Who Is the Smartest Person Alive? Here are 14 of the Most Intelligent
Throughout history, the greatest minds have shaped the world and society. Brilliant people like Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Issac Newton, and Leonardo da Vinci have been labeled as the smartest person alive during their time. They led the way with scientific breakthroughs and changed the world with thought-provoking art. These brilliant minds are famous for having the highest IQs in history. They’re so intelligent that they transcend time and are still considered the smartest people in the world. Well, it turns out that there are a few geniuses alive today. They might not be rock stars like Einstein or Newton, but they’re certainly some of the smartest people alive.
Some of these geniuses are child prodigies who achieved mind-blowing accomplishments. These brilliant minds excelled at math, chess, or science by age five. In some cases, they were experts in all three before their tenth birthday! At the same time, some smart people don’t blossom until later in life. Perhaps they were on a different path before focusing on astrophysics, the knot theory, or dark energy. In addition to math and science, many of these geniuses are the greatest chess players of all time. They dominated the thinking man’s game with intelligence, skill, and high IQs. But, who is the smartest person alive? Here’s a look at 14 of the most intelligent people.
1. Terence Tao
Dubbed the Mozart of mathematics, Terence Tao has one of the highest IQs in the world, with a reported score of 230. He’s currently a professor of mathematics at UCLA, but his journey in math began when he was a kid.
Tao taught himself basic math at age two and was doing college math by age nine. When he was 13, he became the youngest person to win a gold medal at the 1988 International Mathematical Olympiad. He went on to attend Flinders University and Princeton to further his education in math. Tao has won numerous awards, including the 2006 Fields Medal and the 2014 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics.
2. Marilyn vos Savant
At one point, columnist Marilyn vos Savant was in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the highest IQ score of 228. She scored 228 on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence scale and 186 on the Mega Test.
In the late 80s, Savant became a household name due to holding the highest IQ record. Later, she began writing a famous column, “Ask Marilyn,” for Parade magazine. She would answer various questions and solve several brain teasers, notably, the Monty Hall Problem.
3. Chris Hirata
Christopher Hirate’s family, friends, and teachers always knew he was a bonafide genius. With a rumored IQ of 225, Hirata won a gold medal at the International Physics Olympiad at 13 years old. By age 18, Hirata already had a bachelor’s degree in physics from Caltech. Later, he received a Ph.D. from Princeton in physics in his early 20s.
He’s currently a cosmologist, astrophysicist, and professor at Ohio State University. Hirata’s research focuses on the accelerating expansion of the universe, galaxy clusters, and dark energy. At one point he even worked for NASA researching the possibility of humans moving to Mars.
4. Christopher Langan
With an IQ between 195 and 210, Christopher Langan is one of the smartest people alive. The average person assumes that the smartest ones are working hard in a lab discovering new cures or creating groundbreaking technology. Christopher Langan took a different path to become the smartest person alive.
In high school, he taught himself Latin, Greek, philosophy, and physics. He then aced the SATs when he scored 100% and apparently slept through most of it. However, he dropped out of Montana University to become a salesman while he worked on the Cognitive-Theoretic Model.
Dubbed the smartest man alive by ABC’s 20/20, he currently runs the Mega Corporation for people with high IQs and works as a horse rancher.
5. Magnus Carlsen
Known as the “Justin Bieber of chess,” Magnus Carlsen is the current five-time World Chess Champion. He’s easily the number one chess player in the world. In 2013, Carlsen won his first world championship when he defeated former champion Viswanathan Anand, in an epic showdown.
The former child prodigy continues to dominate the game of chess, retaining his prized crown since winning it the first time. Plus, he became the face of G-Star Raw as a model.
6. Kim Ung-Yong
Kim Ung-Yong gained almost mythical levels of genius due to his high IQ. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the former child prodigy has an IQ score of 210. By the time he was three years old, he could solve complex calculus and was speaking Korean, Japanese, English, French, and German by age five.
He appeared on Fuji TV, wowing viewers as the little child solved math equations the average adult couldn’t comprehend. Rumors suggest he worked for NASA at age seven and attended the University of Colorado, but that’s not confirmed. After a very brief visit to the United States, he returned to Korea, where he obtained a Ph. D in civil engineering.
