Although we might have come across this term plenty of times during our lives, we still need to set some standards so that we can distinguish a great score from an average one. IQ is nothing but the number that a person scores after taking one of the many standardized tests to measure the intelligence level of individuals.  Originally, the intelligence quotient was calculated as the ratio of mental age and chronological age (IQ= MA/CA x 100, where MA is mental age, CA is chronological age). However, today, intelligence scores are calibrated against values of actual population scores

1. IQ
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2. What is IQ?
• Although we might have come across this term
plenty of times during our lives, we still need to
set some standards so that we can distinguish a
great score from an average one.
• IQ is nothing but the number that a person scores
after taking one of the many standardized tests to
measure the intelligence level of individuals.
• Originally, the intelligence quotient was
calculated as the ratio of mental age and
chronological age (IQ= MA/CA x 100, where MA
is mental age, CA is chronological age). However,
today, intelligence scores are calibrated against
values of actual population scores

10. The highest IQ score ever recorded
1. Ainan Celeste Cawley (IQ score: 263)
2. William James Sidis (IQ score: 250-300)
3. Terence Tao (IQ score: 225-230)
4. Marilyn Vos Savant (IQ score: 228)
5. Christopher Hirata (IQ score: 225)
6. Kim Ung-Yong (IQ score: 210)
7. Edith Stern (IQ score: 200+)
8. Christopher Michael Langan (IQ score: 190 – 210)
9. Garry Kasparov (IQ score: 194)
10. Philip Emeagwali (IQ score: 190)
11. Judit Polgar (IQ score: 170)
12. Albert Einstein (IQ score: 160 – 190)
13. Stephen Hawking (IQ score: 160)

11. Stephen Hawking (IQ-160)

12. • Considered one of the greatest minds of our time, he
was a professor, author and world-renowned theoretical
physicist.
• His book “A Brief History of Time” has sold more than
10 million copies worldwide.
• Moreover, he was the undisputed champion when it
comes to the study of black holes, which was also his
particular field of study at the time of his death in
March 2018.
• Due to his inspiring battle with Amyotrophic Lateral
Sclerosis (ALS) and his undying love for physics,
Hawking was viewed as a symbol of knowledge and
intelligence in pop culture, an honor he definitely
deserved!

14. • Speaking of ‘symbols of knowledge’, the name
of this scientist is actually synonymous with
genius. It cannot be denied that he shaped the
future of science.
• He received a Nobel Prize for the discovery of
the law of photoelectric effect.
• The theory of relativity was also his brainchild.
Although there is no scientific method of
calculating his IQ posthumously, researchers
have had to resort to estimating his score
through careful analysis of his papers.

15. Judit Polgar (IQ score: 170)

16. • Chess Grandmasters rarely aren’t geniuses,
and by rarely, I mean never.
• Judit Polgar became the youngest one at the
age of 15 and still proudly holds that record.
• She is not only viewed as a pioneer for women
in chess, but also as one of the greatest chess
players to ever live.
• She defeated Garry Kasparov, the reigning
world champion, in 2002 and went on to
conquer 10 other world championships.
•

17. Philip Emeagwali (IQ score: 190)

18. • Philip Emeagwali is a Nigerian-born engineer,
mathematician, computer scientist and geologist. He
left school at an early age of 13 due to the Nigerian-
Biafran War.
• Through hard work and self-study, he earned a degree
in Mathematics.
• He went on to win the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, a prize
from the IEEE, for his use of a Connection Machine
supercomputer to help detect petroleum fields.
• Even after facing rejection due to racial discrimination,
he didn’t give up and continued to inspire people
worldwide by earning three Master’s degree in
Mathematics, Environmental and Marine Engineering
from various universities.
•

19. Garry Kasparov (IQ score: 194)

20. • Being ranked world No.1 225 times over the
course of 228 months is no small achievement.
• Russian by birth, Kasparov is considered by some
to be the greatest chess player of all time.
• As a testament to his brilliance, he once tied a
match with IBM’s Deep Blue, a chess computer
that could calculate 100 million moves per
second!
• He is also the proud record holder of the
highest number of consecutive wins.
•

21. Christopher Michael Langan (IQ score: 190 – 210)

22. • Born in San Francisco, California,
• Christopher Langan began speaking at the age of
6 months, and taught himself to read when he was
just 3 years old.
• It is said about Langan that he managed to hit the
perfect score in SAT despite falling asleep during
the exam! He is frequently hailed as the ‘smartest
man in America’.
• He has also developed a theory called “Cognitive-
Theoretic Model of the Universe” (CTMU) which
basically deals with “the relationship between
mind and reality”.
•

