly under you and there were no tiny shadow clues, I found I was worse than clueless because I still thought I could navigate.
#27
In my first IT job I was having an argument with a colleague over password complexity.
I argued “of course people are going to write these passwords down, they’re 12 random characters including symbols, we should provide them with some kind of password management software.”
He argued that you only need to look at a password for thirty seconds to remember it.
So to settle the argument we set up a laptop with a random password, write it on a piece of paper, give it to him and set a timer for thirty seconds, then we take the paper away, agreeing that we’ll slide the laptop in front of him at a random point in the day.
We catch him in the middle of a phone call and slide it in front of him.
Without stopping his phone call he then proceeds to type the password into the laptop using his middle fingers which he then flipped up at us as it logged in.
Still argue that I was right and his demonstration meant nothing haha.
Tim Douglass 1 day ago
Those kinds of geniuses often have the attitude that they are normal and everyone is able to do the things they do. I've met quite a few musical geniuses who are that way too.
#28
I had a friend who picked up languages easily. He wasn't fluent in every language he knew, but he could hold lengthy conversations or help people if he could.
It was the way he would switch languages. He would get a blank face, no blinking and suddenly back to normal speaking in the different language.
Most people like blink or move their eyes a certain way because they're thinking of the translation. Not him. It was like every language was a first language for him.
#29
Mention any popular song from the 1950’s, 60’s or 70’s. My uncle knows what date it came out and what DAY OF THE WEEK IT WAS. He can also do this for almost any random event you mention. And no, he’s not just making it up because I have checked many times. He’s accurate. I have no idea how he does that. I can’t even remember what day it is today!
Michael Largey 1 day ago
If you know a date in the 20th Century, there's a simple formula that will give you the day of the week known as the Doomsday Algorithm.
#30
I had a kindergarten student who told me exactly when a 7 minute timer was going to go off on my phone. I had forgot that I even set it and out of nowhere she said 3,2,1 and it went off. The wall clock was out of order. There were no computers in the room and she didn’t have a phone or watch.
I’m pretty good at this as an adult, like I can set the microwave on three minutes walk out of the room and return just as it goes off… but I’m over 40. How could she do that at 5 years old? She is still my student years later and I know that she can tell when I’m lying. It will be like little things, to avoid hurting someones feelings. I think I’m a pretty good liar but she will call me out on it.
Rick Murray 1 day ago
That would have been me when I was seven or eight. How was I so good at it (and can keep track of time pretty well in my head)? Simple. When I was given a five minute time-out (which was frequently), I would watch the clock. After a while I didn't need to watch the clock any more. So I can attribute my time accuracy to teachers not wanting to deal with a hyperactive child smashed out of his mind on E110/Sunset Yellow. 😂
#31
My autistic son (low needs) learned sign language at 7-9 mos old. His math skills were outrageous by 2nd grade. It was then I started envisioning taking him to Vegas, like Rainman. He could look at math problems and just know the answer. Eventually, they became too easy and he lost interest, started acting out so my Vegas dream was shattered.
Today, he is the head of a MECA tronics program at an engineering program. So much for my quick million!
Stephanie Did It 1 day ago (edited)
Good to know that OP didn't get to exploit their child after all (which was of course what Raymond did to his autistic brother). It wasn't a how-to video!
#32
Not sure if creepy, but my best friend in high school had STEM classes like he had the answers hard coded in his head. Would drive teachers crazy because he HATED showing his work. He could solve calculus problems in 1/5 the amount of chicken scratching a normal human would need. He got an electrical engineering degree, masters in bio-chemical engineering… would skip class because the teacher “was an idiot”, read the book and get a perfect score on the tests.
Could not act, dance, play music, but anything that needed computational power… he just has it. Being brilliant in certain ways meant he couldn’t release his particular types of analysis thinking that makes life pretty hard: relationships, work, parenting- things that are anti-pattern to computation.
#33
In real life up close, my husband. He’s a genius and sometimes he makes a call months in advance if something happening. It’s so unnerving. We watch the news and see a report he clocked months ago.
