By what criteria to evaluate and measure intelligence? How to determine without errors which person is the smartest person on earth? There is only one generally accepted indicator - IQ. The higher the coefficient, the smarter its owner.

What does IQ depend on?

The formation of an intellectual level depends on the following factors:

• heredity;
• environment;
• social status.

It is believed that mental abilities reach their peak at age 26, after which the intellectual level declines. This is a controversial hypothesis because some individuals develop mathematical or creative abilities in early childhood, while others develop them later in life.

Scientific geniuses with high IQs are often helpless in everyday life. American Kim Peak, famous for his phenomenal memory and ability to accurately remember 98% of the information he read, could not fasten the buttons on his shirt and jacket on his own.

A high IQ is considered to be 140 and above. The owners of such an intellectual quotient are Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking. Both are extraordinary personalities, geniuses of our time, who have reached unprecedented heights. No more than 0.2% of the planet's population can boast of this figure.

Below is the TOP 10 smartest men in the world, compiled on the basis of IQ.

Chinese Terence Tao, who lives in Australia, is deservedly considered the smartest man in the world, because his score is 230. He solved the first mathematical problem in his life at the age of two.

At the age of 5, the boy already spoke fluent English and solved problems from the primary school final year curriculum. By the age of 12, Terence was a frequent participant and winner of international Olympiads.

At the age of 20, he had already graduated from university, received a doctorate and taught at the University of California. Over the next 20 years, he wrote and published over 250 scientific papers.

Teachers noticed a precocious boy while still at school. He repeatedly participated in school competitions and won them, completed the general education program as an external student, and at the age of 14 was already a student at the prestigious California Technical University.

Christopher was attracted to space and gravity - in this direction he developed. Having entered his second year at university, he began collaborating with NASA - the young genius studied Mars and the possibilities of its colonization. By the age of 22, Hirata had already become a doctor of science in astrophysics.

Korean prodigy Kim Ung-Yong was once listed in the Guinness Book as the smartest person in the world. His IQ is 210.

Kim was born in 1962, and within a year he spoke Korean, English, Portuguese, German and Japanese. Each baby needed a month. By the age of 4, Ung-Yong could read and speak these foreign languages ​​fluently and easily solve complex mathematical problems.

At the age of 8, Kim became a student at the University of Colorado and received a scholarship from NASA. By age 15, he had a doctorate in physics.

American heavyweight and champion Christopher Langan ranks fourth in the ranking of the smartest men in the world with an IQ of 200.

The abilities were inherent in him from birth: at the age of one he could already speak at full speed, at four he could read fluently. It was not possible to develop the child’s talents: the father left the family, the mother worked a lot without taking care of her son. The smart boy had no friends - then he became interested in sports and independently studied science.

After school, Christopher went to college at the University of Montana, but never graduated due to financial difficulties. The guy logically reasoned that the professors were unlikely to give him more knowledge than he himself. As a result, Langan left the educational institution, began self-education and got a job as a security guard in a bar.

Returning from work, the guy threw himself headlong into working on a theory about the cognitive model of the Universe. They started talking about him in 1999 - after his name appeared on a list of people with high IQs published in Esquire magazine.

Evangelos has always been interested in questions of human genius - it is not surprising that he organized several specialized associations to unite intellectuals from all over the planet.

In an interview, Katsiulis admitted that his childhood was peaceful, surrounded by books - his parents taught Greek, so the apartment was filled with books.

As a child, Evangelis loved puzzles and mathematics, solving problems with pleasure, and as a teenager he became fascinated by the mysteries of the human soul. The hobby grew into a profession.

Actor Rick Rosner has an IQ of 192. He is that rare case of genius who discovered his own uniqueness in adulthood.

Rosner dreamed of fame and money, but for a long time he had to survive. Rick worked as a waiter and model. There was a time when he performed in striptease. The dream came true when he came up with and began producing his own show on television.

The show was a success, and Rosner had free time, which he devoted to science. The intellectual admits that he is afraid of old age and decrepitude, so he exercises daily and eats only healthy food.

Croatian scientist Mislav Predaveć also has an IQ of 192. In ordinary life, mental abilities are limited to numbers, because Mislav’s wife does the basic things for him - tops up his mobile phone, withdraws money from his account, pays bills.

