You won’t believe this! Einstein & Hawking aren’t even in the top 5—here are the 10 geniuses with the highest IQs on Earth!
No. 10: Stephen Hawking | IQ: 160
Stephen Hawking was a legendary physicist at the University of Cambridge, UK—one of the greatest physicists of modern times and a global scientific icon of the 20th century. His genius shone brightest in explaining theories like the Big Bang. With his slim book "A Brief History of Time," he captivated 30 million readers worldwide and cemented his status as a genius beyond ordinary comprehension.
No. 9: Albert Einstein | IQ: 160–190
Einstein’s IQ is estimated between 160 and 190, but since he never took an official IQ test, many believe it could’ve been even higher. The father of the theory of relativity, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 and is widely regarded as the greatest physicist since Galileo and Newton. In December 1999, Time magazine named him the "Person of the Century."
No. 8: Judit Polgár | IQ: 170
Judit Polgár is a Hungarian chess prodigy who spent most of her career competing against men—and crushing it. On February 4, 1992, FIDE (the International Chess Federation) awarded her the title of Grandmaster, making her the youngest chess Grandmaster in the world at the time.
No. 7: Leonardo da Vinci | IQ: 180–190
Experts can’t pin down da Vinci’s exact IQ—he was a master of everything! His interests spanned art, geography, math, sculpture, engineering, and literature. Modern scholars hail him as the perfect embodiment of the Renaissance and one of the few true polymaths in human history.
No. 6: Garry Kasparov | IQ: 194
Garry Kasparov, of Russian descent, was a chess legend who remained undefeated in the international chess scene from 1985 to 1993. His famous matches against IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue catapulted him to global fame.
No. 5: Kim Ung-yong | IQ: 210
Kim Ung-yong was a South Korean child prodigy who started speaking at 3 months old and mastered English, Japanese, Korean, and German by 6 months. At 4, he enrolled at Hanyang University in South Korea—shocking the world. Later, he was invited to work as a researcher at NASA. After 10 years at NASA, he returned to South Korea to pursue a career in education and now teaches at Chungbuk National University.
No. 4: Christopher Hirata | IQ: 225
In 1996, 13-year-old Christopher Hirata won a gold medal at the International Physics Olympiad. A year later, he enrolled at Caltech, and by 16, he was already working at NASA on projects exploring the possibility of human colonization on Mars.
No. 3: Terence Tao | IQ: 225–230
Born in Australia to Hong Kong immigrant parents, Terence Tao was the first Australian to win the Fields Medal—the highest honor in mathematics. He’s also only the second person of Chinese descent to receive the award, following Shing-Tung Yau in 1982. Currently a professor at the University of California, his contributions to mathematics are widely recognized by the global academic community.
No. 2: Marilyn vos Savant | IQ: 228
Marilyn vos Savant first took an IQ test at 10 and scored a whopping 228. As of 2012, the Guinness World Records recognized her as the person with the highest IQ in the world. Today, she works as a writer and screenwriter. Some call her an amazing genius who can answer almost any question in any field and loves tackling tough problems—while others argue she’s wasted her talent.
No. 1: William James Sidis | IQ: 250–300
William James Sidis was a tragic genius with extraordinary mathematical and linguistic talents, boasting an estimated IQ between 250 and 300. He mastered French at 4, gave a lecture on four-dimensional space at Harvard University at 9, and began focusing on mathematical research at 11. He later became the youngest student ever admitted to a top U.S. university, making history. Unfortunately, he never lived up to the world’s lofty expectations as an adult and passed away from a stroke at 46.