Kim Ung-yong

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This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons
that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (June 2012)
This is a Korean name; the family name is Kim.

Kim Ung-yong
Hangul

Hanja

Revised Romanization

Gim Ung-yong

McCuneReischauer

Kim Ung'yong

Kim Ung-Yong (born March 8, 1962) is a Korean former child prodigy. Kim was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records under "Highest IQ"; the book
estimated the boy's score at about 210.[1]
Shortly after birth, Kim began to display extraordinary fluency in Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, German, and English by his second birthday.[2]Furthermore,
it took him about a month to learn a foreign language. After 8 months he learned concepts of algebra and could understand concepts of differential calculus.
At the age of five, on November 2, 1967, he solved complicated differential and integral calculus problems on Japanese television. Even in early childhood,
he began to write poetry and was an amazing painter.[3]
Kim was a guest student of physics at Hanyang University auditing courses from the age of 4 until he was 7. In 1970, at the age of 8, he was invited to
the United States by NASA, where he finished his university studies. In 1974, during his university studies, he began his research work at NASA and
continued this work until his return to Korea in 1978. [4]
Back in Korea, he decided to switch from physics to civil engineering and received a doctorate in that field [5]. He eventually published about 90 papers
on hydraulics in scientific journals.[4] As of 2007 he also serves as adjunct faculty at Chungbuk National University.

John H. Sununu
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Jump to: navigation, search

John H. Sununu

75th Governor of New Hampshire

In office
January 6, 1983 January 4, 1989

Preceded by

Vesta M. Roy
as Acting Governor

Succeeded by

Judd Gregg

14th White House Chief of Staf

In office
January 20, 1989 December 15, 1991
President

George H.W. Bush

Preceded by

Ken Duberstein

Succeeded by

Samuel K. Skinner

Chair of the Republican Party of New

Hampshire
In office
January 17, 2009 January 22, 2011
Preceded by

Fergus Cullen

Succeeded by

Jack Kimball

Personal details
John Henry Sununu
Born

July 2, 1939 (age 73)

Havana, Cuba

Political party

Republican

Profession

Mechanical engineer

Religion

Maronite Catholic

John Henry Sununu (born July 2, 1939) served as the 75th Governor of New Hampshire (198389) and later White House Chief of
Staff under President George H. W. Bush. He is the father of John E. Sununu, a former senator from New Hampshire. Sununu was the
chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party from 2009 to 2011.

Contents
[hide]

1 Early life

2 Governor

3 White House Chief of Staf

4 Television

5 Political positions

6 Business

7 Personal life

8 Controversies

9 In pop culture

10 References

11 External links

[edit] Early life

Sununu was born in Havana, Cuba, the son of Victoria (ne Dada) and John Saleh Sununu, an international film distributor.[1] He is of
Maronite and Greek descent [2]. His father grew up in the Ottoman Empire's Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem and his mother was born in San
Salvador, El Salvador, as part of the mass exodus of Ottoman subjects seeking a better life abroad.[2][3] He is a Maronite Catholic.
He earned a bachelor of science degree in 1961, a master of science degree in 1963, and a Ph.D. in 1966 from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, all in mechanical engineering. Sununu is a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity.
From 1968 until 1973, he was Associate Dean of the College of Engineering at Tufts University and Associate Professor of Mechanical
Engineering. He served on the Advisory Board of the Technology and Policy Program at MIT from 1984 until 1989.
A Republican, Sununu served in the New Hampshire House of Representatives from 1973 to 1975.

[edit] Governor
Sununu became New Hampshire's 75th Governor on January 6, 1983, and served three consecutive terms. He served as chairman of the
Coalition of Northeastern Governors, the Republican Governors Association and, in 1987, the National Governors Association.

