The human brain is perhaps the most mysterious part of the body. It is so fascinating that it makes us wonder—what is there with it that makes some people intellectually superior than others?
But since no one really knows the precise answer to this question, we are only left amazed and interested to find out who the smartest people in the world are and what they have accomplished. Let us take a look at the people with the highest IQ ever recorded listed below.
1. William James Sidis

William James Sidis (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As if that wasn’t impressive enough, at the age of 9, he was already a Harvard student, but since he was too young, he was advised to take a couple of years off just to give his personality some time to catch up and be on a par with his intellect. At the age of 11, he became the youngest student to have ever enrolled at the Harvard University. He graduated cum laude at the age of 16, and entered Harvard Law School at 18.
2. Terence Tao

Terence Tao (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
At the age of 16, he graduated with both Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees at the Flinders University. Moreover, Tao bagged numerous awards, such as the Salem Prize in 2000 and the Clay Research Award in 2003, just to name a few. He has been dubbed as “Mr. Fix It” by Charles Fefferman (a professor of Mathematics at Princeton University), because he has enthralled many mathematicians such that they vie to interest him in their problems.
3. Christopher Hirata

Christopher Hirata (Photo credit: http://www.tapir.caltech.edu/~chirata/web/)
At 16, he was already working with NASA on its ambitious project to conquer Planet Mars. After he procured his Ph.D. at the Princeton University, he went back to California Institute of Technology, where he is currently teaching astrophysics.
4. Kim Ung-Yong
With a verified IQ of 210, Korean civil engineer Ung-Yong had his name etched once in the Guinness Book of World Record under its “Highest IQ” category. While babies at 6 months old are just learning to crawl, he already showed remarkable potential when he started to speak and read in Korean and many foreign languages. At 4 years old, he took an IQ test normally given to 7-year old children and obtained a score of more than 200. At 14 years old, he showcased his genius by solving complex differential and integral calculus problems live on Japanese TV.
5. Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In 1999, he conducted Kasparov versus the World– the greatest and most important game in the history of chess–where he played against the World Team, which consisted of more than 50,000 participants from approximately 75 countries.
6. Marilyn Vos SavantBorn in 1946 in St. Louis, Missouri, Savant is a columnist, author, and playwright who made it to the pinnacle of fame by getting listed five times in the Guinness Book of World Records as the woman with the highest IQ ever recorded (verified at 190) from 1986 to 1989.
In 1986, she started writing Ask Marilyn, a Sunday column in Parade magazine, wherein she solves puzzles and answers a variety of questions from her readers.
7. Leonardo da Vinci

Self portrait by Leonardo Da Vinci (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
More than that, he is particularly famous for his masterpieces: Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, and the Vitruvian Man. A true visionary, he was centuries ahead of his time with his detailed concepts of the helicopter, calculator, tank and the double hull, apart from his outlined theories on solar power, hydrodynamics, and plate tectonics.
8. Judit Polgar