He is particularly interested in puzzles and complex computer games, which he solves as exercise for his brain.

Russian chess player Garry Kasparov ranks 8th in the ranking with IQ190. Popularity came to the grandmaster after winning a tournament with Anatoly Karpov. Then Kasparov played several matches with computers, which ended in a draw.

Intelligence, of course, is a relative concept. And of course, intelligence is not the same as intelligence; Moreover, in recent decades, scientists have proposed separating the concept of mental abilities and emotional intelligence, that is, empathy and the ability to understand another.

In a global world, it is EQ, emotional intelligence, that becomes especially important. However, in the mass consciousness, intelligence is still equated with IQ level, that is, with intellectual development. We offer you a ranking of the smartest people in the world.

Grigory Perelman

The mathematician Grigory Perelman fully reflects our ideas about genius - firstly, he looks like a textbook professor: disheveled, with an absent-minded look: it is immediately clear that he is the smartest person. But this is ironic, but seriously, it was Perelman who managed to prove the Poincaré conjecture (over which the world's leading mathematicians struggled for almost a hundred years), and then refused the million-dollar prize for this proof.

Stephen Hawking

Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking is known not only for his important work on black holes, but also as a popularizer of science. Despite the severe diagnosis (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - the same one that the Ice Bucket Challenge was dedicated to fighting), Hawking wrote several fascinating and scientifically reliable books - the editors of uznayvsyo.rf advise reading at least “A Brief History of Time”.

Among other things, Stephen Hawking is an important figure in popular culture. He appeared more than once in the TV series “The Big Bang Theory”; in addition, Benedict Cumberbatch and Eddie Redmayne (the latter received an Oscar for this role) embodied his image in big cinema.

John Sununu

American Republican politician John Sununu studied at one of the best universities - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - and has an IQ of 180 points. However, he did not connect his life with science, but devoted himself to politics. In the late 1980s, he was first governor of New Hampshire and then chief of staff to President George H. W. Bush.

James Woods

Actor James Woods is known to Russian audiences for his roles in the films Once Upon a Time in America and The Virgin Suicides by Sofia Coppola. However, at first he did not intend to become an actor: having an IQ of 180, he entered MIT to major in political science, but in 1969 - at the height of the “Summer of Love” - he dropped out and moved to New York to become an actor.

Garry Kasparov

This famous chess player (and opposition politician) became the world chess champion at the age of 22, beating his compatriot Anatoly Karpov. Let us note that Garry Kasparov is, without a doubt, very smart (his IQ is 190), and has proven this more than once in chess confrontations with the computer: since 1989, he has played with smart machines that have been improved from generation to generation, and all matches have been drawn. .

Richard Rosner

Writer, producer and reality TV participant Richard Rosner has an IQ level of 190-192 points. At the same time, he is an example of an “eccentric smart guy”: he loves to tell in interviews that in his youth he worked as a bouncer in a club, as a stripper, posed naked and was even a waiter on roller skates. In addition, he once sued the show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” due to an error in one of the questions.

Evangelos Katsioulis

Greek doctor Evangelos Katsioulis has an IQ that is simply off the charts: according to various estimates, from 198 to 205 points. In addition to his main activity - medical - Katsiulis founded several associations uniting people with a high level of intelligence.

Kim Un-young

Korean Kim Un-young was a child prodigy: already at the age of 4 he could solve problems in mathematical analysis that were complex for an adult and knew several languages. At the age of 8 he was invited to the American University of Colorado. After completing his studies, he returned to his homeland, where he worked at the national university. His IQ level is considered the highest in the world on one of the scales - 210, and is included in the Guinness Book of Records.

Christopher Hirata

American astrophysicist of Japanese origin Christopher Hirata has a score of 225. At the age of 14 he entered the California Institute of Technology, was invited to work at NASA at 16, and by 22 he became a Doctor of Science. His research interests include gravitational lenses and dark energy.

Marilyn Savant

American writer and journalist Mary Savant is included in the Guinness Book of Records as the woman with the highest IQ in the world - it is 228. Marilyn Savant, among other things, writes a column in Parade magazine (but not like Sarah Jessica Parker's character in Sex in a big city" - Mary Savant answers difficult questions like problems on the paradoxes of probability theory).