[edit] White House Chief of Staf

Sununu was the first White House Chief of Staff for George H. W. Bush, serving from 1989 to 1991.
Sununu is considered to have engineered Bush's mid-term abandonment of his 1988 campaign promise of "no new taxes".[4]
Sununu is responsible for recommending David Souter to President George H. W. Bush for appointment to the Supreme Court of the
United States, at the behest of New Hampshire senator Warren Rudman. The Wall Street Journal described the events leading up to the
appointment of the "liberal jurist" in a 2000 editorial, saying Rudman in his "Yankee Republican liberalism" took "pride in recounting
how he sold Mr. Souter to gullible White House chief of staff John Sununu as a confirmable conservative. Then they both sold the judge
to President Bush, who wanted above all else to avoid a confirmation battle [after Robert Bork]."[5] Rudman wrote in his memoir that he
had "suspected all along" that Souter would not "overturn activist liberal precedents."[6] Sununu later said that he had "a lot of
disappointment" about Souter's positions on the Court and would have preferred him to be more similar to Justice Antonin Scalia.[6]

President Bush speaks on the telephone regarding Operation Just Cause with Sununu and Brent Scowcroft, 1989.

Time magazine dubbed Sununu "Bush's Bad Cop" on the front cover on May 21, 1990.[7]
At the recommendation of George W. Bush,[8] Sununu resigned his White House post on December 4, 1991.[9][10]

[edit] Television
Sununu co-hosted CNN's nightly Crossfire from March 1992 until February 1998.

[edit] Political positions

Sununu holds deeply conservative economic and social views[11] and as an engineer, he supports the expansion of nuclear energy. He is
consistently against the imposition of new taxes.[11]

[edit] Business
From 1963 until 1983, he served as President of JHS Engineering Company and Thermal Research Inc. In addition, he helped establish
and served as chief engineer for Astro Dynamics Inc. from 1960 until 1965.
Sununu is President of JHS Associates, Ltd. and is a partner in Trinity International Partners, a private financial firm.
Sununu is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a member of the Board of Trustees for the George (H.W.) Bush
Presidential Library Foundation.
He is also a member of Honorary Council of Advisors for U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (USACC).[12]

[edit] Personal life

He is married to the former Nancy Hayes, and they have eight children, including former U.S. Senator John E. Sununu. In recent years,
he moved to Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. He and his wife were subsequently elected as the town's honorary hog reeves and
poundkeepers.[13]
Sununu has met the eligibility requirements for the Mega Society, the world's most exclusive high-IQ society, which accepts only those
who score in the 99.9999th percentile on IQ tests (Mensa, for example, accepts the top 2 percent).[14]
Sununu's daughter Cathy is the president of the Portsmouth Museum of Art in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.[15]

[edit] Controversies
Sununu angered some when he was the only governor of a U.S. state not to call for repeal of the controversial UN General Assembly
Resolution 3379 ("Zionism is Racism"). He later reversed his position on this issue and supported the Republicans' pro-Israel 1988
platform.[11]
As White House Chief of Staff, Sununu reportedly took personal trips, for skiing and other purposes, and classified them as official, for
purposes such as conservation or promoting the Thousand Points of Light.[16] The Washington Post wrote that Sununu's jets "took him to
fat-cat Republican fund-raisers, ski lodges, golf resorts and even his dentist in Boston."[16] Sununu had paid the government only $892 for
his more than $615,000 worth of military jet travel.[17] Sununu said that his use of the jets was necessary because he had to be near a
telephone at all times for reasons of national security.[18] Sununu became the subject of much late-night television humor over the
incident.[16] Sununu worsened the situation shortly afterwards when, after leaking rumors of financial difficulties in his family, he traveled
to a rare stamp auction at Christie's auction house in New York City from Washington in a government limousine, spending $5,000 on
rare stamps.[19] Sununu then sent the car and driver back to Washington unoccupied while he returned on a corporate jet.[19] In the course
of one week, 45 newspapers ran editorials on Sununu, nearly all of them critical of his actions.[20]
Sununu repaid over $47,000 to the government for the flights on the orders of White House counsel C. Boyden Gray, with the help of the
Republican Party.[21] However, the reimbursements were at commercial rates, which are about one-tenth the cost of the actual flights; one
ski trip to Vail, Colorado alone had cost taxpayers $86,330.[22]

