From a man who taught himself mathematics at the age of three to another who beat a computer in a game of chess, in today’s article, we take a look at 10 Smartest Living Persons on Earth.
1. Judit Polgar
Born on 23 July 1976, Judit Polgar is a Hungarian chess player. She is generally considered the strongest female chess player of all time. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, breaking the record previously held by former World Champion Bobby Fischer.
Polgár is the only woman to have won a game against a reigning world number one player and has defeated eleven current or former world champions in either rapid or classical chess.
2. Christopher Hirata
Born on November 30, 1982, Christopher Hirata is an American cosmologist and astrophysicist. At 13, he won the gold medal at the International Physics Olympiad in 1996.
At 18, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in physics at Caltech in 2001. A few years later, he earned his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Princeton University. From 2005 to 2007, he was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study.
From 2006 to 2012, he was an assistant professor and then full professor at Caltech, before moving to the Ohio State University the following academic year in the same capacity. He is currently a professor at OSU’s Center for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.
3. Kim Ung-Yong
Born on March 8, 1962, Kim Ung-Yong is a South Korean professor and former child prodigy, who claims to have held the Guinness World Records for the highest IQ, at 210.
By the time he was a year old, Kim had learned both the Korean alphabet and 1,000 Chinese characters by studying the Thousand Character Classic, a 6th-century Chinese poem. At three years old, he was able to solve calculus problems, and he also published a best-selling book of his essays in English and German, as well as his calligraphy and illustrations.
By the age of five, Kim could speak Korean, English, French, German and Japanese. That year, he enrolled at Grant High School in Los Angeles after an article was published about him in Look magazine that caught the attention of the school. He also audited a physics class at Hanyang University.
4. Terence Tao
Born on July 17, 1975, Terence Tao is an Australian-American mathematician. He is a professor of mathematics at the University of California where he holds the James and Carol Collins chair.
He was a recipient of the 2006 Fields Medal and the 2014 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics. He is also a 2006 MacArthur Fellow, and widely regarded as one of the greatest living mathematicians.
A child prodigy, Tao exhibited extraordinary mathematical abilities from an early age, attending university-level mathematics courses at the age of 9.
With a score of 760, he is one of only two children in the history of the Johns Hopkins’ Study of Exceptional Talent program to have achieved a score of 700 or greater on the SAT math section. Tao achieved this feat when he was only 8 years old.
5. Evangelos Katsioulis
Born on January 19, 1976, Evangelos Katsioulis is a psychiatrist and is known to have the highest IQ test score of 205 in the Stanford-Binet scale. He made headlines in his home country when he won the World Genius Directory in 2013 genius of the year award with a remarkable score of 198.4.
He studied at the Greece’s Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, earning a Master’s degree in Science and Medical Research and Technology, a Master’s degree in Philosophy, and a Ph.D. in Psychopharmacology. He is a member of 28 IQ societies, including the exclusive GIGA Society. Only one in 30 billion people will match his intelligence level.
6. Ruth Lawrence
Born on August 2, 1971, Ruth Lawrence is a British–Israeli mathematician and an associate professor of mathematics at the Einstein Institute of Mathematics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a researcher in knot theory and algebraic topology.
In 1980, at the age of nine, Lawrence gained an O-level in mathematics and achieved a Grade A at A-level pure mathematics. In 1985, she earned her Bachelor’s degree from Oxford University at the age of 13, and in 1989, a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Mathematics at the age of 17.
Lawrence and her father moved to America for Lawrence’s first academic post at Harvard University, where she became a junior fellow in 1990 at the age of 19.
7. Richard Rosner
Born on May 2, 1960, Richard Rosner is an American television writer and reality television personality. In 1985, he scored 44 of 48 on Ron Hoeflin’s Mega Test, a test described in a history of IQ testing as “a non-standardized test put out by an obscure group known as Mega, supposedly the world’s most selective organization of geniuses.”
A score of 44 of 48 represents an IQ of 180. In 1991, he retook the test and achieved 47 of 48 or an IQ of 190. He achieved an IQ score of 192 in the high-range IQ test Mathema by answering 13 of 16 questions correctly.
Rosner began writing for quiz shows in 1987 on the MTV series Remote Control. He then scripted a number of clip shows, countdowns, and outtake programs in the 1990s.
8. Edward Witten
Born on August 26, 1951, Edward Witten is an American mathematical and theoretical physicist. He is currently the Charles Simonyi Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study.
As a physicist, he has been described as the most brilliant physicist of his generation and the world’s living theoretical physicist. He is also part of Time Magazine’s most influential people in the world with accolades like the Fields Medal, the Dirac Prize, the Albert Einstein Medal, and Nemmers Prize in Mathematics.
9. Christopher Langan
Born on March 25, 1952, Christopher Langan is an American horse rancher and autodidact who has been reported to score very highly on IQ tests. Langan’s IQ was estimated on ABC’s 20/20 to be between 195 and 210, and in 1999 he was described by some journalists as “the smartest man in America” or “in the world”.
Langan has developed an idea he calls the “Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe” which he maintains “explains the connection between mind and reality, therefore the presence of cognition and universe in the same phrase”. He calls his proposal “a true ‘Theory of Everything’, including “the existence of God, the soul and an afterlife, using mathematics.”
10. Garry Kasparov
Born on April 13, 1963, Garry Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster who became the youngest undisputed World Chess Champion in 1985 at age 22 by defeating Anatoly Karpov.
He held the official FIDE world title until 1993, when a dispute with FIDE led him to set up a rival organization, the Professional Chess Association.
In 1996, he famously took on IBM computer Deep Blue, winning with a score of four to two. He has a reported IQ of 190. He retired from professional chess in 2005. And these are the 10 Smartest Living Persons on Earth.
