Smartest People in the World

Judging how smart a person is can be a very subjective matter. Does their IQ score make them the smartest? Or is it more about accomplishments? The debate over this likely will never cease. Below, though, SuperScholar.org took a look at 10 people (in no particular order) nobody would deny are worthy of being called some of the smartest people alive today.

JUST HOW SMART IS SMART?

Whether you agree or disagree with them, IQ tests are the most commonly accepted measure of intelligence. Fifty percent of people have IQ scores between 90 and 110, 2.5 percent of people are mentally deficient/impaired (under 70 IQ), 0.5 percent of people are near genius or genius (over 140,) 2.5 percent of people are very superior in intelligence (over 130).

Here is their list of 10 of the smartest people alive today:

1.Paul Allen is alleged to have an IQ of 160

Paul Gardner Allen (born January 21, 1953) is an American investor and philanthropist, best known as the co-founder, with Bill Gates. Alleged to have nabbed a perfect 1600 on the pre-1995 SAT, Allen beat out his Microsoft partner Bill Gates by 10 points, and according to the Megafoundation is reputed to have an IQ of 160.

Allen must be smart to have convinced IBM, in 1980, that five year old Microsoft had a Disk Operating System which would work on Intel chips when it didn't. It was the pivotal move leading to the IBM contract, which has defined personal computing ever since.

Age: 58

Nationality: American

Job: Chairman, Vulcan Inc.

2.Stephen W. Hawking is alleged to have an IQ of 160

In an interview with MSNBC Hawking said: "People who boast about their IQ are losers." However, his IQ is widely rumored to be 160.  By his own account Hawking didn't learn to read until he was eight and went to University College, Oxford, where his two lackluster final exam scores required a third, oral exam.

After being diagnosed with ALS, he declined taking a doctorate as he didn't expect to live long enough to make it worthwhile. Though his life expectancy exceeded his expectations, concerns that the disease would diminish his genius prompted Hawking to take the Mensa test to confirm his intellect remained unaffected.

Age: 69

Nationality: English

Job : Theoretical physicist and cosmologist

3.Robert Byrne is alleged to have an IQ of 170

Byrne first showed his genius on the chess board in New York City and was one of the "Collins Kids," along with Bobby Fisher, taught by 20th century chess great John W. Collins. According to Career and Test Byrne is reported to have an IQ of 170. He was the chess columnist for the New York Times from 1972 until his retirement in 2006, at 78.

Age: 83

Nationality: American

Job: Professor, writer Chess Grandmaster

4.Judit Polgar is alleged to have an IQ of 170

 

The strongest female chess player in history, Polgar beat Bobby Fisher to become the youngest Grandmaster ever at 15 years, 5 months -- chess.com asserts she has an IQ of 170.

Polgar's father educated his three daughters at home with chess as the central subject. Judit is an International Master and her two sisters are Grandmasters. The experiment belied the assumption that women were naturally weaker players, and strengthened the nurture over nature argument.

Age: 35

Nationality: Hungarian

Job: Chess Grandmaster, mother

5. Jacob Barnett has a verified IQ of 170

Jake didn't talk until he was almost three years old, when he started reciting the alphabet forward and backward. According to the Indianapolis Star he has an IQ of 170*.

At three, his parents took him to a planetarium where he responded correctly to a question about the gravitational pull of Mar's upon its moons, stunning the audience. He is currently a student at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

His YouTube video, talking about Einstein's Theory of Relativity is worth watching. Calculus on the window in the bedroom isn't bad either.

Age: 12

Nationality: American

Job: Student Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children

6. Sir Andrew Wiles is alleged to have an IQ of 170

In 1995, Wiles proved a 358 year old mathematical theory called Fermat's Last Theorem, which until then was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "most difficult math problem" in the world -- according to Browse Biography he has an IQ of 170.

Proving the theorem also granted Wiles a small measure of popular celebrity. He was mentioned in an episode of Star Trek and in the second and third books of Stieg Larsson's popular trilogy.

He was knighted in 2000.

Age: 58

Nationality: English

Job: Mathematics professor: Princeton

7. Benjamin Netanyahu is alleged to have an IQ of 180

Benjamin Netanyahu was listed as number 11 on The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010, by The New Statesman and according to townhall.com, has an IQ of 180.Netanyahu left MIT in 1973 to fight in the Yom Kippur War, when hostilities concluded he returned and earned a B.S.in Architecture.

Age: 62

Nationality:Israeli

Job: Politician

8. Bobby Fischer was alleged to have an IQ of 180

Fischer is credited with having an incredible memory and took the Stanford-Binet IQ test at his high school, in Brooklyn where, according to chess.com, he scored 180. Fischer was absolutely a troubled genius with renowned mental health problems, and he may also have been the world's most intelligent outlaw.

Against a U.S.Department of State 1992 order, Fischer played a rematch against Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia, then under economic sanctions, and remained a wanted man the rest of his life.

Born: March 9, 1943 -- Died January 17, 2008 at 64.

