Ken Jennings loves facts. When he was a kid he followed his parents around reciting whatever new fact he had learned -- "Haley's comet or giant squids or the size of the world's biggest pumpkin pie or whatever it was" -- to no end. And his natural curiosity paid off. Today Jennings holds the record for most consecutive wins on the trivia game show Jeopardy, with an astounding 74 wins. (At one point Jennings also held the Guinness World Record for "Most cash won on a game show." Not bad for a trivia nerd.)
In 2011 Jennings participated in the IBM Challenge, which featured him and Jeopardy rival Brad Rutter in a match against IBM supercomputer Watson. Jennings came in second. Watson was first. But Jennings wasn't disappointed in his performance, As he wrote of his loss, "I don't have 2,880 processor cores and 15 terabytes of reference works at my disposal. ... My puny human brain, just a few bucks worth of water, salts, and proteins, hung in there just fine against a jillion-dollar supercomputer."
In 2012 Jennings published the book Because I Said So!: The Truth Behind the Myths, Tales, and Warnings Every Generation Passes Down to Its Kids.
Over the past week, we’ve noticed a lot of fascinating TED-related news items. Here, some highlights: The TV show Jeopardy turns 30 this week. And we think that’s all the excuse you need to watch Ken Jenning’s amazing TED Talk, “Watson, Jeopardy and the obsolete know-it-all.” Thandie Newton (watch her TED Talk) has launched a […]
Continue readingPerhaps you know Ken Jennings by name, perhaps you simply know him as “that guy with the winning streak on Jeopardy.” In 2004, this trivia enthusiast won an incredible 74 consecutive times on Jeopardy, setting the record as the classic game show’s most winning contestant and securing the Guinness World Record at the time for […]
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