After reading lots of posts, and meeting many unicyclists, I have come to the conclusion that most unicyclists are very very smart. I believe this goes for jugglers as well. For example, I know unicyclists and/or jugglers who are engineers, teachers, composers, scientists, writers, computer programmers and doctors. Is this just a coincidence or is there some link between unicycling/juggling and a person’s I.Q.?
-David Kaplan
It seems to me that the outsider views someone who desires to ride on one
wheel a bit loose under the hood. But it takes an intelligent individual
to understand that the challenge of accomplishing something that the
everyday person shuns is worth the time and effort necessary to rise
above ordinary.
Bruce Edwards Mechanical Engineer
UniDak wrote:
>
> After reading lots of posts, and meeting many unicyclists, I have come
> to the conclusion that most unicyclists are very very smart. I believe
> this goes for jugglers as well. For example, I know unicyclists and/or
> jugglers who are engineers, teachers, composers, scientists, writers,
> computer programmers and doctors. Is this just a coincidence or is there
> some link between unicycling/juggling and a person’s I.Q.? -David Kaplan
>
> –
> UniDak Posted via the Unicyclist Community -
> http://unicyclist.com/forums
Lets hope, for my sake, that your theory will prove right, but at this
point… Im studing engineering at Clarkson U, and my exams dont seem to
be supporting your idea, sorry (I know I am).
–
Nick Cegelka
NickLikesFire AIM
http://www.extreme.unicyclist.com
— UniDak <forum.member@unicyclist.com> wrote:
> After reading lots of posts, and meeting many unicyclists, I have come
> to the conclusion that most unicyclists are very very smart. I believe
> this goes for jugglers as well. For example, I know unicyclists and/or
> jugglers who are engineers, teachers, composers, scientists, writers,
> computer programmers and doctors. Is this just a coincidence or is there
> some link between unicycling/juggling and a person’s
> I.Q.? -David Kaplan
>
>
>
>
> –
> UniDak Posted via the Unicyclist Community -
http://unicyclist.com/forums
forum.member@unicyclist.com writes:
>After reading lots of posts, and meeting many unicyclists, I have come to
>the conclusion that most unicyclists are very very smart. I believe this
>goes for jugglers as well. For example, I know unicyclists and/or
>jugglers who are engineers, teachers, composers, scientists, writers,
>computer programmers and doctors. Is this just a coincidence or is there
>some link between unicycling/juggling and a person’s I.Q.? -David Kaplan
I think there is a good correlation bw doing any activity that requires
lots of dedication and intelligence (which requires the same, in some
ways). Anyone who is interested enough to learn to unicycle has already
demonstrated many of the same traits as someone who is willing to and
interested in learning other things, including intellectual pursuits.
Then there is the chance that those who gravitate towards certain
behaviors (such as uni’ing and juggling) are on the somewhat nerdier
(brainier) side to begin with – who knows?
David Stone Co-founder, Unatics of NY 1st Sunday / 3rd Saturday
2:30 @ Central Park Bandshell
PS: Here is a weird one to contemplate: There is a far higher percentage
of lefties among top Scrabble players than exists in the normal
population. Why are lefties more likely to excel in Scrabble?
All unicyclists are one wheel short of a bicycle…
“UniDak” <forum.member@unicyclist.com> wrote in message
news:9ptkr6$dq2$1@laurel.tc.umn.edu…
> After reading lots of posts, and meeting many unicyclists, I have come
> to the conclusion that most unicyclists are very very smart. I believe
> this goes for jugglers as well. For example, I know unicyclists and/or
> jugglers who are engineers, teachers, composers, scientists, writers,
> computer programmers and doctors. Is this just a coincidence or is there
> some link between unicycling/juggling and a person’s I.Q.? -David Kaplan
>
>
>
>
> –
> UniDak Posted via the Unicyclist Community -
> http://unicyclist.com/forums
“David Stone” <dstone@packer.edu> wrote in message
> PS: Here is a weird one to contemplate: There is a far higher percentage
> of lefties among top Scrabble players than exists in the normal
> population. Why are lefties more likely to excel in Scrabble?