BeesEelsAndPups 1 day ago
That's pattern recognition and basic psychology. Particularly with large world events, this is pretty easy. Russia invading Ukraine, the outcome of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, how the pandemic would play out in different countries, the outcomes of presidential elections, these are all pretty easy to know well ahead of time. I'm no genius, far from it. And Trump is about the most predictable person alive. I'm convinced news reporters are willfully ignorant when it comes to his motivations. He's a mob boss with a private army. Just follow the money
#34
If you've ever seen the mentalist with the character Patrick Jane, I knew somebody who was just like that. He was extremely good at reading people from their body language and words. He made a full time living from playing poker.
Scary guy cos I'm sure he always knew what everyone was thinking.
#35
I know a couple people who have numerical intelligence beyond my understanding. my friend's ex, who was an engineering student who did his homework at the gym- took one look at the problem he had to solve, worked on it in his head while doing his set, then wrote the answer when he was done. correct every time. then my aunt who is now the head of her math department at the university she works at, I've watched her not just solve huge complex equations in less than a minute but run through ten or so at a time as a fun hobby. She's a great teacher, too, and the only reason I passed my college calculus classes, which to me is one of the best signs of intelligence there is.
#36
My kid, at the age of like 5...
We're from the midwest but would often travel all over the world, and took public transport.
No matter how many twists and turns it was to get on a subway car or how many curves and twists and turns and etc the actual subway route was, ...
while we were still underground, he'd be able to tell me exactly which way we would be facing when we got up the stairs to top side---
Not just north, South, east, West but he would actually say Northeast Southwest and be right.
#37
Not really creepy, but I found it impressive. My 16yo nephew is one of those kids that can solve a Rubiks cube super fast, which I understand is pretty common by just memorizing a sequence of movements once certain patterns are established.... but the other day, he kind of blew me away with how his mind works.
I brought over a slot car track set to test out before I set it up as a fun activity at an event coming up later in January. The set has 4 or five different styles of track pieces, and several copies of each piece to arrange. Like, curved surface loop segments, flat straightaway segments, squiggly segments, turn segments, criss-cross lanes (its a 2-lane track set) etc.
We did the set up featured on the packaging, then started talking about what if we made it into kind of a banked track set up, or had a segment run vertical up a wall. Each time, we broke down the pieces and he would just rattle off the order for the different segments bits to piece together to get the array we just talked about -not as we were assembling, but before hand. Like, he mapped it out in his head and broke down how to get the shape, the loops, the vertical or banked segments by combining the different style pieces in order without actually laying it out. This included twists, loops, turns, banked areas created by repurposing the loop pieces, and changes in elevation. And he did this quickly and repeatedly for each array or concept we talked about. Then, he recommended buying another identical set to make an even more complicated track and told me exactly how to piece it together (it was a fairly cheap set, so I actually did order a 2nd one).
Maybe this is something lots of people can do, but I was impressed, because I know I can't do it unless I have the actual parts in hand and am actually assembling them, or if I have written and drawn out plans ahead of time. He could just envision the components and mix and arrange them spatially in his head, the rattle off the order in which to attach one to the next to the next in order to make the circuit.
#38
"Creepy" isn't the right word, but over the Christmas break my dad reminded me about one of his uncles.
My family owned a wholesale grocery store, and used to get deliveries of big hoops of cheese. The hoops had random weights, which was stamped on them: "24 7/8 pounds", "19 1/4 pounds", "22 5/6 pounds", etc.
As the hoops came off the rail car via a conveyor belt, the uncle could have a full-on conversation with you - not just "uh-huh, yeah, yeah", but an actual conversation - all the while adding up all the weight. At the end, he'd be like "OK, so that's 1,280 and 3/8 pounds, is that what the invoice says?" and he'd be right every single time.
I would have to write all those numbers down, convert them to decimal, and use a calculator to add them all up... Uncle James just did it all in his head.
#39
Guy gets a perfect score on the LSAT, but something *glitches* in his mind and he goes home to notify the test creators (College Board back then), that one of their questions on the test is incorrect.
They respond to his email and were astonished he was correct then asked him to work there.
#40
I dated a girl in the 90s that could remember huge number sequences at a glance.
She mentioned this when we first met, and I assumed she was full of it so wrote my number down and briefly flashed it to her.
