They’re not the most beautiful songs, or the most musically important. But the following tunes have fundamentally altered the world we live in at some point in the last quarter century.f]]>

by Jennifer Drapkin, Kevin O’Donnell and Ky Henderson

They’re not the most beautiful songs, or the most musically important. In fact, a few could literally drive you nuts. But the following tunes—some as old as Mozart, others as current as Beyoncé—have fundamentally altered the world we live in at some point in the last quarter century. They’ve saved lives, brought glory to America, and gotten teenagers to use deodorant. Somehow, they’ve made a difference. So, ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for the ultimate power playlist. Let the countdown begin!

25. “The Magic Flute” (Mozart)

Music That Makes Sewage Disappear
For all the chatter about how Mozart makes your kids smarter (false!) or how it helps with the SATs (possibly), the one thing that Mozart definitely seems to do is make sludge-eating microbes digest faster. A sewage treatment plant in Treuenbrietzen, Germany, has experimented with different operas, playing them at high volume through loudspeakers set up around the site. “The Magic Flute” seems to work best. Anton Stucki, the plant’s chief operator, believes the reverberations quicken the pace for breaking down refuse. “We think the secret is in the vibrations of the music, which penetrate everything—including the water, the sewage, and the cells,” he says. “It creates a certain resonance that stimulates the microbes and help them work better.” Stucki doesn’t even like opera; he’s a rock ‘n’ roll fan. But he tolerates Mozart because it makes the microbes more efficient, saving the plant up to $1,250 a month.

24. “867-5309/Jenny” (Tommy Tutone)

The Drunk-Dialing Song
For nearly three decades, this single has been a gift to smashed college kids everywhere. Ever since the song was released in 1982, crank callers have been dialing 867-5309 and asking for “Jenny.” People who are unfortunate enough to be assigned the number can look forward to dozens of prank calls a day, depending on where they live.

A few people have managed to turn the digits to their advantage. In 2004, disc jockey Spencer Potter of Weehawken, N.J., discovered 867-5309 was available in his area code and picked it up, thinking it would be good for business. Almost immediately, Potter was overwhelmed by the volume of calls. So in February 2009, he sold it on eBay to Retro Fitness, a health club that felt the digits fit perfectly with its 1980s-nostalgia theme. In the end, Potter made $186,853.09—a number he could live with.

23. “I Will Always Love You” (Whitney Houston)

The Song That Showed Saddam’s Softer Side

© INA/Handout/Reuters/Corbis

You might think winning elections is easy for dictators—after all, they aren’t running against anyone. But there’s still pageantry involved, which Saddam Hussein took seriously. To win the hearts and minds of Iraqis in 2002, Hussein boldly chose as his campaign anthem an Arabic cover of Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You” (written by Dolly Parton). The song was played alongside footage of the dictator kissing babies, shooting guns, and striking heroic poses on Iraq’s three TV stations continuously during the election season. If that’s not proof Hussein tortured his own people, we don’t know what is.

22. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Nirvana)

The Tune That Revolutionized the Underarm Industry
Kurt Cobain claimed he didn’t know Teen Spirit was a brand of deodorant when he wrote Nirvana’s 1991 grunge anthem. In fact, the name of the song came from his apartment wall, where a friend had spray-painted “Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit.” But the song’s impact on the antiperspirant was undeniable. The product’s manufacturer, Mennen, came out with a new tagline: “Do you smell like Teen Spirit?” Sales of the deodorant skyrocketed, and Mennen quickly expanded its line of Teen Spirit products; six months after the song was released, Colgate-Palmolive bought the company for $670 million. Though grunge fans didn’t care so much about how they dressed, apparently they cared how they smelled.

21. “Gran Vals” (Francisco Tárrega)

The Sound that Ended Silence Forever
You may not realize it, but you know this tune all too well. Nokia introduced the 13-note piano phrase 20 years ago, creating the first ringtone. It’s estimated the passage is now heard 1.8 billion times around the world each day, about 20,000 times per second. The ringtone comes from “Gran Vals,” a 1902 guitar solo written by classical guitarist Francisco Tárrega. In 1993 the tune was hijacked by Nokia exec Anssi Vanjoki, who thought it would be the perfect default ring for the sleek, new half-pound Nokia 2110. Today, you’re not the only person tired of the tone. The search for alternate phone sounds has turned ringtones into a multi-billion dollar business.

20. “Panama” (Van Halen)

The Song That Toppled a Dictator
Sometimes music moves people. And sometimes it moves them out of hiding. In December 1989, the United States invaded Panama after dictator Manuel Noriega was publicly exposed as a drug czar. Noriega took refuge in the embassy of the Vatican on December 24, and American troops immediately surrounded the compound. To smoke him out without bombing the place, soldiers of the U.S. Southern Command Network Radio turned to Van Halen.

Loudspeakers were set up around the compound and the sonic blasting began. After 10 days of being assaulted by the rock group’s “Panama” and other songs at high decibel levels, Noriega decided that he’d rather be behind bars, and on January 3, 1990, he surrendered. He was convicted on eight counts of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering—all because he couldn’t handle a few power chords. Incidentally, the song isn’t even about the Central American country. Legend has it that it’s about lead singer David Lee Roth’s station wagon.

19. “Runaway Train” (Soul Asylum)

The Song That Proved Some Children Go Missing for a Reason

Few people pay attention to public service announcements, but back in 1992, lots of people watched music videos on MTV. So on paper, it seemed like a great idea to combine the two. For Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train,” director Tony Kaye made a video featuring missing children, hoping to find them. And it worked; the video located so many runaways that Kaye made six versions—three for the United States and one each for the United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany.

The problem was, when missing children turn up, the results aren’t always pretty. Some were found dead. Several others were forced to return home to horrible situations. In 2006, Soul Asylum guitarist Dan Murphy reflected on the consequences: “There’s a reason that young kids run away, mostly because of abuse,“ he told the Pasadena Weekly. “There were some happy results from [the video], but you have to resolve the situation that caused an 11- or 13-year-old to think the harsh world is better than their home.”

18. “Gates of Hades” (Nick Ashton)

The Sound of Getting Stoned
Sure, music can lift your spirits, but can it actually get you high? Plenty of U.S. teens claimed to be getting seriously buzzed after listening to “Gates of Hades,” a song that purportedly induced feelings in listeners ranging from pleasant dizziness to raging hallucinations. “Gates of Hades” and other tracks like it spawned a craze in 2010 called “i-Dosing.” Developed by Nick Ashton, the technology relies on “binaural beats,” in which a tone of one frequency is played into the right ear and a slightly different frequency is played into the left. Together, the tones supposedly synchronize brain waves, simulating such mental states as getting drunk, falling in love, or sexual arousal.