[edit] In pop culture

The 1991 police comedy film The Naked Gun 2: The Smell of Fear features Sununu who is played by Peter Van Norden.
Sununu's travel scandal was mentioned at least four times on Mystery Science Theater 3000, once during the fourth-season episode
Monster A Go-Go[23], in the season 6 episode The Starfighters[24], in the season 8 episode The Deadly Mantis, and then again during
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie[25], although all were variations on the same joke: A jet is seen flying through the sky, and one
of the characters, usually Tom Servo, remarks that Sununu is (frivolously) using the vehicle to travel to get a haircut or a golf game.
Sununu is featured in a "Dilbert" comic strip in which Dilbert suggests that Dogbert not start frothing at the mouth and barking whenever
attractive women are near. Dogbert responds with, "That's my John Sununu impression."[26] In 2011, The Onion ran a piece attributed to
Sununu in which he tries to remember what he had once been famous for.[27]

Keith Raniere
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Keith Raniere

Born

Brooklyn, New York

Alma

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

mater
Occupati
on
Known f

Co-Founder, NXIVM

Philosopher, Entrepreneur,

or

Educator
Website
Keith Raniere page

Keith Raniere (born 1950) is an American entrepreneur and founder of NXIVM, a controversial organization in upstate New York
frequently referred to as being a cult-like organization.[1] Large amounts of scrutiny and criticism have been written about Raniere.[2]
Raniere has also been noted for his high IQ.[3]

Contents
[hide]

1 Early life and education

2 Intellectual accomplishments

3 Career

4 References

[edit] Early life and education

Raniere is the son of a New York City adman and a mother who taught ballroom dancing; he grew up in Suffern, New York after having
spent his first five years in Brooklyn.[1][4] He arrived in the Albany area at the age of 16, around the time his mother died, to attend the
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1981. There Raniere triple-majored in math, physics, and biology with minors in psychology and
philosophy, and earned a BS in Biology.[1][4][5]

[edit] Intellectual accomplishments

In 1988, a test developed by New York philosopher Ron Hoeflin and printed in Omni magazine placed his IQ at between 188 and 194
(Hoeflin confirms the result).[1] At the age of 27, Raniere was accepted as a member of the Mega Society, a high-IQ society with a
minimum requirement at the one-in-a-million level. Raniere gained recognition for answering correctly all but two questions on a 48question, self- administered test, stating Raniere "moved up to the rarified one-in-10-million level."[3] Participants are encouraged to take
as much time as needed on the test, with some taking up to a year to complete it. Raniere was able to finish his within two weeks.[3] The
IQ test Hoeflin devised has been severely criticized by professional reviewers of psychological tests.[6]
Raniere holds a number of varied patents in technology, architecture, and manufacturing; many are related directly to his work at
NXIVM.[7]

[edit] Career
In 1998, Raniere and associate Nancy Salzman founded NXIVM, a company offering "Executive Success Programs".[8] In 2007, Raniere
founded A Capella Innovations.[9] Raniere founded World Ethical Foundations Consortium, an organization that brought the Dalai Lama
to New York to deliver a public address on Compassionate Ethics in Difficult Times.[9]

Christopher Langan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For the actor and writer, see Chris Langham.

Christopher Langan
Born

c. 1952 (age 5960)

American

Nationality
Home town

Bozeman, Montana

Height

5'11

Spouse

Gina Langan

Christopher Michael Langan (born c. 1952) is an American autodidact whose IQ was reported by 20/20 and other media sources to
have been measured at between 195 and 210.[1] Billed by some media sources as "the smartest man in America",[2] he rose to prominence
in 1999 while working as a bouncer on Long Island. Langan has developed his own "theory of the relationship between mind and reality"
which he calls the "Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU)".[3][4]