I didn't think any more about it until she called me the following day.
PandaGoPanda 21 hours ago
Shared office space with some military guys many years back and was beside one when he called his mom (by saying the number out loud to the operator). A week later he said he was going to call her again and I recited the number. He was unreasonably shocked by this relatively minor feat of memory and remained convinced for some time that I must be a Russian spy.
#41
Had a medical school professor have dozens of 6 feet tall stacks of magazines and articles.
we would see a patient, and (pediatric neurology) he would tell me about rare cases, and while speaking, he would pause, and direct me to the 3rd stack to my left, about half way down, and find the article of the same case we were speaking about. he would do that for each stack as my rotation went along.
Michael Largey 1 day ago
Now he can just Google it, and that article will come right up - behind a paywall.
#42
I have a friend who is insanely accurate at predicting human behaviour. Including people she has never met.
I was telling her about a guy telling me he’s not interested in me.
She predicted the EXACT day he would get back, and the exact sentiment he would express.
I almost felt like cheating in life having discussions with her. She isn’t very manipulative, but she can predict perfectly how to get what you want from people.
She is happily married by the way. Her husband treats her perfectly. Ironically, the husband’s ex wife says he treated her like [trash]. My friend has just trained him on every aspects she finds important.
Stardust she/her 1 day ago
It’s easy to tell how people are tbh, you just need to observe their body language and facial expressions for a minute and then you can tell how they are. I’ve been wrong only once and I felt bad for assuming the person was not nice until she helped me. I didn’t say anything to her or anyone else about my assumptions but I felt really bad. Weirdly enough I can use this assesing people talent in chemistry to tell the behaviours of certain compounds but my error rate is just a bit higher
#43
Give a time and date from ww2 and my brother will tell you what happened. He’s autistic and special interest is, you guessed it, ww2.
I’m also autistic, but my special interest is in the animal world, especially behaviour. If you have en unruly dog, I just need to meet it once and I can tell what’s wrong. Took over my mom’s dog, because he pulled so much that both her and her husband had been pulled to the ground. I’ve survived a stroke so my grip is weak nowadays, so that was a no go. Couple months later I could have the leash on a finger with no pulling and he is way happier. Problem was stress. He needed more time to sniff and look and to just take his time exploring instead of just go go go. He’s mine now.
Sam Trudeau 1 day ago
My "autism interest" is just random stuff. But I will never turn down an opportunity to pet a cat
#44
My husband’s brain and body.
My husband’s ability to read a room and tell me exactly what people are saying and thinking. He can memorize maps, and knows where he is at all times without one. He has a photographic memory and can explain every detail of something with just a glance. He reads voraciously and can put complex solutions together to something he has never done before. When he makes a mistake he knows exactly why and what mistake was made. He sits with his back to the wall everywhere we go and maps rooms, buildings, and exits at all times. In a crowd or on a crowded road he is able to find space to move that wasn’t there a split second before, it’s like he can read people’s minds. He has performed simple surgeries on himself to remove things from his body, then closes it up.
Like WTH? He’s very well educated, traveled a lot, comes from a well educated “old-line”family and I swear they were bred different. He dislikes people, doesn’t trust, until he trusts you. Then watch out! His loyalty is STRONG! He’s the person other people call, at all hours of the day or night. He’s the greatest man I’ve ever met.
It’s really difficult to be married to someone like him. ☺️😉😘 I LOVE it!
Michael Largey 1 day ago
I can walk right into a room and immediately know what every person there is thinking. Unfortunately, it's always "Oh, him again."
#45
We know a guy who could tell you the day of the week for any date going back in time. Which is neat, but I guess there’s a system to it.
He could also tell you what he was doing that day and what he ate.
Which is bonkers to me that he remembers having a turkey sandwich for lunch and spaghetti for dinner 20 years ago on a specific date. Where he was and what he was doing that day.
If the cops asked me where I was last week and questions about time, I got nothing.
Stardust she/her 1 day ago
Is it a sign of genius to remember everything that’s happened throughout your life? I can remember everything that’s ever happened to me starting from when I was 4-6 months old, including trains of thought I’ve been having long before I knew enough language to articulate said thoughts to myself
#46
Not creepy, but my intellectually disabled son remembers everyone’s bdays, the year they were born and how old they would be in any given year. Not just people we know but watching tv and he’ll be like ‘oh that actor is 76 next month.’ And I always check and he’s always right.