In 2010, i-Doser.com offered the song for free on YouTube as a sort of gateway drug, then sold additional tracks on their home page. According to Ashton, more than a million people paid for the songs that year alone. Before long, parents and authorities tried to kill the party; one Oklahoma City school went so far as to ban iPods in schools, so students couldn’t get high during homeroom. But it turns out parents didn’t have much to fear—though some teens claim to get buzzed off of i-Dosing, there’s no evidence to suggest it’s addictive or leads to using hard drugs. For the most part, it’s just noise.

17. “Better by You, Better Than Me” (Judas Priest)

The Song That Proved Subliminal Messaging Is Weak
Can a song drive you to suicide? In 1990, the heavy metal band Judas Priest was accused of prompting two drunk Reno, Nev., youths to shoot themselves after repeatedly listening to “Better By You, Better Than Me.” (One died instantly; the other survived after blowing half his face off.) Did the lyric “Do it,” allegedly hidden in the song, push them over the edge? Experts testified on both sides, but the judge dismissed the case, ruling, “The scientific research presented does not establish that subliminal stimuli, even if perceived, may precipitate conduct of this magnitude.” The precedent hasn’t been challenged since. As lead singer Rob Halford later noted, he had no reason to ask fans to commit suicide. If anything, he’d issue the command, “Buy more of our records.”

16. “The Cup of Life” (Ricky Martin)

The Song That Gave Pirates Courage Until the End
The pirate way to handle a death sentence is simple: booze and Ricky Martin. After being convicted of hijacking a ship and slaughtering its crew, 13 pirates were condemned to death in China in 2000. The morning of their execution, the pirates were given 30 minutes to visit with relatives, eat their last meal, and drink all the rice wine they could stomach. As they were led through the streets of Shanwei, the gang started loudly singing the 1998 World Cup theme—Ricky Martin’s “The Cup of Life.” In their final moments of drunken revelry, the pirates chanted, “Go! Go! Go! allez! allez! allez!”—the song’s refrain— and jumped up and down in their shackles. It was the best reception a Ricky Martin song had been given in years.

15. “Tom’s Diner” (Suzanne Vega)

The Song That Made Music Safe for the Internet
When compact discs were introduced in 1982, consumers marveled at the amount of information they could store. For every three-minute song, a CD uses about 32 megabytes of data. But that size proved to be unwieldy in the early, pokey days of the Internet. Using an old, dial-up modem, it might take eight hours to transfer or download a single song. So in the early 1990s, German engineer Dr. Karlheinz Brandenburg pioneered digital compression techniques for the MP3, crunching the size of audio data by a factor of 11. While tweaking the format, Brandenburg used Suzanne Vega’s 1987 a cappella rendition of “Tom’s Diner” as the benchmark for sonic quality. He reasoned that if he could get her warm vocals to sound good on MP3, then the new platform would work with just about anything. So, if you love downloading music, thank Vega for having such a pretty voice.

14. “Run the World (Girls)” (Beyoncé)

The Song That Woke up the Astronauts
As the astronauts of Atlantis orbited the Earth during NASA’s final space shuttle mission, they experienced 15 sunrises and sunsets every day. Consequently, their circadian rhythms were thrown off a little. Since a regular alarm clock just wouldn’t cut it, on July 16, 2011, the crew received a special wake-up call from R&B diva Beyoncé. The superstar got the astronauts out of bed with her girl-power anthem “Run the World (Girls).” Then she gave a shout-out to the only woman on the four-person crew, Sandy Magnus: “This song is especially for my girl Sandy, and all the women who’ve taken us to space with them, and the girls who are our future explorers.” Was it is a cheesy publicity stunt to promote her new album? You bet! But it beats waking up to a buzzer.

13. “As Slow as Possible” (John Cage)

The Song That’s Outliving Its Composer (and Everyone Else, Too)

© Jens Wolf/dpa/Corbis

Right now, in St. Burchardi church in Halberstadt, Germany, there’s an organ playing a song that has no end—in our lifetime, anyway. Even though the sheet music for minimalist composer John Cage’s “As Slow as Possible” is only eight pages long, the song will take 639 years to complete. It’s part of Cage’s larger exploration of how music exists in time and space; he wrote the piece for an organ because the pipes can last for thousands of years. A machine, called a blower, constantly supplies air, and a weight holds down the pedals. The first three-note chord, which was played in 2003, lasted for a year and a half. The church is committed to playing the song until it’s over. If you can’t wait for the full version, don’t worry: The club remix will drop any day now.

12. “Unforgettable” (Natalie Cole)

The Song That Brought the Dead Back to Life
In 1991, Natalie Cole decided to sing with her late father, Nat “King” Cole. The decision opened a virtual can of worms. New digital technology allowed her producers to electronically engineer the duet with the dead singer, basing it on Nat’s 1951 recording of “Unforgettable.” People argued that the production was unethical, and more than a little creepy—even Natalie’s mom publicly criticized her—but the controversy was eclipsed by the song’s success. The attendant album sold more than 7 million copies and swept the Grammys. Nowadays, everybody sings with dead people: Lisa Marie Presley croons with Elvis; Janet Jackson jams with Michael; and The Beatles reunited to record “Free as a Bird.” It turns out you don’t need a necromancer to communicate with the dead. You just need a decent producer.

11. “I’m Me” (Lil Wayne)

The Song That Won 8 Gold Medals
Back in 2008, Michael Phelps was the king of Beijing, setting the record for the most gold medals won at any Olympics. What was his secret? His 10,000-calorie-a-day diet? His flipperlike hands? Or perhaps … Lil Wayne? Before each race, Phelps would tune out the world and tune into his music, removing his iPod earbuds seconds before diving in. One Israeli doctor even went so far as to accuse him of doping because music so enhanced his performance. On The Today Show, Phelps shared that Lil Wayne’s “I’m Me” had a special place in his Olympic playlist. It’s easy to see how the lyrics “There ain’t nothin’ gonna stop me, so just envy it” might resonate with a young man about to race his way into sports history.