[edit] Biography
Langan was born in San Francisco, California, and spent most of his early life in Montana. His mother was the daughter of a wealthy
shipping executive but was cut off from her family; his father died or disappeared before he was born.[5] He began talking at six months,
taught himself to read before he was four, and was repeatedly skipped ahead in school. But he grew up in poverty and says he was beaten
by his stepfather from when he was almost six to when he was about fourteen.[6] By then Langan had begun weight training, and forcibly
ended the abuse, throwing his stepfather out of the house and telling him never to return.[7]
Langan says he spent the last years of high school mostly in independent study, teaching himself "advanced math, physics, philosophy,
Latin and Greek, all that".[8] After, he earned a perfect score on the SAT, despite taking a nap during the test.[6] Langan attended Reed
College and later Montana State University, but faced with financial and transportation problems, and believing that he could teach his
professors more than they could teach him, he dropped out.[8]
He took a string of labor-intensive jobs, and by his mid-40s had been a construction worker, cowboy, forest service firefighter, farmhand,
and, for over twenty years, a bouncer on Long Island. He says he developed a "double-life strategy": on one side a regular guy, doing his
job and exchanging pleasantries, and on the other side coming home to perform equations in his head, working in isolation on his
Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe.[8]
Wider attention came in 1999, when Esquire magazine published a profile of Langan and other members of the high-IQ community.[8]
Billing Langan as "the smartest man in America", Mike Sager's account of the weight-lifting bouncer and his CTMU "Theory of
Everything" sparked a flurry of media interest. Board-certified neuropsychologist Dr. Robert Novelly tested Langan's IQ for 20/20, which
reported that Langan broke the ceiling of the test. Novelly was said to be astounded, saying: "Chris is the highest individual that I have
ever measured in 25 years of doing this."[6]
Articles and interviews highlighting Langan appeared in Popular Science,[9] The Times,[7] Newsday,[10] Muscle & Fitness (which reported
that he could bench press 500 pounds),[11] and elsewhere. Langan was featured on 20/20,[6] interviewed on BBC Radio[12] and on Errol
Morris's First Person,[13] and participated in an online chat at ABCNEWS.com.[14] He has written question-and-answer columns for New
York Newsday,[15] The Improper Hamptonian,[16] and Men's Fitness.[17]
In 2004, Langan moved with his wife Gina (ne LoSasso), a clinical neuropsychologist, to northern Missouri, where he owns and
operates a horse ranch.[18] On January 25, 2008, Langan was a contestant on NBC's 1 vs. 100, where he won $250,000.
In 1999 Langan and his wife, Gina LoSasso, formed a non-profit corporation called the "Mega Foundation" to "create and implement
programs that aid in the development of extremely gifted individuals and their ideas."[19] In addition to his writings at the Foundation,
Langan's media exposure at the end of the 1990s invariably included some discussion of his "Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the
Universe" (often referred to by Langan as "CTMU"), and he was reported by Popular Science in 2001 to be writing a book about his
work called Design for a Universe.[9] He has been quoted as saying that "you cannot describe the universe completely with any accuracy
unless you're willing to admit that it's both physical and mental in nature"[11] and that his CTMU "explains the connection between mind
and reality, therefore the presence of cognition and universe in the same phrase".[14] He calls his proposal "a true 'Theory of Everything', a
cross between John Archibald Wheeler's 'Participatory Universe' and Stephen Hawking's 'Imaginary Time' theory of cosmology."[8] In
conjunction with his ideas, Langan has claimed that "you can prove the existence of God, the soul and an afterlife, using mathematics."[6]
Langan is a fellow of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID),[20] a professional society which
promotes intelligent design,[21] and has published a paper on his CTMU in the society's online journal Progress in Complexity,
Information, and Design in 2002.[22] Later that year, he presented a lecture on his CTMU at ISCID's Research and Progress in Intelligent
Design (RAPID) conference.[23] In 2004, Langan contributed a chapter to Uncommon Dissent, a collection of essays that question
evolution and promote intelligent design, edited by ISCID cofounder and leading intelligent design proponent William Dembski.[24]
Asked about creationism, Langan has said:
I believe in the theory of evolution, but I believe as well in the allegorical truth of creation theory. In other words, I believe that
evolution, including the principle of natural selection, is one of the tools used by God to create mankind. Mankind is then a participant in
the creation of the universe itself, so that we have a closed loop. I believe that there is a level on which science and religious metaphor
are mutually compatible.[14]