I assume you mean left-handers rather than communists 
I am one and I
am utterly hopeless at Scrabble. My right-handed other half, on the other
hand, has never lost a game. I thought lefties were supposed to be better
at spatial reasoning rather than verbal skills.
Arnold the Aardvark
Half the game in scrabble is knowing where to put the words when you do
find them…
“Arnold the Aardvark” <aardvark@NOTTHIStubulidentata.demon.co.uk> wrote in
message news:1002615162.19346.0.nnrp-01.c246aeec@news.demon.co.uk…
> “David Stone” <dstone@packer.edu> wrote in message
> > PS: Here is a weird one to contemplate: There is a far higher
> > percentage of lefties among top Scrabble players than exists in
> > the normal population. Why are lefties more likely to excel in
> > Scrabble?
>
> I assume you mean left-handers rather than communists I am one and I
> am utterly hopeless at Scrabble. My right-handed other half, on the
> other hand, has never lost a game. I thought lefties were supposed to be
> better at spatial reasoning rather than verbal skills.
>
>
> Arnold the Aardvark
> PS: Here is a weird one to contemplate: There is a far higher percentage
> of lefties among top Scrabble players than exists in the normal
> population. Why are lefties more likely to excel in Scrabble?
Left-handed people have a dominant right hemisphere (“right-brained”).
Since the left side of the brain is the more logical side and the right
side is more associated with creativity and imagination, it might be that
lefties are using the wider imagination to think of words we right-handed
people might not think of. That’s not to say right-handed people don’t
know of such words, they just might not get to them as easily as the
wandering imagination of a left handed, right-brained person.
(just my 0.02USD)
xADF
Nick Dangerously wrote:
> Lets hope, for my sake, that your theory will prove right, but at this
> point… Im studing engineering at Clarkson U, and my exams dont seem to
> be supporting your idea, sorry (I know I am).
You got to learn to stop thinking about unicycling (among a few other
things) during lecture. 
dstone@packer.edu (David Stone) wrote in message
news:<fc.000f4e6700582d7d3b9aca006544b220.582d86@packer.edu>…
>
> Then there is the chance that those who gravitate towards certain
> behaviors (such as uni’ing and juggling) are on the somewhat nerdier
> (brainier) side to begin with – who knows?
Might be right there. Geniuses are often looked on as being a bit unusual,
so what do they (we?) care if people think they’re weird for
unicycling/juggling etc?
>
> PS: Here is a weird one to contemplate: There is a far higher percentage
> of lefties among top Scrabble players than exists in the normal
> population. Why are lefties more likely to excel in Scrabble?
Because we can hide those extra letters up a different sleeve from the one
our opponents suspect!!!
Have fun! (and who cares what others think)
Graeme
Claude E Shannon published A Mathematical Theory of Communication in the Bell System Technical Journal (1948).
He spent a large part of his life working for Bell Labs (research part of AT&T).
It was his original concepts that has made sending information down wires a reality, this leading to the Internet etc. this is still valid and Shannon Theory is taught at University.
He died a few months ago and nearly every tribute I saw mentioned his hobby of Unicycling around the corridors of Bell Labs at night…
Further info for anyone who is interested:
Regards
Keith (Electronic Engineer)
UniDak wrote:
> After reading lots of posts, and meeting many unicyclists, I have come
> to the conclusion that most unicyclists are very very smart. I believe
> this goes for jugglers as well. For example, I know unicyclists and/or
> jugglers who are engineers, teachers, composers, scientists, writers,
> computer programmers and doctors. Is this just a coincidence or is there
> some link between unicycling/juggling and a person’s I.Q.? -David Kaplan
I suspect that it’s more to do with the location of most of the
information about unicycling and juggling - the internet. It’s been said
that a lot of computer people are into juggling and unicycling. I suspect
it’s because they’re the ones that
a. find out about the juggling/unicycling scene
b. we get to know that they’ve found the juggling/unicycling scene
It’s like saying, hey, 100% of people reading rec.sport.unicycling have
access to a computer.
Of course, that said, we all know we’re geniuses.
Regards, Mark.
–
Fujitsu Telecom Europe Ltd,| o Solihull Parkway, | In the land of the
pedestrian, /|\ Birmingham Business Park, | the one-wheeled man is king.
