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Quipu

Quipu [pron. "kwee-poo"; "kee-poo"]: Peruvian "object-writing" of Incas, historical records kept by placing knots in a flail-like apparatus consisting of many secondary and tertiary cords attached to a long rope; kind of magazine produced by high-I.Q. associations, esp. Point Two Six society.
 

 

The term genius commonly is used to refer to those who manifest very superior general intelligence (often defined as 140 or greater) and who have demonstrated their superiority through an unusually high level of achievement in an intellectually demanding pursuit.

Encyclopaedia Britannica

 

The most intelligent man in the world has not worked for two years. His last job was at Rockhampton's Capricornia Institute of Advanced Education washing cars and clearing out rubbish bins.
Now Christopher P. Harding sleeps most of the day and spends his nights sitting toothlessly in a bedroom of his retired parents' home . . . Each night Joyce and Phillip Harding are bathed by the glow of the television set in the kitchen while down the corridor their 40-year old son programs his computer or furiously writes in his bedroom beneath a row of bookshelves . . .

On page 17 of the '1985 Guinness Book of Records' Harding is listed under 'Highest IQ' with a score of 197 on the Stanford-Binet scale.
 . . .The high IQ world is replete with pecking order and status. The clever members have broken away from various mainstream organisations to set up their own movements, much like bickering Christian sects. Harding talks of such groups as the Triple Nine Society, the Four Sigma Society and Intertel as though everyone knows of them.

He has taken shelter in, and is sustained by, a world community of higher intelligence . . . They write their strange and wonderful ideas on all manner of things and include autobiographical sketches to encourage exchanges between each other in their magazine . . .

The Age Saturday Extra, 15 June 1985
 

Terry Tao is at once very young and very old. Physically he is a rather diminutive nine-year old from Adelaide.

Sport is not his strong point (ping-pong is about the extent of it). But mentally he is a prodigy with an IQ that has been put at 221.

Of course, that is not an exact figure. Even those who put their faith in IQ tests concede that going above 200 is to enter uncharted territory. With Terry, the needle is flickering at the edge of the scale.

Terry is the son of Adelaide pediatrician Dr. Billy Tao and his wife, Grace, a physics and maths graduate from Hong Kong University. They came to Australia in 1972.

Dr. Tao has taken a look at some of the dangers: "In personality, he might become rather arrogant and rude by asking difficult questions and taking joy in other people's embarrassment . . .

"He might decide to pull out, and not do any further study as might have been planned. He may deliberately avoid taking up a conventional job with a career structure, and perhaps join the radical fringe, or the unemployed.

"He might burn out completely and lose his brilliance, creativity and productivity."
At the moment, it does not seem likely. In America recently he was asked what it was like being questioned by some of the best minds in the nation. He replied: "Sometimes I ask them questions back."

The Weekend Australian Magazine, 15 June 1985

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