24 Wild Times People Witnessed Genius

‘I knew two guys in undergraduate who would play mental chess’
24 Wild Times People Witnessed Genius

Even if you already know that someone is smart, it’s an entirely different experience to see them in action, showcasing their genius with the same ease that the rest of us broadcast our average — or, let’s be honest — below-average intelligence. Case in point: One Redditor pulled out their credit card at the office to make a purchase over the phone. After telling their coworker that they can never remember their credit card number, another coworker came over and said, “I know it.” They then proceeded to recite the number from memory and explained that numbers just stick in their mind that way. 

Not only is that coworker pretty smart, but they also appear to be pretty trustworthy, as that’s the kind of skill that could easily be used for nefarious purposes

Other Redditors have trotted out the stories of the smartypants they’ve known over the years, proving not only that there are geniuses all around us, but that dogs can be geniuses too.

 9y ago Pretty specific and unlikely anyone who sees this will know what I'm talking about: I have seen my supervisor successfully structurally solve average molecular weight natural products (300-600 molecular weight) in under 2 minutes using only a 1H NMR spectrum. I have seen him do this multiple times 3 ...
TeJaytheMad 9y ago My youngest son knows the major roads in my large, extremely sprawling city. Не tells my husband how to get to the airport, turn by turn, when they're picking me up after I come home from an assignment. Не tells us turn by turn directions to get to the zoo, the botanical gardens, the grocery store, the elementary school, and the museums. Не started doing this about when he turned three. 3 ...
saculmot 9y ago A friend with total recall was reading the newspaper one day and a guy called him on his ability. Не handed us the newspaper and proceeded to recite the whole damned thing to us. 3 ...
 10y ago e My brother could explain techtonic plate theory before he could spell his full name. A kid I babysit knew the scientific names of different kinds of clouds when he was three. + 35 ...
WhiteScumbag 9y ago My Dad has been into anything with a engine since he was 8. Не loved being in the shop, taking things apart and putting them back together. I never realized how smart he was in this until we were at the shop working on his truck and just by listening to the engine told me exactly what was wrong with it. Не also can look at something and see it work and run in his head. Не will then explain it to you. Не has other various shop related talents. Не uses his welder with his eyes
fanatiqual 9y ago When I first started working as a machinist there was an older guy who was teaching me the basics. When I asked him about some of the things he's made he showed me an entire metric set of gear wrenches that he had machined himself as well as two ratchets and a set of metric sockets. I guess it's not typical book smarts but the guy was a brilliant machinist who was so good he was making own tools from machines steel. 28 ...
irrelevant_usernam3 9y ago I'm probably late here, but I went to high school with a kid who was really quiet. I hardly ever heard him speak and when he did, it was with a stutter. Any time he was called upon to read aloud in class, he would really struggle and kids would snicker in the back about how he couldn't read. Then, one day he all of a sudden started reading flawlessly. Не turned into one of the best readers overnight. Shocked, I looked back to see the book closed in front of him. The kid suffered from severe
conalfisher 9y ago there was this guy in my class once, and he failed nearly every exam he did, When told he was being held back, he proceeded to launch a cyber attack on the school, took down the website, crashed all the computers, and deleted system 32 on many of the computers before it was stopped. Still have no clue how he did it, as it couldn't have been planned, he did it straight after being told he was being held back. 8 ...
welcometolarrytown 10y ago In a classical mechanics lecture, our lecturer wanders in and tells us about a girl he was walking behind whose pony tail was swinging back and forth. Не then proceeded to determine the resonant frequency of oscillation of the pony tail and the derive the forcing frequency of her walking to determine how close she was to oscillating her ponytail at resonance...like a baws. + 56 ...
 10y ago I met a guy at a research conference in September. Lets just say he got two PhD's at the same time (geology and oceanography) and started writing books immediately. The sheer volume of work he has done is staggering. If he isn't one of the ten smartest people alive today I'll donate a testicle. Не was also smart enough to convince the US Army to blow up a delta to see what happens. Не also advises the Pentagon on climate change. 33 ...
ma_demoiselle 9y ago I teach French, and I think I currently have one in my French 4 class. This kid is insane - she knows stuff that I've never explicitly taught (demonstrated on in-class assessments, so no Google Translate happening here. She's also not that kind of kid). She masters difficult grammatical concepts without even needing to practice them - all I have to say is, this is how and why you use the subjunctive and she gets it. Perfectly. Every time. In speech, in writing. Everything she does is meticulous, well-thought out, and above and beyond what I ask for. And she's like
 9y ago It is absolutely incredible just how wide the gap is between the lowest performer and the highest performer in a single classroom. I teach AP Physics among other things and one of my students got finished with his work 1/4th of the way through the class and gave everyone at his table answers just so he could talk with his friends about the partially relative nature of mathematics. It was fantastic to see. At a table right next to his, I had a student ask me, Why does NASA need money to build things if they are