Langan explains on his website that he believes "since Biblical accounts of the genesis of our world and species are true but
metaphorical, our task is to correctly decipher the metaphor in light of scientific evidence also given to us by God". He explains
In explaining this relationship, the CTMU shows that reality possesses a complex property akin to self-awareness. That is, just as the
mind is real, reality is in some respects like a mind. But when we attempt to answer the obvious question "whose mind?", the answer
turns out to be a mathematical and scientific definition of God. This implies that we all exist in what can be called "the Mind of God",
and that our individual minds are parts of God's Mind. They are not as powerful as God's Mind, for they are only parts thereof; yet, they
are directly connected to the greatest source of knowledge and power that exists. This connection of our minds to the Mind of God, which
is like the connection of parts to a whole, is what we sometimes call the soul or spirit, and it is the most crucial and essential part of being
human.[25]
Langan has said elsewhere that he does not belong to any religious denomination, explaining that he "can't afford to let [his] logical
approach to theology be prejudiced by religious dogma."[14] He calls himself "a respecter of all faiths, among peoples everywhere."[14]
He was profiled in Malcolm Gladwell's 2008 book Outliers: The Story of Success,[26] where Gladwell looks at the reasons behind why
Langan was unable to flourish in a university environment. Gladwell writes that although Langan "read deeply in philosophy,
mathematics, and physics" as he worked on the CTMU, "without academic credentials, he despairs of ever getting published in a
scholarly journal".[27] Gladwell's profile of Langan mainly portrayed him as an example of an individual who failed to realize his potential
in part because of poor social skills resulting from, in Gladwell's speculation, being raised in poverty.[28]

Marilyn vos Savant

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Jump to: navigation, search

Marilyn vos Savant

Marilyn Mach
Born

August 11, 1946 (age 65)

St. Louis, Missouri, United States

Occup
ation
Known
for
Spous
e

Author

Magazine column; Guinness

Records highest IQ

Robert Jarvik (1987-present)

Website
www.marilynvossavant.com

Marilyn vos Savant ( /vs svnt/; born August 11, 1946) is an American magazine columnist, author, lecturer, and playwright
who rose to fame through her listing in the Guinness Book of World Records under "Highest IQ". Since 1986 she has written "Ask
Marilyn", a Sunday column in Parade magazine in which she solves puzzles and answers questions from readers on a variety of subjects.

Contents
[hide]

1 Biography

2 Rise to fame and IQ score

3 "Ask Marilyn"

4 Errors in the column

5 Controversy regarding Fermat's last theorem

6 Famous columns
o

6.1 The Monty Hall problem

6.2 "Two boys" problem

7 Publications

8 References

9 External links

[edit] Biography
Vos Savant was born Marilyn Mach in St. Louis, Missouri, to Joseph Mach and Marina vos Savant, who had immigrated to the United
States from Germany and Italy respectively. Vos Savant believes that both men and women should keep their premarital surnames for
life, with sons taking their fathers' surnames and daughters their mothers'.[1] The word "savant", meaning a person of learning, appears
twice in her family: her maternal grandmother's maiden name was Savant, while her maternal grandfather's surname was vos Savant. Vos
Savant is of Italian, German,[2] and Austrian ancestry she is a descendant of physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach.[3]
As a teenager, vos Savant spent her time working in her father's general store and enjoyed writing and reading. She sometimes wrote
articles and subsequently published them under a pseudonym in the local newspaper, stating that she did not want to misuse her name for
work that she perceived to be imperfect. When she was sixteen years old, vos Savant married a university student, but the marriage ended
in a divorce when she was in her twenties. Her second marriage ended when she was 35.[citation needed]
Vos Savant studied philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis despite her parents' desire for her to pursue a more useful subject.
After two years, she dropped out to help with a family investment business, seeking financial freedom to pursue a career in writing.
Vos Savant moved to New York City in the 1980s. Before her weekly column in Parade, vos Savant wrote the Omni I.Q. Quiz Contest
for Omni, which contained "I.Q. quizzes" and expositions on intelligence and intelligence testing.
Vos Savant married her third husband, Robert Jarvik (one of the developers of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart), in 1987 and lives with him in
New York City. Vos Savant was Chief Financial Officer of Jarvik Heart, Inc. She has served on the Board of Directors of the National
Council on Economic Education, on the advisory boards of the National Association for Gifted Children and the National Women's
History Museum,[4] and as a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.[5] She was named by Toastmasters International as one of the
"Five Outstanding Speakers of 1999", and in 2003 received an honorary Doctor of Letters from The College of New Jersey.