10. “Never Gonna Give You Up” (Rick Astley)

The Song That Made Every Link a Surprise Party
Rick Astley‘s huge 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” and its fantastically cheesy music video was meant to live and die in the 1980s, but that’s not what happened, thanks to an Internet prank dubbed “Rickrolling.” Say a coworker emails you a link to a news article or blog. You click on it, but—surprise!—you’re redirected to the video for “Never Gonna Give You Up.” One minute you think you’re about to read a story on health care, the next, a man lip-synching and wiggling in white jeans pops on your screen. The phenomenon began in 2008 on 4chan, but quickly spread across the Internet. Funny, right? Maybe the first dozen times it happens to you. In the last three years, the video has been viewed more than 50 million times.

Watch the Oregon House members Rickroll their colleagues. Explanation here. (OK, here.)

9. “The Drugs Don’t Work” (The Verve)

The Saddest Song, According to Science
It’s one thing to write a sad song; it’s another thing to pen a song so sad that it teaches scientists the meaning of melancholy. The verve’s 1997 dirge “The Drugs Don’t Work” is about lead singer Richard Ashcroft’s dad as he lay dying in his hospital bed. It’s so depressing that it may affect people physically. In 2006, Harry Witchel, a physiologist at the University of Bristol in England, examined the body’s response to pop music. Of all the songs he studied, “The Drugs Don’t Work” had the most profound impact, slowing down heart rates and breathing. “It works like the emotional state of sadness,” says Witchel.

8. “Pretty Woman” (2 Live Crew)

The Song That Made it Safe to be Weird Al
Parodies are tricky in the eyes of the law. While the First Amendment protects free speech, it’s not exactly legal (or cool) to copy somebody else’s work.

The boundaries of the law were put to the test in 1989, when the rap group 2 Live Crew revamped “Oh, Pretty Woman,” by Roy Orbison. The late singer’s publisher, Acuff-Rose Music, which had made a fortune licensing the ditty, was not amused by the filthy, expletive-laden rendition. The publisher sued 2 Live Crew, claiming the group had never been given permission to sample the song. The case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided in 2 Live Crew’s favor, ruling that the rap version was so different from the original that the group had essentially created a new product. Consequently, parody artists ranging from Weird Al Yankovic to Lez Zeppelin (the lesbian Led Zep cover band) don’t need to fear the law.

Perhaps the strangest result of the “Oh, Pretty Woman” case lies in Justice David Souter’s opinion. Souter appended the lyrics from 2 Live Crew’s song to his text. Lines like “Big hairy woman, you need to shave your stuff,” now reside in law libraries across the country.

7. “The Super Bowl Shuffle” (The Chicago Bears Shufflin’ Crew)

The Song That Gave a Beat to Jock Itch
The 1985-86 season was a good one for Da Bears. The Chicago team not only dominated the National Football league but also kicked off a strange musical revolution. The team was filled with larger than life characters, including cuddly 350-pound rookie lineman William “The Refrigerator” Perry and spikey-haired punk quarterback Jim McMahon. So it stood to reason, why not let ‘em rap?

The bravely cheesy “Super Bowl Shuffle” was the first hip-hop video ever created by a sports franchise, and it became a huge hit, receiving endless airtime and sales of more than half a million singles. (It was even nominated for a Grammy!) Sadly, it opened the floodgates wide for every pro sports team to rap, sing, chant, dance, and Auto-Tune their own song, giving rise to regrettable chestnuts like “Get Metsmerized” from the Mets and “Ram It” from the Rams.

6. “Gin and Juice” (Snoop Dogg)

The Song That Kicked off the Prepster Craze
On March 19, 1994, Snoop Dogg appeared on Saturday Night Live to perform his single “Gin and Juice.” Little did he know, he’d be starting a fashion frenzy. The next day, Manhattan stores sold out of the XXL-oversized red, white, and blue Tommy Hilfiger rugby shirt that Snoop wore on TV, and sales of Tommygear rose by $90 million that year. Although there were rumors that Hilfiger was displeased his preppy label had become an urban phenom, he actually courted the new demographic. Hilfiger tweaked his brand to give it a more hip-hop feel, adding brighter covers and giant logos. He even invited rappers Puffy and Coolio to walk the runway during fashion shows. Apparently, Snoop wasn’t the only one with his mind on his money and his money on his mind.

5. “Across the Universe” (The Beatles)

The First Song Aliens Will Hear
About four centuries from now, Beatlemania may spread to a galaxy far, far away. In February 2008, for the first time ever, NASA beamed a song, The Beatles’ “Across the Universe,” directly into deep space through the transmitters of its communications network, with the hope that it will fall upon alien ears. The pop tune should reach the North Star, Polaris, in about 431 years. John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, characterized the song’s transmission as a significant event: “I see that this is the beginning of the new age in which we will communicate with billions of planets,” she said. Let’s hope no aliens sample the tune—collecting royalties is going to be rough.

4. “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” (Radiohead)

The Song That Killed the Record Labels
Radiohead has been defying expectations and pioneering music trends for more than two decades, but in 2007, they became revolutionaries in the business world, too. With illegal downloading running rampant and CD sales on the decline, Radiohead decided to cut out the record companies, middlemen, and price tags altogether. They let consumers download their seventh studio album, In Rainbows (including their hit single “Jigsaw Falling into Place”), directly from their website, asking fans to pay whatever they wished. Although about one-third of the people who downloaded the album took it for free, buyers forked over an average of about $8. Within a year, the album had sold 3 million copies. And with virtually no distribution fees, it was a huge financial windfall for the band. In the years since, other groups have followed suit, and the power of the record companies has continued to dwindle. Giving it away might just prove to be the sales strategy that saves the music business.

3. “Everybody Hurts” (R.E.M.)

The Song That Eases the Anxious Bovine Mind
Blasting R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” at 5 a.m. might not seem like the best recipe for increased productivity, but it works for cows. Researchers in the United Kingdom have shown that playing slow, melodic songs can reduce bovine stress, prompting cows to produce nearly a half a pint more milk per day than they would without music. Of all the songs the scientists tested, R.E.M.’s ode to empathy led the list of songs that yielded the most milk, especially when played daily from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. If you are a lonely cow, living in a barn, with your udders constantly being tugged, maybe it helps to know that everybody cries, and everybody hurts, sometimes.

