"Pretty funny," said Andrew Nierman, 29, of Ann Arbor, who has just been named the winner of the International High IQ Society's first "World's Smartest Person" competition.
"I think there's a little bit of difference between being the world's smartest person and winning this contest," said Nierman, a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at U-M. "The smartest person in the world probably wouldn't bother entering this contest. I just thought it would be fun."
Nierman may be modest, but he can't argue with one thing: The honor will look mighty good on a resume.
He received the title by scoring 22 points out of 25 possible on the society's online Test for Exceptional Intelligence. It was the highest score ever recorded on the exam.
"We were truly impressed," said Nathan Haselbauer, president of the society and co-author of the test, noting that more than 50,000 people from 60 countries took the test.
"(Nierman's) score was off the charts as he answered two of the most difficult questions which had yet to be answered correctly by anyone who had taken the test," Haselbauer said.
A native of Washington state, Nierman admits to being a slacker in high school and part of college. But he earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the Pacific Lutheran University of Tacoma and his master's in computer science from U-M.
Nierman was not a member of the High IQ Society when he happened to find the test while surfing the Web in November. The contest opened in June and organizers encouraged the use of reference materials, books, calculators, and computers. It took Nierman two months to complete, just in time for the Dec. 31 deadline.
He said he was able to perform above his intelligence level by being resourceful and stubbornly persistent. Outside resources and tools were a critical factor in his quest to answer many of the test's most difficult questions. His technique was simply to begin with the easiest problems in order to build his confidence and gradually progress to the more challenging ones.
Sometimes Nierman wrote his own original computer programs to help him decode the most perplexing questions. The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences was useful, as were sites on cryptography, he said.
Nierman said the math questions were easiest for him, while the hardest ones asked that he figure out a pattern. "You have these 'ah hah!' moments," he recalled.
The test was designed to be so challenging that gifted individuals would receive only average scores, while only geniuses would be able to achieve the highest scores. The average person who took the test answered fewer than two questions correctly.
By winning, Nierman receives $500, a plaque he expects to hang in his home office for a laugh, a High IQ T-shirt and an honorary lifetime membership in the society.
The monetary award pales in comparison to the $25,000 he won in 2001 by finishing in the top four of a national computer programming competition.
Despite the honor, Nierman's friend and ex-roommate, Lukasz Opyrchal, is full of stories that prove Nierman is most certainly not the smartest person in the world.
He recalled the time that Nierman got so many parking tickets his car was finally towed. Nierman delayed retrieving his car until he needed it to get to the airport about a month later. So he went to City Hall and paid the fees, then went to the towing station to pay that fee, only to learn his car - and everything in it - had been auctioned off.
"That's fairly typical of Andy," said Opyrchal, also a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at U-M. "He does things like that all the time - or at least he used to before he got married."
Nierman, an avid hiker and outdoorsman, lives in Ann Arbor with his wife, Tisha, a physical education instructor in the Dexter school district.
Established in 2000, the International High IQ Society has thousands of members from around the world. All members have an IQ of at least 126 and must first take a test in order to qualify for entry into the society. Once admitted, members can access to private discussion forums, participate in various online game tournaments, download original puzzles and brain exercises and contribute their views to the International Research Institute.