Terence Tao

Mathematician Terence Tao has been working at the University of California since he was 20, when he received his Ph.D. His IQ is 230. Tao is a mathematician; he received his Fields Medal (analogous to the Nobel Prize for mathematicians) at the age of 31. In addition to his own intensive scientific research, Terence Tao maintains his own blog, where he popularizes science.

Along with the smartest scientists in the world who are moving science forward and doing very important things - like how to colonize Mars or save the Earth from ecological collapse - there are plenty of people in the world who still believe in magic, fortune telling and mysterious rituals. The editors of znayvsyo.rf invite you to read about practices practiced by seemingly educated people.
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Russia has always been famous for its bright minds. Poets and writers, chemists and physicists, philosophers and teachers - throughout history there have been many people who have made a significant contribution to the development of world science and culture. Who can be called the smartest on the territory of our Motherland now?

Intelligence Score

Many people ask who they are - the smartest people in Russia. To answer this question, you first need to understand what, in fact, is called intellect and mind. The “smart” label usually goes to the person who can quickly solve a complex problem or, in front of everyone, propose a solution to a non-standard everyday problem. Usually around such a person the exclamations do not subside: “How smart you are!” But you can objectively determine the smartest people in Russia and in the world using such an indicator as the level of intelligence. More than half of the world's population has an IQ of about 110. Only 2.5% of the population can boast an IQ of over 130. Only 0.5% have an IQ of 0.5. The debate about who is among the ten smartest people in Russia continues to this day. Every day new minds are born on the territory of our Motherland. Their abilities in the future will be the subject of new heated debates among scientists and the public.

List of the smartest people

• Mikhail Lomonosov.
• Nikolay Lobachevsky.
• Sofya Kovalevskaya.
• Grigory Perelman.
• Anatoly Wasserman.
• Vitaly Ginzburg.
• Zhores Alferov.

And many others. Let's look at the biographies and interesting facts from the lives of some of them.

Grigory Perelman

Among the smartest people in Russia, the first place, of course, belongs to the mathematician Grigory Perelman. He gained his fame due to the fact that he was able to prove the Poincaré conjecture, and it is included in the list of seven “Millennium Problems”. It should be noted that this pretentious name was invented by journalists who did not want to attract public attention. It was invented by scientists themselves. The Poincaré conjecture ranks sixth on the list of these problems. Moreover, scientists emphasize its mathematical complexity.

For the common public, Grigory Perelman became famous due to his unusual style, which is completely inconsistent with general ideas about what a scientist should look like. It is interesting that the smartest person in Russia refused the prize, which is awarded to any person who managed to solve one of the “Millennium Problems”. The award amount is $1 million. A little later after the award of this prize, Perelman was awarded the Fields Medal (scientists often call this prize the Nobel Prize in mathematical research). Along with this medal, Perelman was to receive 15 thousand Canadian dollars. However, the scientist ignored this award too.

Qualities without which discoveries are impossible

Almost nothing is known about the life of Grigory Perelman. He lives with his mother in a Khrushchev-type apartment, in rather cramped conditions. Of interest are interviews with those scientists who know the great mathematician personally. For example, from an interview with Sergei Rushkin, it became known that Perelman worked on the proof of a very complex mathematical hypothesis for about nine years. The mathematician demonstrated a strong concentration of attention and focus on the problem - unlike many of his contemporaries who were prone to “clip” thinking. While working, Grigory Perelman did not know whether he would be able to solve the task he had set for himself. Since childhood, he had a very important quality for any good scientist - the ability to focus on one problem for a long time without hope of solving it.

Anatoly Wasserman - polymath and programmer

Many people say that the smartest person in Russia is Anatoly Wasserman. He gained fame throughout the post-Soviet space thanks to his numerous victories in the intellectual shows “What, where, when?”, “Own Game” and others. Wasserman was born in Odessa, into a Jewish family. His father was one of the most famous specialists in the field of thermophysics. About the mother, however, practically nothing is known. Wasserman's father had a serious influence on his entire subsequent life. According to Wasserman himself, he learned to read at the age of three and a half years. At eleven, he had already begun to study a fifteen-volume encyclopedia devoted to mechanical engineering. By his 14th birthday, Wasserman knew it practically by heart.