2. “Believe” (Cher)

The Song That Made Singers Obsolete
In 1998, Cher created a monster—or rather, her producer did. Auto-Tune, an audio processing technology that fixes pitch and corrects mistakes in musical performances, had been around for years, but few artists used it to any effect. Producer Mark Taylor’s goal was to make a dance song that would appeal equally to club kids and older fans from Cher’s “Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves” days. So he took the singer’s distinctive voice and amped it up with Auto-Tune, adding slip-sliding notes and robotic tones. Taylor was afraid Cher would hate the changes, but she dug them. “Believe” was released in 1998 and went on to become one of the most commercially successful singles of all time, selling more than 10 million copies worldwide and later winning a Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording. Auto-Tune is now a ubiquitous part of pop culture; the diverse musical stylings of T-Pain, Kanye West, Katy Perry, Paris Hilton, and Rebecca Black simply couldn’t exist without it. And singers are just one step closer to being completely replaced by robots.

1. “I Love You” (Barney the Dinosaur)

The Song That Makes Bad Guys Tremble

Why is the opening theme from Barney the most powerful song of the last 25 years? Because it made sure the terrorists didn’t win. In the U.S. military detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, there’s a special spot, known as “the Disco,” where interrogators use music to get detainees to talk. Naturally, death metal is on the playlist, and so is Christina Aguilera. But according to The Guardian, the most used song in the military’s arsenal is Barney’s “I Love You.” Interrogators refer to it as “futility music,” which convinces prisoners that it’s pointless to keep their silence. After listening to the song over and over, detainees start to feel that life is meaningless, and that it’s time to give up. It really works—Just ask any parent.

This article originally appeared in mental_floss magazine. Get a free issue!

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Late Sunday night, the Associated Press reported that Kim Jong Il is dead. Here's a story about the time he kidnapped a South Korean director to infuse some life into North Korean cinema.]]> Late Sunday, the Associated Press reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has died of heart failure. He was 69. The following story about the former dictator originally appeared in mental_floss magazine back in 2006.

© kcna/Xinhua Press/Corbis

by Jessica Royer Ocken

When your work hits a wall, it’s natural to seek new inspiration. The less natural inclination? Kidnap foreign talent and force creativity out of them at gunpoint. But leave it to movie fanatic Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s dictator (and questionable patron of the arts), to prove the exception to the rule. By luring South Korea’s greatest cinematic resource north using a chloroform-soaked towel, Kim ushered in North Korea’s golden age of film.

Long before his father’s death in 1994, Kim Jong Il played supervisor to the North Korean movie industry. As such, he made sure each production served double duty as both art form and propaganda-dispersion vehicle. Per his instructions, the nation’s cinematic output consisted of films illuminating themes such as North Korea’s fantastic military strength and what horrible people the Japanese are. It was the perfect job for a cinephile like Kim, whose personal movie collection reportedly features thousands of titles, including favorites Friday the 13th, Rambo, and anything starring Elizabeth Taylor or Sean Connery.

Despite Kim’s creative influence on the industry during the 1970s (when he served with the country’s Art and Culture Ministries) and the fact that he literally wrote the book on communist filmmaking (1973’s On the Art of the Cinema), North Korean movies continued to stink. Frustrated, Kim sought help by forcing 11 Japanese “cultural consultants” into servitude during the late 1970s and early 1980s, only to have several die inconveniently on the job (some by their own hands). But coerced consulting can only get a film industry so far, and North Korea was still in search of its Orson Welles. Then, in 1978, respected South Korean director Shin Sang Ok suddenly found himself out of work after he angered his own country’s military dictator in a spat over censorship, and Kim Jong Il saw his chance to harness Shin’s artistry.

Kim promptly lured Shin’s ex-wife and close friend, actress Choi Eun Hee, to Hong Kong to “discuss a potential role.” Instead, she was kidnapped.

A distraught Shin searched for Choi, but found himself similarly ambushed by Kim’s minions. After some “convincing”—by way of some chloroform and a rag—he was whisked away to North Korea. Choi lived in one of Kim’s palaces, and Shin—having been captured after an attempted escape only months after arriving—lived for four years in a prison for political dissidents, where he subsisted on grass, rice, and communist propaganda.

In February 1983, Shin and Choi were finally reunited at a dinner party. With little fanfare, Kim commanded them to hug and “suggested” the couple remarry (which they did). Then, they were confronted with their new moviemaking duties—namely, to infuse some life into North Korean cinema and promote government ideals.

Government Work

For the next several years, Shin and Choi were given access to state-of-the-art equipment, but were saddled with constant supervision. Kim demanded their films lure viewers outside North Korea, but refused to allow the couple any flexibility to nurture such nuance. Instead, Kim encouraged them with an annual salary of millions. Shin later confessed to moments of complacency in his new lavish lifestyle, but he and Choi were less than enthusiastic about their new home, and ultimately, monetary compensation couldn’t overcome their hatred for communism.

Despite Shin’s internal turmoil (or perhaps because of it), the director does have a few standouts from this phase in his career. Among them is Pulgasari, a Godzilla-esque film some suspect was meant as a slam to the cult of personality surrounding Kim Jong Il’s father as well as a veiled depiction of Shin’s feelings about his egomaniacal taskmaster. Fortunately, Kim loved it, largely because he interpreted the flick as an outright critique of capitalism.

Even from beneath a pile of accolades and money, Shin and Choi couldn’t stop dreaming of escape. In fact, their “Dear Leader” was building them a mansion and a Hollywood-worthy movie set when the couple went to Vienna to negotiate film distribution rights in 1986. There, Shin and Choi eluded their bodyguards, fled to the American embassy, and pled for asylum. Discussions they’d secretly taped with their executive producer were used as proof that they hadn’t gone to North Korea for fame and fortune (as they’d been forced to claim during press conferences), and they were allowed to return home to South Korea. Shin passed away in 2006, at the age of 79.

Kim Jong Il had to go back to relying on homegrown talent to crank out roughly 60 movies a year, but he never achieved his dream of winning an international audience. Regardless, as of 2006, a sign outside the country’s Ministry of Culture read, “Make More Cartoons”—proof that Kim Jong Il continued to impart his wisdom, and influence, on North Korean filmmakers.

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Tonight is the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. Here are some essential talking points about the Norway spruce.]]> by Mike Albo

Tonight is the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. Here are some essential talking points about the Norway spruce.

© Dima Gavrysh/Reuters/Corbis

1. The first time New Yorkers put up a Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center in 1931, it was like something out of Dickens. The Depression-era workmen building the center were so grateful to have jobs that they decorated a spruce tree with strings of cranberries, paper garlands, and a few tin cans. On December 24, they lined up beneath the tree and received a small Christmas miracle: paychecks. The first official Rockefeller Center Christmas tree went up in 1933.