[edit] Rise to fame and IQ score

In 1985, Guinness Book of World Records accepted vos Savant's IQ score of 190 and gave her the record for "Highest IQ (Women)." She
was listed in that category from 1986 to 1989.[6] She was inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records Hall of Fame in 1988.[6][7]
Guinness retired the category of "Highest IQ" in 1990, after concluding that IQ tests are not reliable enough to designate a single world
record holder.[6] The listing gave her nationwide attention and instigated her rise to fame.[6]
Guinness cites vos Savant's performance on two intelligence tests, the Stanford-Binet and the Mega Test. She was administered the 1937
Stanford-Binet, Second Revision test at age ten,[2] which obtained ratio IQ scores (by dividing the subject's mental age as assessed by the
test by chronological age, then multiplying the quotient by 100). Vos Savant claims her first test was in September 1956, and measured
her ceiling mental age at 22 years and 10 months (22-10+), yielding an IQ of 228.[2] This alleged IQ calculation of 228 was listed in
Guinness Book of World Records, listed in the short biographies in her books and is the one she gives in interviews. Sometimes, a
rounded value of 230 appears.
Ronald K. Hoeflin calculated her IQ at 218 by using 106+ for chronological age and 2211+ for mental age.[2] The Second Revision
Stanford-Binet ceiling was 22 years and 10 months, not 11 months. A 10 years and 6 months chronological age corresponds to neither the
age in accounts by vos Savant nor the school records cited by Baumgold.[8] She has commented on reports mentioning varying IQ scores
she was said to have obtained.[9]

Alan S. Kaufman, a psychology professor and an author of IQ tests, writes in IQ Testing 101 that "Miss Savant was given an old version
of the Stanford-Binet (Terman & Merrill 1937), which did, indeed, use the antiquated formula of MA/CA 100. But in the test manual's
norms, the Binet does not permit IQs to rise above 170 at any age, child or adult. And the authors of the old Binet stated: 'Beyond fifteen
the mental ages are entirely artificial and are to be thought of as simply numerical scores.' (Terman & Merrill 1937).... the psychologist
who came up with an IQ of 228 committed an extrapolation of a misconception, thereby violating almost every rule imaginable
concerning the meaning of IQs."[10]
The second test reported by Guinness was the Mega Test, designed by Ronald K. Hoeflin, administered to vos Savant in the mid-1980s as
an adult. The Mega Test yields deviation IQ values obtained by multiplying the subject's normalized z-score, or the rarity of the raw test
score, by a constant standard deviation, and adding the product to 100, with vos Savant's raw score reported by Hoeflin to be 46 out of a
possible 48, with 5.4 z-score, and standard deviation of 16, arriving at a 186 IQ in the 99.999996 percentile, with a rarity of 1 in
26 million.[11] The Mega Test has been criticized by professional psychologists as improperly designed and scored, "nothing short of
number pulverization."[12]
Although vos Savant's IQ scores are high, the more extravagant sources, stating that she is the smartest person in the world and was a
child prodigy, are received with skepticism.[13] Vos Savant herself says she values IQ tests as measurements of a variety of mental
abilities and believes intelligence itself involves so many factors that "attempts to measure it are useless."[14] Vos Savant has held
memberships with the high-IQ societies Mensa International and the Prometheus Society.[15]

[edit] "Ask Marilyn"

Vos Savant is most widely known for her weekly column in Parade, "Ask Marilyn". Vos Savant's listing in the 1986 Guinness Book of
World Records brought her widespread media attention. Parade ran a profile of vos Savant with a selection of questions from Parade
readers and her answers. Parade continued to receive questions, so "Ask Marilyn" was made into a weekly column.
In "Ask Marilyn", vos Savant answers questions from readers on a wide range of chiefly academic subjects, solves mathematical or
logical or vocabulary puzzles posed by readers, occasionally answers requests for advice with logic, and includes quizzes and puzzles
devised by vos Savant. Aside from the weekly printed column, "Ask Marilyn" is a daily online column which supplements the printed
column by resolving controversial answers, correcting mistakes, expanding answers, reposting previous answers, and answering
additional questions.
Three of her books (Ask Marilyn, More Marilyn, and Of Course, I'm for Monogamy) are compilations of questions and answers from
"Ask Marilyn"; and The Power of Logical Thinking includes many questions and answers from the column.