<< Birmingham, ENGLAND. | O
This is the first time I have stumbled upon this topic, and I dig it. I guess that’s because I’m a left-handed unicycling genius!! ha!
The thought that simply being on the web would attract more computer science folk into the forum is a good point… But there are tons of sites dedicated to silly, superficial pop music and not many people who visit those forums are computer science folk.
I don’t know if being right-brained makes playing scrabble any easier. I do fare well against those who are righties and have been avid scrabble fans for decades, but I lack a sense of strategy. I don’t tend to score as high even though making the words is easy. Proper placement on the board is key.
Back to unicycling… I think it may do with a mix of personality make up as well as intelligence level. The types of people who get into techie jobs are often not well understood by others. You can’t talk technical to people who don’t have the mental capacity to comprehend. So that puts techies into a bit of a secluded cell in the workplace. Most co-workers regard you as smart, but not terribly interesting. And we want to be interesting.
Being comfortable in unique place in society, we seek to be exciting without bowing to what the general populis does for thrills. Why go mountain biking when you can uni?? We take to that instead of sharing the trails with the mindless masses on bikes. Riding the uni gets us the attention we desire and yet we’re still misunderstood geniuses!
-Darrell
Before Mtn. Biking competition and Unicycling, I used to practice alpinism
and rock/ice climbing. I have noticed, especially for alpinism, that
almost everybody had higher education. One sign of intelligence is
curiosity. Curious people are more likely to be interested in such sports
or activities… (or maybe life is not interesting enough for intelligent
people so they practice weird and/or dangerous activities…).
Christ.
UniDak wrote:
> After reading lots of posts, and meeting many unicyclists, I have come
> to the conclusion that most unicyclists are very very smart. I believe
> this goes for jugglers as well. For example, I know unicyclists and/or
> jugglers who are engineers, teachers, composers, scientists, writers,
> computer programmers and doctors. Is this just a coincidence or is there
> some link between unicycling/juggling and a person’s I.Q.? -David Kaplan
>
> –
> UniDak Posted via the Unicyclist Community -
> http://unicyclist.com/forums
>UniDak wrote:
writers,
> > computer programmers
I’d debate that one.
jon.
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
In article <9pv8d4$o2p$1@laurel.tc.umn.edu>, darrell
<forum.member@unicyclist.com> wrote: ) )The thought that simply being on
the web would attract more computer )science folk into the forum is a
good point… But there are tons of )sites dedicated to silly,
superficial pop music and not many people who )visit those forums are
computer science folk.
It’s not only the Web. The juggling club at Berkeley is probably at least
half-filled with mathematicians, engineers and other geeks. The club has
an e-mail list but the most common way the club gets new people is to hang
around an area where students walk by, juggling.
There are a lot of mathematical aspects to juggling. Both unicycling and
juggling have something of a problem-solving aspect to them; I think
that’s probably the main reason the population seems to lean towards the
geek disciplines. -Tom
Let’s see if I can make this thread a bit less self congratulatory…
It seems to me that some unicycling activities are more closely related to
intelligence than others. For example:
- riding a giraffe way up high where the air is thin is not a sign of
intelligence–or, if it is, it’s a fleeting intelligence that
diminishes in direct proportion to the thinning of the oxygen at a
given height. - impossible wheels attract a Neanderthal sort of mind. If you don’t
believe me, just read the funny papers. - riding multi-wheeled unicycles is perverse–'nuf said about that.
- Muni riders are clear examples of devolution-- as paleontologists say,
“the thicker the armor, the smaller the brain.” - Coker riders are intelligent, if that means sluggish at the start,
hardly responsive, and able to make progress mainly due to momentum. - Ultimate wheelers are just as smart as other unicyclists, except
they’ve forgotten to bring their seats and frames. - Standard skills unicyclists–they’d be the weakest link, but somebody
would need to give them a link.
Goodbye,
David Maxfield Bainbridge Island, WA
Unicycling is fun.
Smart people do fun things.
q.e.d.
> Claude E Shannon published A Mathematical Theory of Communication in the
> Bell System Technical Journal (1948).
>
> It was his original concepts that has made sending information down
> wires a reality, this leading to the Internet etc. this is still valid
> and Shannon Theory is taught at University.