2. The biggest rock outside 30 Rock is sitting right on top of the tree. The 550-pound Swarovski star is made of 25,000 crystals, 720 LED bulbs, 44 circuit boards, and 3,000 feet of wire. The crowning jewel is estimated to be worth $1.5 million.

3. To find the perfect, seven-story spruce each year, Rockefeller Center conducts aerial searches by helicopter. The tree needs to be dense enough to accommodate all the ornaments and short enough to fit under bridges as it’s shipped to the city. To avoid traffic, Rockefeller Center always sneaks the tree in at night, when the streets are the most quiet.

4. After Christmas, the tree keeps on giving. In 1971, its branches were ground into 30 large bags of mulch, which were spread over upper Manhattan nature trails; in 2005, Habitat for Humanity used the heartwood to make doorframes for houses for the needy; and last year, about 15 percent of the tree went into making paper for a book called The Carpenter’s Gift. It’s about people helping one another, and the proceeds go to charity, of course.

5. Recently, Rockefeller Center has been trying to make the evergreen tree a little bit greener. Since 2007, the spruce has been lit with 30,000 energy-efficient LEDs, which are powered by solar panels. Of course, the panels work best when it’s sunny outside, so during New York City’s cold, dark winters, they’re mostly decorative, too.

6. The tree is tall, and it’s in Manhattan, so naturally, people have tried to climb it over the years. Most do it for fun, but in 1979, one 27-year-old man scaled it with purpose. He made it all the way to the top, shouting, “Free the 50!”—a reference to the Americans who were being held hostage at the U.S. embassy in Iran. The police talked him down from the branches by carefully explaining to him that climbing the tree would not, in fact, help release the prisoners.

This article originally appeared in mental_floss magazine. Click here for a free issue!

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At 10, he built his first bomb. At 14, he made a nuclear reactor. Now he’s 17…]]>

Update (2/7/2012): Taylor Wilson at the White House

by Judy Dutton

At 10, he built his first bomb. At 14, he made a nuclear reactor. Now he’s 17…

Taylor Wilson makes people nervous. While his beanpole frame and Justin Bieber–esque haircut suggest he’s just a harmless kid, his after-school activities paint a far more ominous picture. At age 10, he built his first bomb out of a pill bottle and household chemicals. At 11, he started mining for uranium and buying vials of plutonium on the Internet. At 14, he became the youngest person in the world to build a nuclear fusion reactor. “I’m obsessed with radioactivity. I don’t know why,” says Wilson in his laid-back drawl. “Possibly because there’s power in atoms that you can’t see, an unlocked power.”

Shouldn’t teams in hazmat suits descend on Wilson and shut down his operations before someone gets hurt? On the contrary, there are people in the government who think that Wilson is key to keeping this country safe. “The Cold War is really when nuclear physicists got their shot, and those people are all retiring,” points out one of Wilson’s mentors, Ron Phaneuf, a professor of physics at the University of Nevada in Reno. “I think the U.S. Department of Energy is a little concerned that the motivation of young people to get interested in that kind of science has waned. I think that’s one of the reasons doors have been opened to Taylor. He’s a phenomenon, probably the most brilliant person I’ve met in my life, and I’ve met Nobel laureates.”

When the U.S. Department of Homeland Security heard about Wilson two years ago, officials invited him to their offices to hear more about his research and determine whether or not it could be applied toward their counter-terrorism efforts. Because Wilson was only 15, they weren’t expecting much, but Wilson came prepared. After shaking everyone’s hands, he announced, “You know your building’s radio-active, right?” The pager-sized Geiger counter attached to Wilson’s belt was beeping, an indication that the granite surrounding them contained unusually high amounts of uranium—not enough to be harmful, but enough for Wilson to raise a few eyebrows.

“Their own building was radioactive and most didn’t know it,” Wilson says. “That’s when they started to take me really seriously.”

The Young Fusioneer

Wilson got his start on Fusor.net, a website where nuclear hobbyists who call themselves “fusioneers” fill message boards on topics that would enthrall only the geekiest subset of society, like “So where can I get a deal on deuterium gas?” The goal of every fusioneer is to build a reactor that can fuse atoms together, a feat first achieved by scientists in 1934. Ever since, nuclear fusion has been hailed as a potential “clean” energy source, although scientists have yet to figure out how to harness its power. By the time Wilson stumbled across Fusor.net, 30 hobbyists worldwide had managed to produce the reaction; Wilson was determined to become the thirty-first. He started amassing the necessary components, such as a high-voltage power supply (used to run neon signs), a reaction chamber where fusion takes place (typically a hollow stainless steel sphere, like a flagpole ornament), and a vacuum pump to remove air particles from the chamber (often necessary for testing space equipment).

Wilson also funneled money collected from Christmases and birthdays toward buying radioactive items, many of which, to his surprise, were available around town. Smoke detectors, he learned, contain small amounts of a radio-active element called americium, while camping lanterns contain thorium. In antique stores, he found pottery called Fiestaware that was painted with an orange uranium glaze. Wilson trolled websites such as eBay for an array of nuclear paraphernalia, from radon sniffers to nuclear fuel pellets, and came to own more than 30 Geiger counters of varying strengths and abilities. Most of Wilson’s radioactive acquisitions weren’t dangerous, given their small quantities. But a few—vials of powdered radium, for example—could be fatal if mishandled, which is why he’s never opened them. (Although he’s been tempted.)

To expand his collection, Wilson dragged his dad, Kenneth, on long road trips into the New Mexico desert to go prospecting for uranium ore; they returned with boxfuls. Meanwhile, Wilson’s growing obsession with all things radioactive “worried me a whole lot,” admits Kenneth, who turned to pharmacists and professors he knew around town to ask if what his son was doing was safe. “After they talked to Taylor, they’d tell me not to worry so much, because they said Taylor understands what he’s doing,” Kenneth says. He and his wife, Tiffany, tried to tell themselves that Wilson’s “nuclear phase” would pass, just like his previous obsessions. At age 3, he asked for a hard hat and orange cones and then directed traffic on his street. At age 7, he’d memorized every rocket made by the U.S. and Soviet governments from the 1930s onward. But of all of Wilson’s obsessions, radioactivity stuck.

Hoping that the right guidance could keep their son from doing damage to himself or others, the Wilsons moved from Texarkana, Ark., to Reno and enrolled Wilson in the Davidson Academy of Nevada, a public school that caters to gifted kids. (Wilson’s IQ tested in the 99.99 percentile.) His physics teacher, George Ochs, encouraged Wilson to enter the local science fair, but did a double take when he heard that Wilson had his heart set on building a nuclear reactor in his garage.