[edit] Errors in the column

On 22 January 2012 vos Savant admitted a mistake in her column. The original column was published on 25 December 2011, when a
reader asked:
I manage a drug-testing program for an organization with 400 employees. Every three months, a random-number
generator selects 100 names for testing. Afterward, these names go back into the selection pool. Obviously, the
probability of an employee being chosen in one quarter is 25 percent. But what is the likelihood of being chosen over
the course of a year?
Jerry Haskins, Vicksburg, Miss.

Marilyn's response was:

The probability remains 25 percent, despite the repeated testing. One might think that as the number of tests grows, the likelihood of
being chosen increases, but as long as the size of the pool remains the same, so does the probability. Goes against your intuition, doesn't
it?
The correct answer is around 68%, calculated as the complementary of the probability of not being chosen in any of the four quarters: 10.754.[16]

[edit] Controversy regarding Fermat's last theorem

A few months after the announcement by Andrew Wiles that he had proved Fermat's Last Theorem, vos Savant published her book The
World's Most Famous Math Problem in October 1993.[17] The book surveys the history of Fermat's last theorem as well as other
mathematical mysteries. Controversy came from the book's criticism of Wiles' proof; vos Savant was accused of misunderstanding
mathematical induction, proof by contradiction, and imaginary numbers.[18]
Her assertion that Wiles' proof should be rejected for its use of non-Euclidean geometry was especially contested. Specifically, she argued
that because "the chain of proof is based in hyperbolic (Lobachevskian) geometry", and because squaring the circle is considered a
"famous impossibility" despite being possible in hyperbolic geometry, then "if we reject a hyperbolic method of squaring the circle, we
should also reject a hyperbolic proof of Fermat's last theorem."
Mathematicians pointed to differences between the two cases, distinguishing the use of hyperbolic geometry as a tool for proving
Fermat's last theorem and from its use as a setting for squaring the circle: squaring the circle in hyperbolic geometry is a different
problem from that of squaring it in Euclidean geometry. She was criticized for rejecting hyperbolic geometry as a satisfactory basis for
Wiles' proof, with critics pointing out that axiomatic set theory (rather than Euclidean geometry) is now the accepted foundation of

mathematical proofs and that set theory is sufficiently robust to encompass both Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry as well as
geometry and adding numbers.
In a July 1995 addendum to the book, vos Savant retracts the argument, writing that she had viewed the theorem as "an intellectual
challenge 'to find a proof with Fermat's tools.'" Fermat claimed to have a proof he couldn't fit in the margins where he wrote his
theorem. If he really had a proof, it would presumably be Euclidean. Therefore, Wiles may have proven the theorem but Fermat's proof
remains undiscovered, if it ever really existed. She is now willing to agree that there are no restrictions on what tools may be used.

[edit] Famous columns

[edit] The Monty Hall problem
Main article: Monty Hall problem

Perhaps the best-known event involving vos Savant began with a question in her 9 September 1990 column:
Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car, behind the
others, goats. You pick a door, say #1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say #3,
which has a goat. He says to you, "Do you want to pick door #2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of
doors?
Craig F. Whitaker Columbia, Maryland, [19]

This question is referred to as "the Monty Hall problem" because of its similarity to scenarios on the game show Let's Make a Deal, and
its answer existed long before being posed to vos Savant, but was used in her column. Vos Savant answered arguing that the selection
should be switched to door #2 because it has a 23 chance of success, while door #1 has just 13. Or to summarise, 23 of the time the opened
door #3 will indicate the location of door with the car (the door you hadn't picked and the one not opened by the host). Only 13 of the
time will the opened door #3 mislead you into changing from the winning door to a losing door. These probabilities assume you change
your choice each time door #3 is opened, and that the host always opens a door with a goat. This response provoked letters of thousands
of readers, nearly all arguing doors #1 and #2 each have an equal chance of success. A follow-up column reaffirming her position served
only to intensify the debate and soon became a feature article on the front page of The New York Times. Among the ranks of dissenting
arguments were hundreds of academics and mathematicians.[20]
Under the "standard" version of the problem, the host always opens a losing door and offers a switch. In the standard version, vos
Savant's answer is correct. However, the statement of the problem as posed in her column is ambiguous.[21] The answer depends upon
what strategy the host is following. For example, if the host operates under a strategy of only offering a switch if the initial guess is
correct, it would clearly be disadvantageous to accept the offer. If the host merely selects a door at random, the question is likewise very
different from the standard version. Vos Savant addressed these issues by writing the following in Parade Magazine, "the original answer
defines certain conditions, the most significant of which is that the host always opens a losing door on purpose. Anything else is a
different question."[22]
In vos Savant's second followup, she went further into an explanation of her assumptions and reasoning, and called on school teachers to
present the problem to each of their classrooms. In her final column on the problem, she announced the results of more than a thousand
school experiments. Nearly 100% of the results concluded that it pays to switch. Of the readers who wrote computer simulations of the
problem, 97% reached the same conclusion. A majority of respondents now agree with her original solution, with half of the published
letters declaring the letter writers had changed their minds.[23]
Television's The Mythbusters weighed in on this problem in one of their episodes, confirming vos Savant's answer.
[edit] "Two boys" problem
Main article: Boy or Girl paradox