>
> He died a few months ago and nearly every tribute I saw mentioned his
> hobby of Unicycling around the corridors of Bell Labs at night…
>
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Shannon.html
Claude Shannon was one of the Unicycling Society of America’s founding
members. What does that mean? The USA’s founder members were the core
group of people Bill Jenack bounced ideas off and corresponded with in the
early 1970’s. As a group, they decided the time was right to incorporate
and form an official organization to promote unicycling. Bill Jenack
incorporated the USA in 1973, more or less in conjunction with the first
of today’s type of national unicycle conventions, which was held in
Pontiac, Michigan.
Before this time, Bill had started the Unicyclists Association of America,
where you would send him a quarter, or some other amazingly small amount
of money, to cover a year of postage, and he sent out an occasional group
mailing to keep people updated on unicycling information.
So Claude Shannon and the other 14 founders were the original USA members.
Bill Jenack knew a lot of interesting people. He even corresponded with
Albert Einstein! I saw the letters. Bill was a prolific letter-writer. Too
bad there was no e-mail at the time, because that would have allowed him
to do even more. But he was a also computer nerd. He worked at
Fairchild-Republic Aircraft Company, the now-defunct maker of the P-47
Thunderbolt in WWII and the A-10 Warthog that’s still in use today. Bill
was the company’s Director of Analog Computing.
I forgot to tell you all about another Claude Shannon article, this one in
PC Magazine. This was an editorial, on the inside back page of the
September 4 issue. The title was “In Honor of Genius–and Fun.” Like the
other accounts, it tells of Dr. Shannon’s contributions to today’s digital
world, but it also told how he balanced that with his sense of fun.
Author Christina Wood made this statement about his different way of
looking at things:
"Without Shannon's uncanny ability to look at something--in this
case, information--from a completely new point of view, many of
the technologies that have developed over the past 20 years would
not exist. His work was vital to the development of the CD-ROM,
the hard drive, and most methods of data storage and retrieval. It
also influenced the technologies that make file transfer between
computers possible."
She also went on to say:
"I like to think it was Shannon's ability to set aside
society's expectation that he behave like an "adult" and
harness his thinking for pragmatic matters of service that let
him look at complex concepts with a fresh perspective. He
defined them with a clarity that those more chained to the yoke
could not muster. "Modern theories of the workplace and
productivity support the idea that having fun leads to more
creative thinking. But even a management team that tries to
make "fun" mandatory doesn't diminish Shannon's example. A man
who is legendary for deep thinking, mathematical theories, and
intellectual genius--okay, I'll say it, the very founder of the
Information Age--was also a funny guy, legendary for his
unbridled appreciation of silly antics. Even those of us
without his mathematical genius can take that example and apply
it to our own lives. "I could keep working on this column. But
with Shannon in mind, I think I'll go contemplate fluid
dynamics by lobbing water balloons off the roof."
Bill Jenack obviously liked to have fun as well. A prized possession of
mine is a little contraption he made, called the Decision-Maker. It’s
simply a box with two lights, a button, and a cord you plug into the wall.
In label-maker tape, it says “DECISION MAKER – FOR DECISION PRESS”. One
light is labeled YES and the other one NO. They both flicker. When you
press the button, the flickering stops on one side or the other, giving
you your answer. It’s better than the magic 8 ball (because it always
works and you can read the answer)! A very silly toy.
So keep on riding, thinking outside of the box, and for you Trials riders,
jumping onto and off of it.
Stay on top, John Foss President, Unicycling Society of America President,
International Unicycling Federation jfoss@unicycling.com
www.unicycling.com
UniDak wrote:
> After reading lots of posts, and meeting many unicyclists, I have come
> to the conclusion that most unicyclists are very very smart. I believe
> this goes for jugglers as well. For example, I know unicyclists and/or
> jugglers who are engineers, teachers, composers, scientists, writers,
> computer programmers and doctors. Is this just a coincidence or is there
> some link between unicycling/juggling and a person’s I.Q.? -David Kaplan
>
> –
> UniDak Posted via the Unicyclist Community -
> http://unicyclist.com/forums
i have noticed a rather high incident of good math ability in
unicycle riders.
G