“I said, ‘Whoa, wait a minute. You’re going to irradiate your parents, and maybe the whole neighborhood,’” recalls Ochs. “I suggested he build it somewhere safe, like a university.”

Ochs introduced Wilson to Phaneuf, and the professor quickly saw Wilson’s potential and helped him set up shop in the subbasement of the university’s physics department. Around Wilson’s work area, a shield of paraffin and lead absorbs any radiation he might produce. A radiation safety officer stops by periodically to assess the safety conditions, and Wilson must wear a dosimeter, a badge nuclear power plant workers use to measure an individual’s radiation exposure levels. So far, Wilson says, “I’ve never gotten a dose that’s above legal levels.”

After months of researching, building, and welding, Wilson put the parts of his nuclear reactor together, using the basic blueprints posted on Fusor.net. He added his own personal touches. It looked like a cappuccino maker on human growth hormones. To find out if it worked, Wilson filled its reaction chamber with deuterium gas, retreated behind the lead wall, and then flipped the switch to the reactor’s high-voltage supply. Tens of thousands of volts of current coursed through a golf ball–sized wire grid within the reaction chamber. If all went well, this would fuse the atoms of deuterium together and release radiation—not nearly as much as fission (or the splitting of atoms) produces, but enough to cause radiation poisoning or other health complications if things went to hell.

Wilson picked up a tiny glass tube called a bubble dosimeter that he’d placed near his reactor. If he saw bubbles, the subatomic particles that make up radiation had penetrated the tube, heating the hypersensitive liquid inside. Squinting at the tube, Wilson spotted five bubbles.

On Fusor.net, Wilson was proclaimed the youngest fusioneer ever, at just 14 years old. A year later, he met with officials at both the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Energy, who offered him their expertise and equipment and encouraged him to apply for a research grant. “I started thinking, ‘What can I do with this?’” Wilson says. I wanted a real challenge. So I decided to try fighting terrorists.”

Taylor Wilson and one of his “nuclear mentors,” Bill Brinsmead, in Wilson’s basement lab at the University of Nevada in Reno. In the foreground is the nuclear fusion reactor Wilson built at 14—making him the youngest person in the world to ever do so. He spent two years scrounging the parts and radioactive materials.

Becoming a Terrorist Fighter

Every year, more than 35 million cargo containers reach U.S. ports of entry. “They’re big, and there are so many of them. It’s the perfect way to smuggle in nuclear weapons,” Wilson says. “If I were a terrorist, that’s how I’d do it.” Making matters worse, the most sensitive radiation detectors contain helium-3, a man-made chemical that is expensive and in short supply. “The only place you can get helium-3 is in the decayed remains of nuclear weapons components, and our supply is running out,” Wilson says. He started wondering whether there were a cheaper, more plentiful alternatives.

In May 2010, Wilson entered his nuclear fusion reactor in a series of science fairs that won him a trip to Switzerland to tour the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, where many of the most cutting-edge nuclear experiments on the planet take place. Within the collider’s labyrinthine corridors, located 300 feet below ground, Wilson gawked at swimming pool–sized Cherenkov detectors, which identify radiation by measuring the light that is emitted when these subatomic particles move through water. That got Wilson thinking: Water is plentiful. Maybe he could build a liquid-based radiation detector that would work on a smaller scale.

Wilson returned home, went to the hardware store, bought a five-gallon drum, and filled it with water. He mixed in gadolinium, a chemical element that emits light when hit with radioactive particles. Because those flashes would be too weak to be seen with the naked eye, Wilson bored a hole into the drum and inserted a highly sensitive light detector, which he hooked up to his computer. He then placed the drum next to his nuclear reactor, behind the lead wall, and flipped the reactor’s switch to produce a silent explosion of radiation. Checking his computer, Wilson was delighted to see that his detector had picked up brief emissions of light. The detector worked—and unlike helium-3 testers, which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, Wilson’s cost a few hundred bucks.

He filed for a patent. In May 2011, Wilson entered his radiation detector in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair against 1,500 competitors and won the $50,000 Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award. In September, once school begins, he plans to do full-scale testing of his invention by hauling a 30-foot cargo container into the Nevada desert. If all goes well there, he will start road-testing his detector at ports. “I want to get this stuff deployed—the sooner the better,” Wilson says. “Radioactive materials could be coming through ports as we speak.”

Wilson’s expertise is in high demand: Raytheon, the fifth largest defense contractor in the United States, tried to hire Wilson to develop security technologies. Numerous universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have recruited Wilson to lend a hand in various research projects. Since Wilson’s meeting with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Energy two years ago, both government agencies are checking in with him regularly to monitor his progress. For now, in order to protect his intellectual copyright, Wilson has refused their offers for funding, but once his patent is securely in place, he hopes to share his findings and roll out his radiation detectors in Iran, North Korea, and other high-risk countries.

“It would scare my mom to know I’m in some hostile country, tracking down terrorists,” Wilson admits. But if his parents have learned anything over the years, it’s to trust their son and let go.

“Sometimes I’ll blow up something in the backyard that’ll rattle all the windows in the house,” Wilson says. “My mom will come out, shake her head, and then head back in.”

Chicks Dig Nukes

Wilson isn’t an across-the-board thrill-seeker. Roller coasters scare him. He was reluctant to obtain his driver’s license and avoids getting behind the wheel. The only time he was grounded was when he let the family’s golden retriever out in the backyard while he was detonating bombs (not nuclear ones, Wilson clarifies, just garden-variety explosives made from household chemicals like stump remover). Now, when the dog smells explosives, he gives Wilson a wide berth.

In spite of his efforts to make the world safe from terrorists, Wilson is still sometimes seen as a menace. In March 2011, when an earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused one of the country’s nuclear power plants to leak radiation into the atmosphere, Wilson tested the groceries in his refrigerator. He found trace levels of radioactive isotopes iodine-131 and cesium-137 in milk and spinach. After posting his findings on his website and talking to the Associated Press, “I got a lot of angry calls from the dairy association,” Wilson recalls. “I had explained that the radiation levels were low and not a health threat, but still some people freaked out.” Even at the physics lab where Wilson works, “next door there’s a laser guy who was scared that my nuclear reactor was irradiating him,” he says. “I had to calm his fears. A few people at the university have said, ‘You shouldn’t do this. You’re scaring people.’ I have to keep telling people I’m not a terrorist—I’m fighting the terrorists.”