7. Edward Witten
After receiving a bachelor’s degree in history, Edward Witten turned his attention to physics and became one of the most influential scientists in the world. He later obtained his Ph. D in physics from Princeton University. He’s considered the greatest living theoretical physicist and also had a significant impact on mathematics.
Witten was the first physicist to earn the Fields Medal from the International Mathematical Union. Witten’s area of expertise is in string theory, supersymmetry, quantum gravity, and M-theory.
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8. Garry Kasparov
Chess is a game that requires intelligence, patience, and skill. Anyone that’s a chess grandmaster has to have a high IQ. Combined with a high IQ, that would make the player unstoppable. Enter Garry Kasparov.
Kasparov is among the smartest people alive, with an IQ score of 190. He used his intelligence and knowledge to become the king of chess. Kasparov began playing chess when he was seven years old and was dominating the game by the 80s. After becoming the Chess World Champion in the mid-80s, Kasparov remained the number one player until 1993.
Later, he defeated the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue 4 to 2 in an epic chess game in 1996 but lost the rematch. After retirement, Kasparov turned his focus to politics and is the founder of the Renew Democracy Initiative. He’s also the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation.
9. Ruth Lawrence
As a child prodigy in math, it was clear that Ruth Lawrence’s destiny was to be among the smartest people in the world. She excelled at math by age five and started attending Oxford University at age 12. Instead of wasting time, she completed her bachelor’s degree in two years, around age 13.
Later she got her bachelor’s degree in physics and Doctor of Philosophy degree in mathematics. By 19, she was a junior fellow at Harvard University. Currently, she’s an associate professor at the Einstein Institute of Mathematics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Lawrence’s research focuses on advanced complex math such as the knot theory and algebraic topology.
10. Evangelos Katsioulis
Evangelos Katsioulis has one of the highest IQs in the world. He got numerous high scores on various intelligence tests. For instance, he scored an impressive 205 on the Stanford-Binet scale, 258 on the Cattell scale, and 198 on the Wechsler scale. Most estimates put his IQ at somewhere between 198 and 258.
In 2013, the Greek doctor cemented his place in history when he won the 2013 Genius of the Year Award from the World Genius Directory. He currently works as a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, consultant, and life coach. Additionally, Katsioulis is the founder and president of the high IQ society, The World Intelligence Network.
11. Judit Polgar
As a child, Judit Polgar and her sisters trained to become the best players in chess history. It ended up working since Polgar’s considered the greatest chess player of all time, and her sisters achieved the level of grandmaster as well.
With a reported IQ score of 170, Polgar was a child prodigy chess player that beat all the competitors. At age 15, she surpassed Bobby Fisher by becoming the youngest grandmaster in 1991. Many in chess consider her the greatest female player of all time, with notable victories over chess legends Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, and Magnus Carlsen.
12. Neil deGrasse Tyson
Neil deDrasse Tyson is possibly the most famous smartest person in the world. The popular astrophysicist attended the top schools, including Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Texas. He later wrote several influential books and essays.
In 2006, he began hosting the PBS series Nova ScienceNow, introducing him to a wider audience. Tyson started appearing on the top entertainment shows such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He would explain complex theories and events in a way ordinary people without a Ph.D. in astrophysics could understand.
13. Noam Chomsky
The father of modern linguistics, Noam Chomsky is one of the most influential people alive. He’s had a broad impact on society and science. Like many brilliant minds on this list, Chomsky attended university at the age of 16.
He began attending the University of Pennsylvania until moving to the Massecuthes Institute of Technology in 1955. Later, he began teaching linguistics and philosophy at the Institute. He’s easily one of the smartest and most famous people today.
Even at the age of 93, he’s one of the most recognizable names in the world.
14. Andrew Wiles
Until the mid-90s, The Guinness Book of World Records listed the 358-year-old Fermat’s Last Theorem as the most complex math problem. That’s until English mathematician Andrew Wiles cracked the problem, cementing his place in math history.
Math has been Wiles’s life going back to his younger days. In 1974, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Oxford and later a Ph.D. from Cambridge. He went on to become a professor at Harvard and Princenton. He’s even won several prestigious awards, including the Abel Prize and the Copley Medal, and was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He’s currently a Royal Society Research Professor at Oxford.
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