Like the Monty Hall problem, the "two boys" or "second-sibling" problem predates Ask Marilyn, but generated controversy in the
column,[24] first appearing there in 199192 in the context of baby beagles:
A shopkeeper says she has two new baby beagles to show you, but she doesn't know whether they're male, female,
or a pair. You tell her that you want only a male, and she telephones the fellow who's giving them a bath. "Is at least
one a male?" she asks him. "Yes!" she informs you with a smile. What is the probability that the other one is a male?
Stephen I. Geller, Pasadena, California

When vos Savant replied "One out of three", readers[citation needed] wrote to argue that the odds were fifty-fifty. In a follow-up, she defended
her answer, observing that "If we could shake a pair of puppies out of a cup the way we do dice, there are four ways they could land", in
three of which at least one is male, but in only one of which both are male.
The confusion arises here because the bather is not asked if the puppy he is holding is a male, but rather if either is a male. If the puppies
are labeled (A and B), each has a 50% chance of being male independently. This independence is restricted when it is stipulated that at
least A or B is male. Now, if A is not male, B must be male, and vice-versa. This restriction is introduced by the way the question is
structured and is easily overlooked misleading people to the erroneous answer of 50%. See Boy or Girl paradox for solution details.
The problem re-emerged in 199697 with two cases juxtaposed:
Say that a woman and a man (who are unrelated) each has two children. We know that at least one of the woman's children is a boy and
that the man's oldest child is a boy. Can you explain why the chances that the woman has two boys do not equal the chances that the man

has two boys? My algebra teacher insists that the probability is greater that the man has two boys, but I think the chances may be the
same. What do you think?
Vos Savant agreed with the algebra teacher, writing that the chances are only 1 out of 3 that the woman has two boys, but 1 out of 2 that
the man has two boys. Readers argued for 1 out of 2 in both cases, prompting multiple follow-ups. Finally, vos Savant started a survey,
calling on women readers (with exactly two children and at least one boy) and male readers (with exactly two childrenthe elder a boy)
to tell her the sex of both children. With almost eighteen thousand responses, the results showed 35.9% of them having two boys.[citation
needed][clarification needed]

Woman has

young boy, young girl,

older girl
older boy

Probability
:

1/3

2 boys

2 girls

1/3

2 boys

2 girls

1/2

1/3

Man has

young boy, young girl,

older girl
older boy

Probability
:

1/2

[edit] Publications

1985 Omni I.Q. Quiz Contest

1990 Brain Building: Exercising Yourself Smarter (co-written with Leonore Fleischer)

1992 Ask Marilyn: Answers to America's Most Frequently Asked Questions

1993 The World's Most Famous Math Problem: The Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem and Other Mathematical
Mysteries

1994 More Marilyn: Some Like It Bright!

1994 "I've Forgotten Everything I Learned in School!": A Refresher Course to Help You Reclaim Your Education

1996 Of Course I'm for Monogamy: I'm Also for Everlasting Peace and an End to Taxes

1996 The Power of Logical Thinking: Easy Lessons in the Art of Reasoningand Hard Facts about Its Absence
in Our Lives

2000 The Art of Spelling: The Madness and the Method

2002 Growing Up: A Classic American Childhood