Early life and modern times

For a long time, the polymath was included in the ranking of the smartest people in Russia. However, Anatoly Wasserman was not an excellent student at school. During his school years, he had to defend himself from attacks from spiteful peers, and later also from teachers. Their pride could not stand the fact that the student made corrections to the information they taught during the lesson. Thus, although today Anatoly Wasserman is among the smartest people in Russia, he could never boast of good grades during his school years.

In the intellectual “Own Game” in 2004, Wasserman took the place of the best player of the decade. After receiving higher education, the famous erudite began working as a programmer, and at the age of 39 he tried himself in the journalistic field - he began writing articles for the computer press. Since 2012, he has been working as the host of the television program “Wasserman’s Reaction” on REN-TV.

Vitaly Ginzburg - Nobel Prize laureate

When asked what the name of the smartest person in Russia is, many answer with confidence: of course, it’s Vitaly Ginzburg. Nobel Prize winner, author of numerous studies in the field of physics and astrophysics, academician - this is an incomplete list of what Ginzburg did during his lifetime. In addition to the Nobel Prize, the scientist received many more awards: he was awarded the Lenin and State Prizes of the USSR, the S. I. Vavilov Medal, and the M. V. Lomonosov Prize. Unfortunately, the scientist passed away in 2009.

Vitaly Ginzburg was also known for his position on religion, and in particular Orthodoxy. He believed that faith was a personal choice and openly opposed the imposition of Orthodoxy in schools. Why did the scientist take this position? Everything is extremely simple: the basis of any religion is belief in the supernatural. But Ginzburg could not agree with the existence of miracles, since he had been studying physics all his life.

Character of a scientist

Ginzburg’s love of freedom was also evident in his actions: during the time of Stalin, he married a former prisoner, and in the 50s he completely fell under the “ideological steamroller.” After all, then the open struggle of the authorities against cosmopolitans began. Ginzburg took part in the creation of the hydrogen bomb - that is why, in spite of everything, Stalin involved him in top-secret work and subsequently awarded him the State Prize.

Vitaly Ginzburg was confident that the future of Russia lies in the hands of democracy, not authoritarianism. Science and education play a big role in the development of the country. Ginzburg believed that if education in Russia is given its due place, then many problems in the country will disappear by themselves.

Views on religion

Ginzburg made a big distinction between scientific and religious worldviews. The existence of God, the scientist believes, does not need to be proven, if only because his academic colleagues have not proven the opposite point of view. Ginsburg also distinguishes between religion and belief in God. “You can believe in the existence of God, or the Absolute (names can be anything), but not profess any religion,” the scientist emphasizes. He regards religion as a belief in miracles and fairy tales, and considers the Bible and the Koran to be a collection of miracles and a set of moral and ethical rules. The scientist emphasizes that whether they are considered sacred books or not is a personal matter for believers.

There are many miracles in the world, one of these mysteries that scientists have not been able to solve for many decades is the question of the genius of some people, whose mental abilities are simply amazing. It is quite difficult to say unmistakably who is worthy of the title of the smartest person in the world or in Russia, because each of the applicants has their own individual abilities.

Very often, after solving some life problem, we can hear the statement addressed to us: “You are the smartest person on earth.” We are glad that our efforts were noticed, but at the same time we don’t think about what kind of person he is - really the smartest person on the planet, what talents does he have and what can he do with the power of his mind? The only thing that can be said is that all brilliant people throughout history were united.

How to measure intelligence

In the modern world, identifying people with high performance and mentality is very simple - an IQ test was invented for this purpose. This test was originally invented by the English psychologist Hans Eysenck in order to accurately determine the smartest person in history.

Now the test has become widespread and everyone can try their hand. At the development stage, the test was used only on children, but in 1905 it was refined by psychologist Alfred Binet and became suitable for use on adults. The test was first used in 1916, but even its results failed to determine a person’s special talents. The idea that the smartest people who ever lived on the planet achieved success in life through constant work is still relevant in our time.

To make it clearer to most readers, the average IQ for average people is 90–110 units, for people with weak mental abilities the coefficient is less than 70%, for those who can develop their abilities and achieve something - 125–135%, and only 0. 5% of all people on the planet have an IQ above 135 - they are usually called geniuses.