Part of the problem, says Wilson, is that “pop culture has instilled in Americans an irrational fear of radiation, when in fact the household chemicals under your sink are more dangerous. I also think it unsettles people because I’m so young. They associate age with experience. But that isn’t always true.” Carl Willis, a nuclear engineer in New Mexico and a Fusor.net member who’s tracked Wilson’s progress, agrees. “Age discrimination against the young is widespread and was a constant obstacle in my early chemistry hobby life,” says Willis, who built his first bomb at age 12. “We automatically associate young age with poor judgment and inexperience, and while that’s typically the case, that’s just not Taylor. He shouldn’t be prejudged.”

In fact, Wilson thinks his youth is an asset.

“Because kids haven’t been exposed to the bureaucracy of professional science, they’re a lot more open to trying things,” Wilson says. “In that way, I think kids are able to sometimes do better science than adults.”

Among his peers, Wilson’s interest in science also has its perks. “At first when I was doing nuclear stuff I wondered, Is this going to make me a nerd? But I don’t think that was ever the case,” he says. “I’ve even used it to pick up chicks. I take women to my lab sometimes.” After all, what girl would be able to resist the line “Would you like to see my nuclear reactor?”


As for how he balances the demands of being a terrorist fighter/radioactivity obsessive/mad inventor with the challenges of being a 17-year-old kid, Wilson says it’s tough. “Nuclear stuff takes up most of my time,” he says. “Sometimes I have to decide: Do I want to be at my lab or hang out with Sofia?” (Sofia, a fellow Davidson student who’s an avid softball player, is his latest crush.) “She’s one of the few people who’ve been to my lab, which makes my friends mad, because not many have been able to visit,” Wilson says. But no one gets too mad, he jokes: “My friends always say, ‘Don’t mess with Taylor. He has radioactive stuff.’”

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The road from kid genius to adult dud is a well-traveled one. But if you or someone you love happens to be a budding brainiac, don’t despair. Here are 9 instances of wonder boys and girls who bucked the trend and grew up to be smart cookies. ]]> Four-year-old Australian Aelita Andre is the talk of the international art world. She sold one painting for $24,000, and her work is currently on display at the Agora Gallery in New York. Perhaps a few decades from now, she’ll earn a spot on this list, which we first published in 2009.

By Rick Chillot

Being a child prodigy is no guarantee that you’ll grow up to be rich, famous or happy. You might have a breakdown and fade into obscurity (like that guy in the movie Shine), quit the scene altogether (like chess maestro Bobby Fischer), or turn to a life of petty crime (insert the name of your favorite child actor here). The road from kid genius to adult dud is a well-traveled one. But if you or someone you love happens to be a budding brainiac, don’t despair. Here are 9 instances of wonder boys and girls who bucked the trend and grew up to be smart cookies.

1. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

Areas of Expertise: Math, physical science, and philosophy
Notable Achievement: Making a bet with God
Secret to His Success: Doing geometry when his dad wasn’t looking

The great French thinker Blaise Pascal began studying geometry at age 12, even though his father had forbidden such academic endeavors and removed all mathematics textbooks from the house. But even Pascal senior couldn’t help but be impressed when his son recreated the geometry theories of Euclid, so he started taking young Poindexter to weekly meetings with the elite mathematicians of Paris. By age 19, Pascal had begun to develop a hand-held, mechanical calculator, which might have made him rich if it hadn’t proved impractical to mass produce (a big relief to the abacus industry). Fortunately, that didn’t send him spiraling into child-burnout depression, and he went on to many more years of scientific achievement. Besides publishing influential treatises in geometry, Pascal made significant contributions in physical science, like experimenting with atmospheric pressure and determining that a vacuum exists outside Earth’s atmosphere. His contributions to philosophy include the famous “Pascal’s Wager,” which states that believing in God costs you nothing if you’re wrong, and wins you everything if you’re right.

2. Maria Agnesi (1718-1799)

Areas of Expertise: Mathematics and astronomy
Notable Achievement: Proving that chicks are good at math, too
Secret to Her Success: Time management; she was known to write the solutions to difficult math problems in her sleep (literally)

When Maria Gaetana Agnesi was born in Milan in 1718, girls in upper-class Italian society were taught dressmaking, etiquette and religion, but not how to read. Thankfully, her father, himself a mathematician, recognized Maria’s amazing memory and talent for languages and decided that something like literacy might be a good thing for his daughter. By the time she was nine, Agnesi was impressing party guests with speeches she’d translated into Latin. By age 13, when a visitor would ask her for a waltz, Agnesi would treat her dance partner to a discussion of Newton’s theory of gravity (a second waltz was a rare request). But thanks to her father’s second and third marriages, Agnesi eventually found herself in charge of a household of 20 brothers and sisters, and since she was the oldest, she ended up utilizing more of those Home Ec skills than she had anticipated. Fortunately, in between breaking up slap fights and doling out bowls of spaghetti, the 30-year-old Agnesi managed to compose a highly influential, two-volume manual on mathematics that included cutting edge developments like integral and differential calculus. Afterward, Pope Benedict XIV wrote Agnesi, commending her work and suggesting her for a post at the University of Bologna.

3. Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Areas of Expertise: Piano, organ, and orchestra (performance and composition)
Notable Achievement: His “Wedding March,” which has survived over a century of rising divorce rates and overpriced wedding planners
Secret to His Success: Nicest guy in classical music

Widely regarded as the 19th-century equivalent of Mozart, German composer Felix Mendelssohn was musically precocious at an early age. Mendelssohn began taking piano lessons at age six, made his first public performance at age nine, and wrote his first composition (that we know of) when he was 11. By the time he turned 17, he had completed his Overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” one of the Romantic period’s best-known, most-loved works of classical music. Then, in 1835, Mendelssohn’s father died, which (just like Wolfy) came as a crushing blow to the composer. But rather than sending him into an alcohol-induced stupor, the experience motivated Felix to finish his oratorio, “St. Paul,” which had been one of his father’s dying requests. From there, he went on to compose important and popular works, including the “Wedding March.” In 1843, at age 34, Mendelssohn founded the Conservatory of Music in Leipzig, where he taught composition with fellow musical great Robert Schumann.