judw1992 9y ago Helped teach a student at another high school who is an extremely talented art student. This kid has the ability to take something from concept to in front of you reality in less than a few hours. Не helped design and build an entire set for a play we did on a ridiculously small budget. What made him so smart is his ability to think through all of the logical steps of the process immediately. Не figured out the potential problems before they happened, and took steps to avoid them from the planning stages. To me, this
cbdhalkyard 7y ago I teach English to little kids in France, I had a 5 year old (who speaks English, French, and Russian) explain the International Phonetic Alphabet to me- names of symbols, sounds, and why it's useful. I don't know where to draw the genius line, but that kid was definitely something special. Also he was just the coolest little dude out. + 7.2K ...
 9y ago Found out my little brother (age 12) has a legit photographic memory. He's a big LOTR fan and knows an abnormal amount about the series. Whenever he answers questions about it he looks up and squints a bit. I asked him about it and it turns out that he is actually READING from the book in his head. Не can even jump to random page numbers. Не also knows a ridiculous amount of world history. I go to him when I need help with that. Sadly, he's adopted and we don't share the same genes. 785 ...
duckmunch 9y ago A kid in second grade already knew Algebra. Everyone knew he was smart. For April Fool's Day that year, our teacher decided to be cute and give us a pop quiz so she went to the 8th grade class and asked for an Algebra test. Made copies and handed them out to us. Some of the kids were freaking out and the teacher assured us that we already went over this. So, she left the room and some of the kids started crying. She came back in after a few minutes and said that it was just
ducks_be_jealous 9y ago My son, who is in the 7th grade, has a girlfriend. This girl is genuinely one of the smartest people I have ever met. She is polite, kind, and absolutely hilarious. She reads 4-5 books a day, and retains all of this information well. And not Twilight, either. Adult books, with subjects I can't even begin to comprehend. She learned French in about 2 months, or at least well enough to be able to converse with people who have been speaking the language their whole lives. She is an incredible actor, musician, and writer, and is always
Dr_Maulstein 9y ago My ex taught primary school, she gave her class a weekly spelling test and said anyone who bettered their score from last week would receive a a chocolate. Most kids got 15 or above out of 20 except for one kid who got 0. She said all the other kids made fun of him as kids would but he was strangely calm about it, didn't get stressed from the teasing as most kids would. Next test he got 1, same ordeal but received a chocolate as per the rules, next week 2, then 3, then 4 receiving
ChrisTheMyth 9y ago Gotta plug my dad in here. Had some friends over and just to mess around we asked him the definition of random words in the dictionary. We opened it to the I's and asked the definition of 10-12 letter, 3-4 syllable words. Not only did he nail all of them but most definitions were verbatim. When we got to the 10th word, he goes, the verb or the noun and we lost our shit. It was seriously ridiculous. We were freshmen in high school and could hardly pronounce the words we picked. Turns out he read the
Mark_Zajac 9y ago Edited 9y ago I knew two guys in undergraduate who would play mental chess. As they'd passed in the hall, one guy would say knight to queen three or whatever. The other guy would roll back his eyes for a second and then nod to acknowledge the move. Both guys then kept walking, in opposite directions. Later that day, when they passed again, the second guy would declare his counter-move. A game could last days and they never forgot where any of the pieces were. Each had a mental image of the board. Sure, they might have
- the . - done and simes PM DE dead the this Punch_Drunk_AA 9y ago I had a teacher in high school that using both hands could write a sentence starting from the beginning and end simultaneously. Не even split the middle word of the sentence. Не also spoke around five languages. + 5.2K ...
Scrappy_Larue 9y ago I was at my desk waiting to make a purchase over the phone, and I mentioned to a coworker that I always have to pull my credit card out. I should have this number memorized by now. Another coworker overheard that, and said, I know your Visa number, and spit it right out. After I got off the phone I asked him WTF - and he said he heard me say it a couple weeks earlier. Numbers just stick with him that way. I already knew he was a bright guy, but that took it up a notch. +
akpenguin 9y ago Not a person, but my parents' old dog. My mom would get bones from the butcher shop for their dog. They were long enough that the dog couldn't get all the marrow out of the center. The dog figured out that only my stepdad's truck was heavy enough to break them after experimenting with the other vehicles at the house. There was usually a bone in the same spot on the driveway every time I went home. + 1.4K ...
biologicalhighway 9y ago Не applied to the company Slack, never heard back from them. So over the weekend he recreated their entire program's code, turned the program into his resume, and sent it back to them on Monday. Proving that not only did he know their product inside and out, but that he also can recreate it in 2 days simply out of spite. Не is also building an entire hosting service for podcasts by himself, not too worried about it be successful, but just wants to prove how easy it is to build a good, functioning site that doesn't

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