All Nobel laureates take an IQ test, and most of them score 160. Unfortunately, there are people with high mental abilities who have never managed to distinguish themselves in anything and have not found an application for their talent. Such people in most cases go crazy or commit suicide.

The highest intelligence score ever was possessed by a ten-year-old girl born in 1946. A girl named Marilyn Vos Savant managed to score 228 units based on the results of the entire test. So far, no one has managed to score more than this little girl, and she is considered to this day the smartest person in history. According to the owner of this unusual title, only such disciplines as mathematics and nuclear physics can reflect high human abilities. Marilyn married a man as gifted as herself - her husband Robert Jarvik (his IQ is 180 units) invented an artificial heart. Marilyn also claims that with the help of proper nutrition, everything that is inherited by a person can be increased by 20%.

Our country also has something to be proud of, since our compatriot is listed in the Guinness Book as the first person who managed to prove the Poincaré theorem. He is Grigory Perelman, born in 1966, he is considered the smartest person in Russia.

Now many people consider Anatoly Wasserman the smartest person in the country; he often won in various television shows.

Top Smartest on Earth

If we consider the issue of genius more globally, then we can confidently note that in every corner of the world there are special and unusual people. Now we will try to recreate the top of the smartest people, based on their IQ results and the successes that they were able to achieve in their lives.

So, in first place, as mentioned above, is Marilyn Savant.

She is only 10 units behind the Chinese genius Kim Pik, who has a phenomenal memory.

He is also included in the Guinness Book of Records, as he can remember 98% of all information he reads. Throughout his life, Kim Peak retained more than 12 thousand books in his memory, which he could recite by heart in different orders.

Daniel Tammet from the UK, born in 1979, can mentally calculate and solve complex problems in the field of mathematics.

Daniel also managed to master a new language within a week. In total he knows 11 languages. At age 4, he could easily multiply and divide multi-digit numbers. As he himself claims, such abilities appeared to him after suffering an attack of epilepsy in childhood.

Albert Einstein is also on the list of greatest people.

The German physicist became known to modern times thanks to the theory of relativity. Much to our surprise, we can say that as a child, Einstein was not a very active child - he spoke poorly, he was generally considered underdeveloped and mentally retarded.

The name of the next genius is probably known to all modern people - Stephen Hawking, an outstanding theoretical physicist, is one of the few people who know about the structure of the Cosmos.

A cripple, in a wheelchair, who does not control his body, lives an incredibly busy life: he teaches, acts in films, publishes scientific works and travels. His IQ is much lower than most of the inhabitants of this list, but nevertheless he managed to change his life and most modern people with his lectures and scientific treatises.

Arran Fernandez is the first person to obtain a Secondary Education Certificate at age 5. At the age of 14, he became a student at Cambridge University and is the most talented and youngest mathematician in the world.

Paul Allen is the man who co-founded Microsoft. His IQ is only 170 units, but this did not stop him from becoming a big man and putting his skills into practice.

Manahel Thabet is a Yemeni woman, economist, and the youngest Arab woman to receive a PhD in financial engineering. Her IQ is 168.

Another woman who impressed with her talent as a strategist is Judit Polgar, a chess grandmaster originally from Hungary. Her IQ is 170.

John Sununu, with an IQ of 180 and three degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became famous for his political career.

In addition to his unprecedented successes in science, he worked in the administration of President George H. W. Bush.

It would take a very long time to count talented people, because there are so many of them. Using the example of several of the above personalities, we have shown that there are people today who can improve things with the help of their intelligence and wisdom.

Most of these people with genius abilities today lead an unpretentious lifestyle. As almost every one of them claims, they do not consider themselves special, because an unusual mindset is a gift of nature with which they were endowed.

Video about five great minds of humanity:

The smartest man in the world

When you were in school, there was always a guy smarter than you in the class. But these powerful brains give a hundred points ahead even to the favorites of all the teachers together. These are the smartest people in the world - both in terms of IQ and contribution to their field of activity. From movie stars to columnists, from scientists to laboratory technicians, they are all changing the world.

1. Marilyn vos Savant

American journalist, writer, playwright. Has the highest IQ level in the world. Listed in the Guinness Book of Records. According to the results of various tests, Marilyn's IQ was 167+, 186, 218, 228 and 230. However, the statement that Vos Savant is the smartest person in the world is quite controversial. She herself claims that she passed the IQ test for the first time at the age of 10 years.