4. Marie Curie (1867-1934)

Areas of Expertise: Physics, chemistry and radioactivity
Notable Achievement: The first woman to win a Nobel Prize; and just for good measure, she won two
Secret to Her Success: Wanted to be in her element, so she discovered it

Born in Warsaw, Poland, Marie Sklodowska was the child of two teachers who placed great importance on education for all of their children. This wasn’t a problem for four-year-old Marie, who, just by hanging around her four older siblings, taught herself how to read (Russian and French) and was known to help her brothers and sisters with their math homework. It was also at age four that she began to freak people out with her incredible memory, as she was able to recall events that had happened years before (“Remember that time when I was three months old and you put my diaper on backwards, idiot?”) As a teenager, Marie was anxious to attend college, but her family couldn’t afford it since her father had lost his teaching job, so she spent five grueling years earning money as a governess (it wasn’t like The Sound of Music at all; the kids were stupid, and there was no singing or dancing). But her time came in 1891, and she headed for the Sorbonne in Paris. There, she discovered future husband Pierre Curie, along with the radioactive elements radium and polonium. In her thirties, Marie worked closely with her husband, and together they devised the science of radioactivity, for which they were awarded a Nobel Prize in physics. After Pierre’s death in 1906, Marie continued her work, winning her second Nobel (this time in chemistry) at age 44.

5. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Areas of Expertise: Painting, drawing, sculpture
Notable Achievement: The most famous name in modern art
Secret to His Success: Quantity and quality

Everyone knows that Picasso achieved artistic fame and success as an adult, but little Pablo was quite the prodigy, too. In fact, it’s said that Picasso had an interest in drawing even before he could speak. Perhaps that’s why, once he finally could talk, he immediately started demanding that his father (an artist himself) give him his paintbrushes. And when he became old enough to go to school, pushy little Pablo said he would only go on the condition that, while there, he could draw as much as he liked. Fortunately, the headmaster and the other students recognized Picasso’s gift, and more or less allowed him to come, go, and work as he pleased. Years later, the adult Picasso attended an exhibit of children’s drawings and commented that he could never have been in such a show because at age 12, he “drew like Raphael.” A little modesty might have done him some good, but in fact, drawings that survive from his childhood suggest that prepubescent Pablo could indeed have given the great Renaissance artist a run for his money. Picasso’s many contributions to modern art—including cubism, “Guernica,” and people drawn with two eyes on one side of their face—are too exhaustive to list here. By the time of his death, he’d created over 22,000 works of art.

6. Jean Piaget (1896-1980)

Area of Expertise: Child psychology
Notable Achievement: Changing the way we think about the way children think
Secret to His Success: The ability to hold conversations with three-year-olds

Does it take a child who’s interested in psychology to make a child psychologist? Apparently not. When Jean Piaget was growing up in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, his area of expertise was zoology. He talked his way into a job at the local Museum of Natural History at the age of 10, where he developed a keen interest in mollusks (especially snails). By high school, he’d published so many papers on the subject that his name was well known among European mollusk experts (most of whom assumed he was an adult). So later in life, when his interests turned to psychology, Piaget’s zoological background led him to seek out the “biological explanation of knowledge.” Suspecting that observing children might lead to an answer, he came up with an earth-shattering new way to explore how children think: by watching them, listening to them, and talking to them. Piaget deduced that a child’s mind isn’t a blank slate, but is constantly imagining and testing new theories about the world and how it works. This revelation, plus his 75 years of scientific research, spawned whole new fields of psychology. He might even have had an explanation for why your kid put that peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich in the VCR.

7. Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987)

Area of Expertise: Violin maestro
Notable Achievement: Setting the standard for 20th-century violinists
Secret to His Success: When he played the violin, it made his teachers cry (in a good way)

Little Jascha’s interest in music was noticeable at only eight months of age, when he reportedly smiled at his father’s violin playing, but winced in pain whenever Dad hit the wrong note. When Jascha turned three, he asked for—and received—his first violin and promptly started taking lessons. So naturally, Heifetz was giving public concerts by the age of five (about the same time the rest of us started eating paste). At age 16, Jascha’s family moved to the United States to dodge the Russian Revolution, and before long, he had his debut at Carnegie Hall, where he wowed critics and became an overnight musical idol. Musical burn-out seemed almost inevitable, but Heifetz continued touring into his sixties and kept recording into his seventies (take that, Keith Richards), racking up Grammy after Grammy without releasing a single music video. Heifetz once called being a child prodigy “a disease which is generally fatal,” and one that he “was among the few to have good fortune to survive.”

8. John von Neumann (1903-1957)

Areas of Expertise: Quantum mechanics, information theory, computer science
Notable Achievements: Developing the hydrogen bomb and a few early computers
Secret to His Success: Not too bookish to enjoy a good kegger

As a child in Budapest, Hungary, János von Neumann amazed adults and annoyed fellow six-year olds by dividing eight-digit numbers in his head, speaking in Greek, and memorizing pages out of the phone book. He published his first scientific paper while still a teenager, but because of Hungary’s rising anti-Semitic atmosphere, he decided to pursue his mathematics career elsewhere. Unfortunately, he chose to go to Germany, which clearly didn’t turn out to be such a hot idea. After he was offered a position at Princeton University, von Neumann headed to the States, choosing to adopt the first name John. In America, he was free to hang around with other expatriate eggheads, including future magazine cover model Albert Einstein. In between throwing raucous parties, ogling secretaries, and getting into car accidents (he was a notoriously reckless driver), von Neumann worked on theoretical mathematics and various real-world projects, including the development of the hydrogen bomb and construction of one of the first working computers.

9. Paul Erdös (1913-1996)

Area of Expertise: Mathematics
Notable Achievements: It would take a mathematician to explain them
Secret to His Success: Loved numbers, tolerated everything else

Paul Erdös was multiplying three-digit numbers for kicks when he was three. At age four, he started playing around with prime and negative numbers. Not much later, he developed a cute little habit of asking people their ages and then computing how many seconds they’d been alive. Never able to shake his passion for numbers, Erdös grew up to become arguably the most prolific mathematician in history, authoring or co-authoring almost 1,500 mathematical papers. In fact, collaborating with Erdös was such a point of prestige that—to this day—to this day—mathematicians assign themselves “Erdös numbers,” which works sort of like the fabled Kevin Bacon game. An Erdös number indicates how closely a person has worked with the great one: Those who co-authored a paper with him have a number of 1, those who wrote a paper with one of his co-authors have a number of 2, and so on. Never had the pleasure of writing a mathematics paper? Congratulations, you have an Erdös number of infinity. Now go balance your checkbook.

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