2WheelTravlr 20 hours ago
I can't even remember my own age unless it ends in a zero or a five, then I can usually dredge it out of my brain.
#47
I heard the lawnmower stop so I jumped off the couch and started pretending to sweep since we were splitting chores. Bf walks in the living room and asked if I was about done and I said just finishing. He told me the condensation would have evaporated off the power button on the remote by now and my Snuggie was still decompressing.
#48
I worked with a guy that had a mental profile build up around everyone we worked with. “Gary is late every other Thursday. Also did you see he changed his license plate? I wonder if he will eat ham or turkey today.” He did this with everyone, I feel like he could probably still recall my specs after 20 years.
#49
I realise these are explainable and maybe might seem easy to people but these are creepy to me because they make me realise how little my brain can do compared to others:
A friend that can always tell were the north is, even underground or inside.
Seeing my bf practice piano without a piano. He's practicing Scriabin in his head, like how??
The quickness with which my bf and sister can do complex math. Ask me what 8x3 is and I'll give you an answer the next business day.
#50
I had a lady in my team who could calculate complex thermodynamic equations including the relationship between natural gas and steam using calorific values and enthalpy in her head quicker than I could with a calculator. We’re talking at least 5-10 variables being used in the right order and she was always within a few % points. Very clever lady.
BrunoVI 21 hours ago
Mathematic approximations are rather like a Rubic's Cube. You simply have a trick ready for any circumstance. 47 x 8 x 63? 47 is close to half of 100. 8 is what you get when you double three times. So only double twice, and then add a pair of zeroes (63 * 8 *50 = 63 * 2 * 2 * 100 * 1/2 = 25,200). 47 is 6% less than 50. So now knock 6% off (5% of 25,200 would be about 1,260, so 6% would be another 150.) So 6% is a little more than 1400. 1400 from 25200 is a little under 23800. The correct answer is 23,688. I actually would have expected to be about 100 closer. I can't solve a Rubic's Cube, but I can do that in my head.
#51
My son was 6 months old. He was on a blanket. I was trying to encourage him to crawl. I put a toy he liked on the other side of the blanket to encourage him to crawl toward it.
He stared at that toy. He didn't crawl. He grabbed the blanket and very deliberately, hand over hand, pulled the blanket toward him until the toy was within reach.
#52
In college I had a friend who was always right. She was lovely and I am not saying it in a bad way. She was just always correct. We once walked up to a bank of 20 or so doors to the student union. We (a group) were walking towards one, and she said "nope" and opened another. It was the only one not locked. I have no idea. She was just always right. It was pretty awesome.
#53
I knew a guy who could tell what type of car was driving by simply by hearing it's tires and engine drive by outside. He did not sit near any windows, but there was a window by the water cooler and people in the office would test him often. It got to the point where if someone getting water started to say his name he'd just rattle off a make and model for them and smirk when they confirmed he was right. I still to this day am not sure how his brain did it.
#54
My wife can tell me what I'm thinking and feeling without asking me, and we have whole conversations without me saying anything. Blows my mind every time.
#55
Old friend of mine that I haven’t spoke with in over a decade was the smartest person I’ve ever met- full rides at his undergrad and eventually Yale Medical school, where he became a neurologist for several years until he taught himself how to code and founded a rather prominent website/company.
In HS he took all the most advanced placement courses that were offered- ones that made almost all the smartest students in the high school [complain] about workload, acing them all without hardly even opening his books. How do I know that? Because he was always out partying with us, so I know he never studied for a single exam.
There are some truly, scary, exceptional people in the world.
#56
I remember seeing a kid walk past a random rubik's cube that was just sitting on a table in Australia... he picked it up... paused to look at... solved it and set it back down.. might have been 5 or 6 seconds.. and then he just walked off like it was nothing.
Surreal to witness it in-person and completely out of context/without warning etc.