The woman with the highest IQ, Marilyn vos Savant, was born in 1946. She took her mother's last name because she believes that sons should live under their father's last name, and daughters should live under their mother's last name. She studied at Washington University in St. Louis, but did not graduate because she began helping her family in the investment business. She is well known for her "Ask Marilyn" column in Parade. Lives in New York, married to Robert Jerwick (a scientist who became famous for creating an artificial heart). He works as the CFO of a corporation called Jarvik Heart.

2. Kim Pik

An American with a phenomenal memory. I remembered up to 98 percent of the information I read. For this he received the nickname “Kim-pewter”. He became the prototype for the film “Rain Man” by Dustin Hoffman. Could read one standard book spread in just 8-10 seconds. And he didn’t care how the text was positioned relative to him. By the end of his life, Kim Pik stored in his memory almost 12 thousand books he had studied.


Kim Peek was born in 1951 in Salt Lake City, America, and died there in 2009. A phenomenal man was born with a disproportionately large head, and on the back of his head there was a cranial hernia the size of a baseball. In addition, Kim had damage to the cerebellum and was missing the corpus callosum, which should connect the left and right hemispheres of the brain. However, all these congenital defects do not lead to giftedness or mental retardation.

Scientists speculate that the brain's neurons made new connections in the absence of the corpus callosum. This made Kim's memory almost immense. Peak was already reading little and often at 16 months. At the age of 3, he studied newspapers and explained unfamiliar words using an explanatory dictionary. At the age of 7 I knew the Bible by heart. And I never returned to any book I read.

About the life of Kim Peak

Kim Peake had many serious disorders. For example, a strange gait and very low muscle tone. It was difficult for him to satisfy primitive personal and everyday needs. For example, he could not button his shirt himself.

3. Daniel Tammet

A highly gifted savant from the UK. A man can perform complex mathematical calculations in his head. It operates with numbers that consist of more than a hundred characters. Daniel proved with the example of the Icelandic language that he could learn an unfamiliar language in a week. In total, he knows 11 languages. Can recite by heart more than 22 thousand digits that follow the decimal point of Pi.


Daniel Tammet remembers thousands of numbers

Daniel Tammet was born in 1979 in London. At age 4, he could already multiply and divide complex numbers with ease. For example, divides 13 by 97 with an accuracy of 10 decimal places. He began to have this opportunity after he experienced a severe attack of epilepsy in childhood. Scientists say that after it some changes occurred in the brain. He says that he represents numbers in the form of visual images. Each has structure, shape and color. And sequences appear in the mind as landscapes.

4. Albert Einstein

Greatest mind. The German physicist was included in the list of the 10 smartest people in the history of mankind. The theory of relativity brought him fame. In general, Einstein wrote more than 300 scientific papers on physics.

The theoretical physicist was born in Germany in 1879, lived in his native country, as well as Switzerland and the USA. Died at the age of 76. During his life he became one of the founders of modern theoretical physics and a Nobel Prize laureate in physics.

About Albert Einstein

Honorary doctorate from 20 leading universities in the world. He developed several significant theories, including the general and special theories of relativity, the quantum theory of the thermal effect and heat capacity.

5. Arran Fernandez

The English prodigy was born in 1995. He is now the youngest student at Cambridge University. The boy was educated at home and passed exams to obtain a certificate of general secondary education at the age of five. In 2010, he was accepted into Fitzwilliam College of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. The university said it had not seen students so young since 1773, when 14-year-old William Pitt enrolled.


Youngest student

Since 2000, he has published several sequences in the Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. In 2003, live on a British television channel, he competed in mental calculations with the popularizer of mathematics, Johnny Ball. The child prodigy won by demonstrating his ability to mentally calculate 5th roots of large integers.

6. William James Sidis

An American child prodigy who had extraordinary linguistic and mathematical abilities. The man knew about 40 languages. I learned to write by the end of the first year of my life. Already at the age of 3 he began to read Homer in the original. And between the ages of 4 and 8, he wrote four books, including a monograph on anatomy. At the age of 16 he received a Harvard diploma with honors.

