Top 10 People With The Highest IQ

Intelligence along with street smarts is what is needed in today’s world. Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is a measure, a score obtained from a test, measuring a person’s intelligence or how sharp their brain works. These tests are for certain areas like language fluency, 3 dimensional thinking, etc.
IQ scores are used as predictors of educational achievement, special needs, job performance and income. The average IQ of the population is 100 as many score between 70 and 130.

World’s 10 highest IQ holders are:

10. Stephen Hawking (IQ 160)

Stephen William Hawking was born on 8th January, 1942 in United Kingdom. His IQ is 160. He is devoted to the core fields of science and have worked on gravitational theorems in the framework of general relativity, and many theoretical predictions on black holes stating that they emit radiations and known as hawking radiation. He attended Oxford University in 1959 when he was only 17 years old.

He was the first to explain the cosmology thesis by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He is a vocal supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Stephen is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom – the highest civilian award in the United States. He was also a professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009.

9. Albert Einstein (IQ 160-190)

He was born on 14th march 1879 in Germany. His IQ was estimated between 160 and 190. The right handed physicist did his schooling from Germany. His devotion towards science started with a compass that his father showed him. What made him work was reason behind what makes a compass needle move. Apart from physics, he had a keen interest in mechanics and mathematics. He also applied for polytechnic colleges in Italy, but due insufficient grades he failed to get admission. On the advice of the dean of the same, as he had exceptionally high grades in physics and mathematics, he completed his secondary education from Switzerland.

He worked in the field of Quantum theory and was the one to develop the general theory of relativity which was the turning point in the field of science. He is also very well known for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2. For his services to theoretical physics, and for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, he was awarded with a Nobel Prize. He continued to work in the field of Quantum theory even after his photoelectric effect thesis.

At an age of 76, he died on 17th April, 1955 due to some internal bleeding.

8. Judit Polgar (IQ 170)

She was born on 23rd July 1976, in Hungary. With an IQ of 170, she is the strongest female chess player in history. She achieved the title of Grand-master when she was 15 years old and was the youngest to do so until then. She is the only woman to have won a game from a current world number one player and has defeated former world champions in either rapid or classical chess.

Her childhood went through a lot of struggle and chess as a specialized subject. Her father used to believe that if trained properly, anyone could be a genius in any subject. Believing in her father, Judit fought with the Hungarian chess committee as women were not allowed to play with men. Based on similar grounds, so was not given the title of grandmaster even being nominated many times. With 2 sisters in her life, her childhood went under complete specialisation of chess with them as his father appointed them for home schooling.

7. Leonardo da Vinci (IQ 180-190)

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in Italy. He had an IQ between 180 and 190. He is often described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of “unquenchable curiosity” and “feverishly inventive imagination”. He was extremely talented and dedicated to his work specially art.

He did an informal education in Latin, geometry and mathematics. His first painting was a monster spitting fire. His famous artworks are Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, and the Vitruvian Man. He was skilled as a painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer.

He died on May 2, 1519.

6. Marilyn Vos Savant (IQ 190)

She was born on August 11, 1946 in United States of America. Her IQ is 190. She is highly skilful in being an American magazine columnist, author, lecturer, and playwright.

In her childhood days she used to work at her father’s general store and side by side she used to love reading and writing articles. Marilyn has got a local newspaper posting her work and she agreed to work under alias as she didn’t want to use her name for something at which she was imperfect. In 1986, she wrote for  a Sunday column in Parade magazine, wherein she used to solve puzzles and answer a variety of questions from her readers.

In 1985 she was registered into the Guinness  World records for having the highest IQ amongst women.

5. Garry Kasparov (IQ 194)

He was born on 13th April, 1963 in Soviet Union, Russia. He has an outstanding IQ of 194. He is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, a writer and a political activist, considered by many to be the greatest chess player. He began taking chess as a serious matter at an early age when his parents gave him a chess problem and he was able to propose a solution. He started his training at an age of 11.

He won his first championship which was Soviet Union Junior Chess championship, by the age of 13 years. In 1985 he won the first title of world championship in Moscow by earning twelve and a half points. He officially retired from major chess tournaments, on 10th March 2005. He also played against and got defeated by a supercomputer opponent that can calculate 200 million moves in every second

4. Kim Ung-yong (IQ 210)

Kim Ung-yong was born on March 7, 1963 in South Korea. By profession he is a civil engineer. His IQ as calculated is 210. At an age of 6 months he had started speaking. At an age of 3 he had learnt many languages like Japanese, Korean, German and English. And at an age of 14 years, he solved complex calculus problems on Japanese television.

3. Christopher Hirata (IQ 225)

He was born on 30th November 1982. He has an IQ of 225. When he was 12 years old, he had already done his college level course on physics and mathematics. At the age of 13 he won a gold medal in international science Olympiad. He was working with NASA on a project to conquer mars when he was 16 years old. He got his PhD from Princeton University and is currently teaching astrophysics at California Institute of Technology.

2. Terence Tao (IQ 225-230)

He was born on 17th July, 1975 in Australia. He has an IQ between 225 and 230. Being a mathematician, he specializes in harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, additive combinatorics, ergodic Ramsey theory, random matrix theory, and analytic number theory.

Terence is currently teaching at University of California, Los Angeles. He exhibited extraordinary mathematical abilities from an early age and knew basic arithmetic when he was 2 years old. He attended university level mathematics courses at the age of nine. When he was 15 he published his first assistant paper. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the age of 16.

1. William James Sidis(IQ 250-300)

He was born on 1st April 1888 in New York City. His IQ was estimated to be between 250 and 300. He went to a grammar school at an age of 6 and graduated within 7 months. He went to Harvard at an age of 11 and by the time he was adult, he knew over 40 languages. He specialized in the field of mathematics. At Harvard he was physically threatened by some students due to which his parents got him a teaching assistant job at Rice University in Texas. Being frustrated at job and being threatened by students he left his job and had a political career ahead. He died in 1944 due to some brain damage and it was the same reason his father had passed away.