23. Edith Stern (IQ score: 200+)

24. • Born in 1952 to Aaron Stern (a concentration
camp survivor whose cancer treatment was paid
for by Albert Einstein),
• Edith Stern could communicate with cards when
she was no older than 11 months.
• At 1, she could identify letters and by 2 she could
speak the entire alphabet.
• At 12, she had already entered college and 4 years
later, she was teaching trigonometry there.
• Her IQ score is reported to be more than 200.
• Currently, she holds a PhD in Mathematics, and is
a distinguished engineer and inventor at IBM.
•

25. Kim Ung-Yong (IQ score: 210)

26. • Born in 1963 in Korea, Kim Ung-Yong started speaking
when he was just 6 months old.
• By his third birthday, Kim Ung-Yong could already read
English, Korean, Japanese, and German. As if this wasn’t
mind-boggling enough, he was writing poetry and had
completed two short stories by the time he was four years
old!
• His drive and thirst for knowledge made him decline
enrollment in Korea’s most prestigious university at the age
of 16 and he instead started to pursue a PhD in Civil
Engineering.
• Presently, he spends his time doing invaluable research and
teaching students at Chungbuk National University in South
Korea.
•

27. Christopher Hirata (IQ score: 225)

28. • A former child prodigy, Hirata became the
youngest American to clinch a gold medal at the
International Physics Olympiad in 1996, and he
accomplished the incredible feat when he was just
13!
• He was involved in a project at NASA when he
was 16, and obtained his PhD from the prestigious
Princeton University at a young age of 22.
• Presently, he is a visiting professor of astronomy
and physics at Ohio State University.

29. Marilyn Vos Savant (IQ score: 228)

30. • Marilyn was born in Missouri, US in 1946. She believes that
one should keep their premarital surnames, and hence she kept
the surname of her mother, Marina vos Savant.
• As a teenager, she worked at her father’s general store and
wrote articles for local newspapers under different names. She
rose to fame when she first topped the Guinness Book of
World Records list of the “highest iq” category in 1986 and
stayed there until 1989. She was reported to have an IQ score
of 228.
• However, a psychology professor and author of IQ tests
named Alan Kaufman challenged this and claimed that…
• Miss Savant was given an old version of the Stanford-Binet
(Terman & Merrill 1937), which did, indeed, use the
antiquated formula of MA/CA × 100. But in the test manual’s
norms, the Binet does not permit IQs to rise above 170 at any
age. So, the psychologist who came up with an IQ of 228
committed an extrapolation of a misconception, thereby
violating almost every rule imaginable concerning the
meaning of IQs

31. Terence Tao (IQ score: 225-230)

32. • Born in 1975 to a Chinese family, Terence displayed
exceptional aptitude towards Mathematics from a very early
age.
• The fact that he had started attending university-level Math
courses should be proof enough of that.
• He had acquired his PhD when he was just 20, and perhaps
more importantly, he was the co-recipient of the Fields
Medal in 2006.
• For the uninitiated, the Fields Medal can be thought of as
the Nobel-equivalent awarded in the field of Mathematics,
only they give out that award once every 4 years.
• Presently, Tao resides in Los Angeles with his wife and kids
and focuses on theories regarding partial differential
equations, algebraic combinatorics, harmonic analysis and
analytic number theory.

33. William James Sidis (IQ score: 250-300)

34. • This man simply plays in an altogether different league. Born
in 1898 in New York City, and raised in a family of
intellectuals, he was gifted from the very beginning.
• At the age of 5, he could use a typewriter and had learnt to
speak Latin, Greek, Russian, French, German and Hebrew.
• He was denied admission to Harvard at the age of 6 because he
was called too emotionally immature.
• Later, at age 11, they were forced to admit him, after which he
gave his well-received first lecture on 4-dimensional physics!
He was threatened by some fellow students at Harvard, so his
parents assigned him to a teaching job in Texas.
• Due to this he could not pursue academics and instead decided
to focus on his political career. He died of a stroke at the age of
46 as a reclusive, penniless clerk.

35. Ainan Celeste Cawley (IQ score: 263)

36. • This man is the youngest of the lot. Born in 1999,
Ainan Celeste Cawley is projected to have an IQ
score of 263!
• At the age of 7, Ainan became the youngest person in
the world to pass Chemistry-O level.
• By the age of 8, he was taking Chemistry lectures at
Singapore Polytechnic (an institution of higher
learning in Singapore).
• He composes music and can recite Pi to 518 decimal
places.

37. TOP 25 Countries with high average IQ
25. CANADA
24.USA
23.NORWAY
22.MONGOLIA
21.FRANCE
20.DENMARK 98
19.AUSTRALIA
18.SPAIN
17.POLAND
16.HUNGARY
15.UK AVE 100
14.NEWZEALAND
13.CHINA
12.BELGIUM 100
11. SWITHERLAND 101
1. HONG KONG 107
2. SOUTH KOREA 105
3. JAPAN 105
4. TAIWAN 104
5. SINGAPORE 103
6. AUSTRIA 102
7. GERMANY 102
8. ITALY 102
9. NETHERLANDS 102
10. SWEDEN 101