William James Sidis was born in 1898. Already at the age of 6 years he consciously became an atheist. He was socially passive.


Brilliant polyglot

Consciously, at a young age, he gave up sex, devoting his life to intellectual development. And his interests were very exotic. He wrote a work on alternative US history. As an adult, he went to work as a simple accountant, wore ordinary rural clothes and immediately quit his job if they found out about his genius. He was hiding from journalists. Died at the age of 46 in Boston from intracerebral hemorrhage.

7. Kim Un-young

Kim Un-yong is a Korean civil engineer and former Guinness Book of Records record holder for the highest IQ - about 210. With this coefficient, the Korean got into the Guinness Book of Records. He also ended up there as the smartest man in the world. His IQ has been above 200 since the age of four.


The man with the highest IQ

Kim was born in 1963. Already at the age of 4 years, the boy learned to read Korean, Japanese, English and German. From 3 to 6 years old he studied at Hanyang University, and at the age of 7 he was invited to work at NASA. Kim Un-Young is the author of more than 90 publications.

8. Gregory Smith

The miracle child was born in 1990. And already at the age of 2 years he learned to read. At the age of 10 he entered university. The boy is engaged not only in exact sciences.


He travels the world as a children's rights activist. He founded the International Youth Advocates movement, which tries to achieve understanding among children around the world. Gregory Smith was honored with a conversation with Mikhail Gorbachev and Bill Clinton. He was nominated four times for the Nobel Prize, but never received it.

9. Akrit Yasval

The smartest person in India. His IQ is 146. In 2000, a 7-year-old boy accidentally performed his first “surgical” operation.


He restored mobility to the fingers of the girl, who could not unclench her fist due to the burn. Akrit had no medical skills. Now Jaswal is the youngest Indian student.

10. Michael Kevin Kearney

Born in 1984. Michael became the youngest graduate of the university. He received his bachelor's degree in archeology when he was 10 years old. 7 years later he began teaching at the university. Michael became known to the world after winning the game Gold Rush, where the boy won a million dollars.

* * *
However, the list of the smartest people on the planet can be written huge. There are a lot of people in the world who have unique abilities. Moreover, the concept of the smartest person does not have a clear definition, so it is not possible to determine one. But from time to time, various ratings still arise, based not only on IQ, but simply on the fame of a particular person. Let's name some of them.

11. Stephen Hawking

Although his name is much more famous than most of the people on this list, Stephen Hawking's IQ of 160 is lower than most of the brainiacs on this post. Nevertheless, his contribution to theoretical physics and the study of the Universe cannot be overestimated.

12. Judit Polgar

Polgar is a chess grandmaster from Hungary. She is one of the greatest female chess players of all time. Repeatedly participated in competitions with male grandmasters and defeated them. Her IQ is 170.

13. John Sununu


John Sununu, with an IQ of 180, has an amazing life story. Born in Cuba in 1939, Sununu later moved to the United States and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (with 3 degrees). In addition to his excellent achievements in the sciences, Sununu also achieved impressive success in politics: he was a representative of New Hampshire, chief of staff of President George H. W. Bush, and also governor of New Hampshire from 1983-1989.

14. Magnus Carlsen


Carlsen, at 24 years old, is the youngest on this list. The IQ of the current world chess champion and probably one of the best chess players is unknown.

15. Philip Emegwali


Emegwali is a Nigerian software engineer with an estimated IQ of 190.

16. Garry Kasparov


Kasparov is a former world chess champion, as well as a political activist and one of the representatives of the Russian opposition. Many consider him to be one of the best chess players in the world. He has an IQ of 190 and is a member of the Human Rights Foundation.

17. Evangelos Katsioulis


Katsioulis is a Greek physician known for his IQ of 198-205. He is the founder of several associations of people with high IQs.

18 Chris Hirata

Christopher Hirata is a former child prodigy with an IQ of 225. Physicist Hirata has worked with NASA and as a physics and astronomy teacher.

19. Terence Tao


Terence Tao is a Chinese-American mathematician whose IQ is 230. He has two equally gifted brothers.

20. Christopher Langan


Christopher Langan is considered one of the smartest people on Earth. He is an autodidact (self-taught) who managed to break through an extremely difficult childhood in Montana. His IQ is 195-210 points.