For a bit of context, who the hell are you and where did that brain of yours, which moves like a missile, come from?
I'm Ramón Campayo, from Albacete. I enrolled in Mathematics and Physics, but I didn't finish because I didn't like it, and I have an IQ of 194.
That sounds quite high.
The global average is 100, and from 160 to 170, tests are really estimated because they can't measure something that high.
So, how was yours calculated?
I took a test in America a long time ago that reached 200 points, the toughest one I've found. Supposedly, two or three of my answers didn't match what they considered, hence the slight drop from 200 to 194. But I argued my logic, and for me, they were valid answers.
Is there anyone in the world who surpasses you?
The other day I heard about a Korean who scored 260, but it's impossible because there is no test that can measure that, nor any person who can create it.
Let's go back to your childhood. Did you get good grades, were you bored, were you the odd one out?
I started standing out in Mathematics or Physics from the age of 6. Until then, I didn't understand anything because I had a lot of imagination and didn't know where the classes were going. School is not the best environment to measure abilities. I was a strange child, but not as much as some mothers tell stories about their children. Today's children excel in everything.
How is intelligence quotient measured? How can I know if I am smart? Because I have serious doubts... in a negative way.
It measures logical capacity. Number series are very common. If I say one, three, six... what comes next? Ten. Because from one to three there are two units, from three to six there are three units, and after six, you should add four units. Although this one is very easy. There are much more complicated ones.
Let me give you another series, but with words: pig, dog, cat, table. Which one doesn't belong?
It wouldn't work because vocabulary comes into play here, and that is not a sign of intelligence but of culture. You can be super intelligent but not have had education or learned the language.
What other feats do you have under your belt?
In '86, I managed to memorize the longest chain of words in the world, and in the order they were stated. 23,200 terms that I heard only once.
But let's see. How long does it take to hear 23,200 words?
Three days. Although we stopped for bathroom breaks. And at the end, they asked me about 500 of those words, just by telling me their position.
Let me understand. They asked you: "Which word was in position 12,527." Like that 500 times. And did you get them all right?
Yes. But the technique is quite simple. I associate those words with a very large locker in my head. I use that locker in competitions, to teach laws to my students, to train memory... In that locker, for me, 74 is the same as a seal. And the number 4 is the letter 'c'. In the 74th position of those 23,000 words, I visualize a shoe. And I visualize a seal with shoes. And then I visualize the 74, the seal, the shoes...
What? I got lost, but well, if you got all 500 words right, bless the seal and the shoes...
All memorizers use lockers, it's just that each one has their codes.
More milestones in your biography. Because I can expect anything now.
I am the fastest memorizer in history, and I hold the world record in all speed competitions since 2003. They involve memorizing numbers: in one second and in four seconds.
How many numbers are we talking about?
64 binary numbers, zeros and ones, in one second.
How long does it take you to read a book, for example, a 400-page book?Less than an hour. My average is 40 words per second.
What's this about training your wife, and for two years she was second in the world memory championships, after you?
That's right. And the following 15 were all my students. I hold three weekend courses a year where I teach them my method.
What other things are you good at in life?
Driving, or anything with mechanisms, like airplanes. I can memorize the controls of a Jumbo in no time. The more buttons, the better. I also have to confess that I am very disorganized and a terrible dancer.
How are we doing on emotions?
I'm not one to cry easily, but I am sensitive