Kim Ung-yong

Kim Ung-yong (born March 7, 1963) is a South Korean civil engineer and former child prodigy. Kim was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records under "Highest IQ"; the book gave the boy's score as about 210. Guinness retired the "Highest IQ" category in 1990 after concluding IQ tests were too unreliable to designate a single record holder.

Early life

Kim Ung-Yong was born in Hongje-dong, Gangneung, Gangwon, South Korea. His father is Kim Soo-Sun, a professor. He started speaking at the age of 6 months and was able to read Korean, Japanese, English, German and many other languages by his third birthday. By the time he was four years old, his father claimed Ung-Yong had memorized about 2000 words in both English and German. He was writing poetry in Korean and Chinese, and wrote two short books of essays and poems (less than 20 pages).

Early life

At age four he scored over 200 on an IQ test normally given to seven-year-olds.

An article was published about him in Look magazine. After reading the article, a teacher and students at Grant High School in Los Angeles began writing to him. In February 1967 his father applied for Kim to be enrolled at Grant High School.

Kim Ung

Kim Ung (16 October 1910/1912 in Gimcheon, North Gyeongsang – ?) was a North Korean general and vice-minister of defence. He was a member of the Yan'an faction.

Chinese military

Kim fled Korea to avoid the Japanese occupation, and was trained at the Whampoa Military Academy in the late 1920s or early 1930s. He became a communist and probably was on the Long March. During the late 1930s and the 1940s he was in the Eighth Route Army and became brigadier or divisional commander.

Korean war

On the outbreak of war, 25 June 1950, Kim was a lieutenant general commanding 1 Corps of the Korean People's Army (KPA). On the death in action of Lieutenant General Kong Kang Kim succeeded him as chief of staff to General Kim Ch'aek, front commander.

By 1951 Kim Ung was KPA front commander, succeeding Kim Ch'aek, who was purged for his failure at the Incheon Landing, Kim Ung held the post until the end of the war.

Post war

After the war Kim Ung was appointed vice defence minister of North Korea. In 1958 he was purged by Kim Il-sung, rehabilitated and purged again in 1978.

Terence Tao

Terence "Terry" Chi-Shen Tao FAA FRS (simplified Chinese: 陶哲轩; traditional Chinese: 陶哲軒; pinyin: Táo Zhéxuān) (born 17 July 1975, Adelaide), is an Australian-American mathematician who has worked in various areas of mathematics. He currently focuses on harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, algebraic combinatorics, arithmetic combinatorics, geometric combinatorics, compressed sensing and analytic number theory. As of 2015, he holds the James and Carol Collins chair in mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Tao was a co-recipient of the 2006 Fields Medal and the 2014 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics.

Tao maintains a personal mathematics blog, which has been said by Timothy Gowers to be "the undisputed king of all mathematics blogs".

Personal life

Family

Tao's father, Dr. Billy Tao (Chinese: 陶象國; pinyin: Táo Xiàngguó), was a paediatrician who born in Shanghai and earned a MBBS at University of Hong Kong in 1969. Tao's mother, Grace (Chinese:梁蕙蘭, English: Leung Wai-lan), is a Hongkonger who got first-class honours in physics and mathematics at HKU, too. She was a secondary school teacher of mathematics in Hong Kong. They met at the university while they were studying there. His parents are first generation immigrants from Hong Kong to Australia.

World record

A world record is usually the best global performance ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill or sport. The book Guinness World Records collates and publishes notable records of all types, from first and best to worst human achievements, to extremes in the natural world and beyond. The website RecordSetter has begun to take on the same territory, but with a more inclusive policy, as users submit videos of record attempts in order to try to receive a world record. The website challengers.guinnessworldrecords.com is similar to RecordSetter, as the record attempts are judged by Guinness World Records adjudicators, but the records to attempt are provided beforehand.

Terminology

In the United States the form World's Record was formerly more common. The term World Best was also briefly in use. The latter term is still used in athletics events, including track and field and road running) to describe good and bad performances not recognized as an official world record: either because the event is a non-qualifying event (e.g. the 150 m run or individual events in a decathlon), or because it does not fulfil other criteria of an otherwise qualifying event (e.g. the Great North Run half-marathon, which has an excessive downhill gradient). The term is also used in video game speedrunning when someone achieves the fastest possible time for the game and category.

Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records, known from its inception in 1955 until 1998 as The Guinness Book of Records and in previous U.S. editions as The Guinness Book of World Records, is a reference book published annually, listing world records, both human achievements and the extremes of the natural world. The book itself holds a world record, as the best-selling copyrighted book of all time. It is one of the most frequently stolen books from public libraries in the United States. As of the 2016 edition, it is now in its 62nd year of publication. The international franchise has extended beyond print to include television series and museums. The popularity of the franchise has resulted in Guinness World Records becoming the primary international authority on the cataloguing and verification of a huge number of world records; the organization employs official record adjudicators authorised to verify the authenticity of the setting and breaking of records.

History

On 10 November 1951, Sir Hugh Beaver, then the managing director of the Guinness Breweries, went on a shooting party in the North Slob, by the River Slaney in County Wexford, Ireland. After missing a shot at a golden plover, he became involved in an argument over which was the fastest game bird in Europe, the golden plover or the red grouse (it is the plover). That evening at Castlebridge House, he realised that it was impossible to confirm in reference books whether or not the golden plover was Europe's fastest game bird. Beaver knew that there must be numerous other questions debated nightly in pubs throughout Ireland and abroad, but there was no book in the world with which to settle arguments about records. He realised then that a book supplying the answers to this sort of question may prove successful.