Judit Polgar (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
9. Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
10. Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
He introduced to the world the concept of cosmology as explicated through the consolidation of quantum mechanics and theory of relativity. Because of his remarkable contributions to science, Hawking has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 — the highest that can be conferred to an American civilian.
Andrew Magdy Kamal has a verified IQ average of 231.734, and that was at the age of 16, why isn’t he on the list
LoL he is my friend
Then he should of been the 13th this is the top 10, all of them are probably higher than that, like in the 300s or so maybe 200s because my dad said that the highest you can go is In 200s.
(Just a guess and a hint at the same time, ok, no pressure and im also not trying to be rude im just giving you some information on what my guess is and hint)
Hawking’s a Brit
Yes he is. He received a Medal that is America’s highest civilian honour…that doesn’t make him American.
Re-read it bone head. It says American civilian. He is British.
What’s your point? I think you missed it..
I’ll help them both out. Yes, Barry he is a Brit but the medal he was awarded can be given to non-citizens as well if they have made a large enough contribution to receive it. As for the point Barry was ineffectively making Staff Writers, and I quote, “the highest that can be conferred to an American civilian.” The quote indicates one must be American to receive the medal; with him being born in Britain and a citizen of that nation and not holding duel citizenship in America the quote is misleading. It appears to have confused Barry slightly, which he is very welcome for me making his point for him, as the staff are welcome for me explaining it to him effectively where they did not do so. (can smell a moderator coming now!)
I think IQ is only one way of judging intelligence. There are people that can calculate algorithms, and there are people who can survive in the wilderness with only the clothes on their back. i think intelligence can be equated many different ways. There are the intelligent people we see here, then there are the smart people. I would rather be smart about life and the constant turns it takes, then score high academically. What I just said is stupid. The academic intelligent person could also be smart in life also. What I meant was, the people I have met through the years have always lacked in life experiences. It is the same as home schooled children, they miss out on interaction with other children. I hope, I have kind of made sense. Thank You.
He clearly has that crappy British accent.
I could tell by his accent
And Terence Tao is Australian. So what?
hello
Genuises are individuals placed into this world to implement theories and devices for the absolute benefits of the whole world at large. But even though not born a genuis one can still develop accelaratively ones mental idiocyncrasy to ascertain a higher IQ in the benefits of mankind through implementive efforts and to become a whizz-kid.
Wow what can i do to increase my IQ
I have a 13 years old Egyptian, English language student, I knew when he came to me that I was dealing with an exceptional child. I pointed him in the direction of the MENSA test and he scored a 147 on his first attempt. He took the test again one week later and scored a 201.The question is what to do with him to maximise his potential?
This was all good information, except that Stephen Hawking was British, not American.
Note the top IQs are men. This is indicative of the facts and goes against the media feminst/globalist propaganda/
Women are more grouped around the average whereas men are more spread across the spectrum, thus you get more stupid men than women but also many more highly intelligent men than women. This makes evolutionary sense as the bigger the differences between males, the easier it is for women to select the top mates, also the best selected from a spread-out group will be much more intelligent than the best selected from an average group, hence humanity’s intellectual evolution advances more quickly in theory all things being equal.
leornado da vinci is the smartest person in the world he is so smart that scientists measured his iq is immesaurable
means beyond genius
Lady Gaga’s iq is 166
Just goes to show you, you can be smart and still be an idiot!
LOL! And your IQ is fucking 60.
lol your funny.
her IQ might be high, but ya can’t fix stupid
Albert Einstein was not a ‘regular’ genius. I cannot recall where I read it, but he is said to have belonged to a class called ‘transcendental geniuses’. What this means is that there is an incompatible gap between the individual’s measurable IQ and his/her actual or ‘operating’ IQ.
Einstein is popularly reported to have possessed an IQ of 160 but he was capable of reasoning at up to 190 – 200+ (which could never be measured in an IQ test). This is why many of his ideas were so advanced/difficult, that even he (Einstein himself) struggled a bit to describe/explain them!
It goes without saying, transcendental geniuses are exceptionally rare.
That’s a bit of malarkey, don’t you think? Einstein was a gifted physicist as were many physicists of his era. His greatest conclusion, his theory of relativity, although brilliant was not exactly a solo project as much of its construction is a compilation of the work of many others. Other issues are the lack of other formidable productions. Realistically, can we be sure that Einstein belongs in the same class as history’s most productive geniuses such as Einstein and Tesla? What seemed to greatly inflate Einstein’s reputation was his tremendously popular personality as he was a great provider of many of our nation’s most quotable sayings, much like Will Rogers and Mark Twain did.
Where is Ted Kaczynski,his IQ is 167,and Masi Oka,his IQ is 189
No doubt the Einstein IQ estimation is based on the standard Einstein legend, that he himself came up with relativity theory and related ideas. The truth is starting to get out that he was a plagiarist and a mass-media enabled con-man, see for example, by a real scientist:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Einstein-Ruined-Physics-Revolution-ebook/dp/B004ZSC3QM
I leave it to you all to figure out why the mass-media created the myth of Einstein when dear little Albert was just a poor, put-upon Jew ….
what about bobby fisher???
Fischer definitely ought considered and there’s no question that Magnus Carlsen, using the criteria that the author is using, ought be on this list without question.
edit corrected
Fischer definitely ought be considered and there’s no question that Magnus Carlsen, the current world champion, if using the criteria that the author is using, ought to be on this list.
Bill Gates,Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein are all at about 160,how many knew Bill Gates was a genius and a really good business man.
Has IQ got to do with inherited DNA from ancestors, food they consume, etc?
This list is largely hypothetical BS as many on this list have never taken or not known to have taken a certified IQ examination such as the Stanford Binot.
Further, there are individuals who have certified IQs higher than many of those on this list. Example: Walter O’Brien who has a certified 197 IQ.
Quentin Tarantino and Stephen Hawking share the same IQ of 160.