Nationality: American

Job: Chess Grandmaster, writer

9. John H. Sununu is alleged to have an IQ of 180

Sununu is a member of the Mega Society -- whose membership is composed of those with IQ's in the 99.9999th percentile -- one in a million, and is rumored by NNDB to have an IQ of 180.

Sununu became famous for his abuses of government travel while George H.W. Bush's Chief of Staff from 1989-1991, and was mentioned as recently as 2009 in the Family Guy episode: A Picture is Worth a 1,000 Bucks.

Age: 72

Nationality: Cuban

Job: Mechanical engineer, politician

10. James Woods is alleged to have an IQ of 180

Woods was a brilliant student who achieved a perfect 800 on the verbal and 779 on the math portions of the pre-1995 SAT. He attended MIT on scholarship and was described by IMDb as having an IQ of 180.

Woods enrolled in a linear algebra course at UCLA while still in high school before accepting the full scholarship to MIT.

Age: 64

Nationality: American

Job: Actor

11. Marilyn vos Savant has a verified IQ of 186

In 1985, The Guinness Book of World Records accepted vos Savant's IQ score of 190, and according to marilynvossavant.com, crowned her the woman with the highest IQ for five consecutive years -- she has tested as high as 228 on various IQ tests.

vos Savant was an outspoken critic of fellow genius, Andrew Wiles' Fermat Theorem, and wrote a book in 1993 asserting his methodology in the proof was flawed. In 1995, following accusations that she did not fully understand various mathematical theories, she retracted her assertions and allowed for Wiles' methods.

Age: 64

Nationality: American

Job: Author

12. Garry Kasparov is alleged to have an IQ of 190

In 2003 Kasparov played to a draw against a chess computer that could calculate three million positions per second.

According to chess.nuvvo.com a German study found Kasparov to have an IQ of 135, other sources put the number as high as 190.

Kasparov contends that IBM cheated during the computerized match where he was defeated by Deep Blue in 1997. He said he saw, "deep intelligence and creativity" in the computers moves that could only have come from human assistance.

IBM denied the allegation, refused to provide Kasparov with log files from the game, and retired the machine -- proof to Kasparov of "evidence tampering."

Age: 47

Nationality: Azerbaijanian

Job: Chess Grandmaster, writer, political activist

13. Philip Emeagwali is alleged to have an IQ of 190

Emeagwali left school in 1967, at 13, to fight in the Nigerian-Biafran war, completed a self-study high school equivalency, got a B.S. in Math from Oregon State and three Master's Degrees in Math, Environmental and Marine Engineering from various schools.

He was reported by Sahara Reporters as having an IQ of 190.Emeagwali sat for his Ph.D at the University of Michigan from 1987-1991, but when he was denied the degree he sued UM school for racial discrimination.The case made it to the Michigan Court of Appeals where it was finally dismissed.

Age: 56
Nationality: Nigerian Job: Writer, speaker

14. Christopher Michael Langan has a verified IQ of 195

Langan achieved a perfect score on the SAT, but dropped out of Montana State University after concluding his professors weren't qualified to teach him anything -- ABC's 20/20 measured his IQ between 195 and 210.

Langan began talking at six months, and taught himself to read when he was three.

He says he lived a double life for years, manual labor during the day and complex equations in his head at night.

Age: 59

Nationality: American

Job: Construction worker, cowboy, forest service firefighter, farmhand, bouncer and writer

15. Kim Ung-Yong has a verified IQ of 210

Yong could speak fluently at six months old and was a guest student in physics at Hanyang University by the time he was three.

He was described by Oddee as having the Guinness Book of World Records set his IQ at 210.

After leaving NASA at 16, he was offered enrollment at Korea's most prestigious universities, instead Yong chose a provincial college to earn his PhD in Civil Engineering.

As of 2007 he also serves on the adjunct faculty at Chungbuk National University.

Age: 49

Nationality: Korean

Job: Civil engineer

16. Christopher Hirata has a verified IQ of 225

Hirata skipped middle school and at 16 was working with NASA on project exploring the possibility of colonizing Mars.The Daily Princetonian, Princeton's student paper, where Hirata began attending for his PhD in Astrophysics at 18, reported that his IQ is around 225.

Age: 29

Nationality: American

Job: Assistant Professor, Astrophysics, Cal Tech

17. Terrence Tao has a verified IQ of 230

At eight years old, Tao achieved a score of 760 on the pre-1995 SAT, received a Ph.D from Princeton at 20 and at 24 became the youngest ever full professor at UCLA. His IQ is pegged at between 220 and 230 by the Davidson Institute. Tao says he learned to read by watching Sesame Street in Western Australia.

Age: 35

Nationality: Australian

Job: Mathematician

18. William James Sidis is alleged to have had an IQ of 275

With an IQ between 250 and 300, Sidis has one of the highest intelligence quotients ever recorded. Entering Harvard at the ago of 11, he was fluent in more than 40 languages by the time he graduated and worked his way into adulthood. Embittered over a 1918 arrest under the Sedition Act, Sidis spent the years from 1921 till his death at 46 in 1944 running adding machines and doing only menial tasks.

Nationality: Ukrainian American

Job: Psychiatrist