FoxThatHasFennecaphobia 1 day ago
The author is definitely exaggerating on the 5 or 6 seconds thing, the world record is 3.08 seconds, and thats still with 15 seconds to look at the cube beforehand.
#57
My mom quite literally never forgot a face. One time when I was little, we were at a Sam's Club and she was looking at the cashier. Then she just randomly asked him "Did you work at a Burger King? Eight years ago?" And he did. He was obviously shocked and asked her how she knew that.
She was aware that this hidden talent of hers could creep people out, but she thought it was funny. And we didn't even go to Burger King regularly, we were a McDonald's family, so it's not like she would have seen him often. She just remembered everybody's faces, including strangers.
Lady Eowyn 1 day ago
Since a concussion a few years ago I am pretty much face blind, I see people but don't remember their faces, or which face goes with which name, unless I see them a lot.
#58
My office friend has predicted 3 resignation from our team months before they happened based on only observation. No data, rumours... That's impressive.
#59
The most incomprehensible human ability to me is salesmanship. I worked at a bank for several months and witnessed how my senior manager could fulfill a month's plan in a single week. He didn't do anything that the average person couldn't, but his charisma, well-placed speech, and ease of communication gave him an edge.
Some people are born with a talent for sales, and I believe in it. You probably have a market in your city, and there are bound to be two people there selling the same thing, but their results will be completely different. I don't know how to explain it.
Mimi M 1 day ago
The best salesperson I ever met (a frumpy, overweight, middle-aged guy in a big computer store) didn't focus on selling at all. He focused on explaining and educating, and trying to figure out the customer's needs, whether they bought anything or not. I would only go to him, and was told later that he was the top salesperson, and customers routintely asked for him by name.
#60
I have a friend who points out the most obvious stuff about people and they always get really freaked out by it as if it's like some kind of fortune teller stuff. sometimes they joke about her being "the seer." she's just really good at pattern recognition, and also articulating it.
#61
I was briefly an entomology major at an ivy league university (before I flunked out) and I had a TA who could identify the three different weevil species he specialized in by taste.
#63
The amount of frat guys using manipulative psychological tactics in order to sleep with women during frat parties is too high and very concerning to say the least.
Michael Largey 1 day ago
The amount who use them to get elected to office is even more concerning.
#64
The most dengerous inteligence is the one that makes u think the decision was yours when it never was.
#65
I worked a year as a supermarket casheer and this co-worker once told me how he took money home.
It was a local supermarket but owened by a rich guy so it was pretty big and had all the usual security you would expect.
Supervisors had a card to cancel ítems and purchases. Turns out the card was actually just a bar code so he took a picture of it, printed it and everytime there was a small cash purchase he would cancel it and pocket the money during the day.
He got brave enough to cancel bigger purchases and besides one time the people came back asking for their receipt he was never even closed to be caught.
He would easily get around $2000 in a month or so.
He eventually quit but I was impressed how well his system worked.
What do you think ?
Roy 1 day ago
I knew a guy who was basically an alcoholic but could make intricate patterns with paint and a striping brush. After you furnished him with a fifth of bourbon he would drink and do pinstripe on your car(big in the 50s)! He could duplicate right and left fenders and front and back in great beautiful detail and then pass out! Amazing!
Sharkfin6 20 hours ago
I'm not saying all, but a lot of these can be attributed to trauma responses from a difficult childhood or experiences- especially when these people were "different". Recognizing someone by the way they walk, predicting someone's mood before they interact, knowing how an argument will turn out, being able to tell what someone else's reaction will be to a situation, knowing what triggers people just by seeing them for a short time, etc.
Roy 1 day ago
I knew a guy who was basically an alcoholic but could make intricate patterns with paint and a striping brush. After you furnished him with a fifth of bourbon he would drink and do pinstripe on your car(big in the 50s)! He could duplicate right and left fenders and front and back in great beautiful detail and then pass out! Amazing!
Sharkfin6 20 hours ago
I'm not saying all, but a lot of these can be attributed to trauma responses from a difficult childhood or experiences- especially when these people were "different". Recognizing someone by the way they walk, predicting someone's mood before they interact, knowing how an argument will turn out, being able to tell what someone else's reaction will be to a situation, knowing what triggers people just by seeing them for a short time, etc.
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