27 Smartest People In The World With Highest IQ

Most of the time people think that the ones with high intelligence will definitely work in the lab, become a professor, research, and earn Nobel prizes. But this is not true every time. Some people become actors and chess players too. These smartest people in the world with the highest IQ can do what others cannot. They have constructed many inventions, records, and theories. Intelligence can be measured in different ways.

People with the highest IQ in the world are generally referred to as legends and geniuses, it is difficult to break their records too. From a very young age, they start achieving everything and shock the world with their knowledge. These people took after the geniuses Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, and many more.

So, here are some of the smartest people with the highest IQ in the world:

1. James Woods (IQ: 180)

James Wood has more IQ scores than Einstein and the same as Leonardo Da Vinci’. He scored amazing in pre-SAT, 800 in verbal, and 799 in mathematics. He got a scholarship and went to MIT College.

He graduated with political science as his subject. He chose acting as a career option. We all have seen him act in many Hollywood movies like White House Down and The Virgin Suicides. He has won many awards during his journey.

2. Steven Pinker (IQ: Unknown)

Steven Pinker is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, linguist, and author. Currently, he is a professor at Harvard. This man is full of knowledge. His work has been praised with many awards and medals.

Also, he is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. He was named “Top 100 Global Thinkers”, “World’s Thinkers”, and “The 100 most influential people in the world today” by many magazines.

3. Judit Polgar (IQ: 170)

Judit Polgar holds the position of the best female chess player in history. From a very young age, Judit wanted to become a chess player. At the age of 11, she became the grandmaster. Currently, she is the only chess player on the World Chess Federation’s Top 100 players list.

The only woman who has crossed the 2700 rating is Polgar. Her father wants to prove the fact that “Geniuses are made not born”. Yes, she proves the point. Although now she is retired, she always remained a top chess player. She is among the top ten smartest person in the world.

4. John Sununu (IQ: 180)

John Sununu is a member of Mega society (a society where people have a high IQ). Earlier, he was a mechanical Engineer. He got his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

After that, he became the 75^th Governor of New Hampshire. Later he moved to the White House as the Chief of Staff. He left his work because of unproven abuse of power. He is among the smartest people in the world.

5. Andrew Wiles (IQ: 170)

Andrew Wiles at the age of 10 was the first person to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem (358 years old theorem). According to the Guinness Book of World Records, he considered as most difficult mathematician problem in the world. Andrew is an English mathematician and Research Professor at Oxford University. He is Brilliant and gained attention at the age of 33.

6. Akshay Venkatesh (IQ: Unknown)

Akshay Venkatesh is an Australian mathematician and a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. At the age of 11, he won the bronze medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad. He is the only Australian who won medals at International Physics Olympiad and International Mathematical Olympiad.

Akshay (maths genius man) was born in Australia but is Indian by origin. He is the youngest person to study at the Western University of Australia. He completed his Ph.D. when he was 20 years old. He is completely a mastermind in mathematics. He won many awards during his journey.

7. Saul Kripke (IQ: Unknown)

Saul Kripke is an American philosopher and logician of the analytic tradition. He especially made a contribution to modal logic now called Kripke semantics. When he was in high school he was invited to Harvard to teach. Saul wrote a set of papers when he was a teenager. He completed many pieces of research and theories.

He won many awards and has been ranked as the seventh most important philosopher. He is one of the well-known logicians and philosophers for the past two centuries.

8. Noam Chomsky (IQ: Unknown)

Noam Chomsky is an American Linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, and whatnot. Mainly he is the father of modern linguistics. He is a Laureate Professor of Linguistics at MIT.

Noam is a public observer and an author of more than 100 books. He reforms everything from artificial intelligence to music theory. In 2005 he was also voted as the world’s top 100 Public intellectuals.

9. Manahel Thabet (IQ: 168)

Manahel Thabet is a Yemen scientist, economist, and consultant and one of the people with the top 0.1% of highest IQs in the world. She is the only and the youngest person in Arab to achieve such great achievements. In 2013, Manahel was named the original Genius of the Year representing Asia.

She is worldwide famous for her contribution to Financial Engineering and Quantum Mathematics. Won many awards including the UN’s Humanitarian award too. People called her The Scientific Genius.

10. Garry Kasparov (IQ: 190)

Garry Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, writer, and political activist. In 1999, he was ranked the world’s No. 1 for a record of 225 months overall in his career. People called him ‘the legendary’ to describe the greatest chess player.

He is the one who took over IBM’s computer Deep Blue as an opponent. He won the match with a score of 4-2. In 2005 he retired from chess. Currently, he is the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation and a smart person in the world.

11. Terence Tao (IQ: 230)

Terence Tao is an Australian-American mathematician who contributed a lot to the field of mathematics. He developed an interest in mathematics from childhood. At the age of 10, he achieved big success – writing International Maths Olympiads. He completed his graduation and masters when he was 16 and by 20 his Ph.D. was done.

This is not all; he scored more than 700 in SAT Math section. He is also famous for his work on the Green-Tao theorem, Tao’s inequality, Kakeya Conjecture, and Horn Conjecture. He is known as Mozart of Maths – the smartest person in the world.

12. Marilyn Vos Savant (IQ: 228)

Marilyn Vos Savant is a writer with the highest recorded IQ of 228. Normal people can’t reach that much. She earned the name of the smartest person in the world. Even though she is very famous but still she lived a quiet life. She writes many books.

In order to protect Marilyn, her parents held this secret to themselves only to provide her with a normal childhood. They wanted to stop the commercials and exploitation which could cause her harm. But in no time the secret was out. She is one of the smartest people in the world.

13. Evangelos Katsioulis (IQ: 198)

Evangelos Katsioulis is a Greek Psychiatrist and medical doctor. Also, he is a writer, motivational speaker, community manager, and online producer. He is brilliant as only 1 out of 30 million people can match his intelligence level. He can be called the smartest man in the world.

Currently, he is a member of 28 IQ societies and instructed the World Intelligence Network IQ society. He is famous for his great intelligence scores. Katsioulis is a very passionate, energetic man.

14. Magnus Carlsen (IQ: 190)

Magnus Carlsen is the world Chess champion. He can be called the most intelligent person in the world. He is the youngest player who ranked number one. Garry Kasparov personally coached him till 2010. Magnus won 7 Chess Oscars and was hailed as “The genius who will only get better”.

15. Christopher Langan (IQ: 195-210)

Christopher Langan is an American horse rancher and autodidact. You won’t believe that Christopher is a self-taught man. He learned to read when he was 4 years old. The surprising fact about him is that he dropped out of college. After that, he started working as doormen. He introduced the Cognitive -Theoretic Model of the Universe. Some people think that he is the smartest man on earth.

16. Donald Knuth (IQ: Unknown)

Donald Knuth is a renowned computer scientist and mathematician. He is known as the father of algorithmic analysis. Mainly, he is famous for – The Art of Computer programming. He was a professor at Stanford University. Knuth, in 1974 received the AC Turing Award (The Nobel Prize in computer science). He is known as the world’s intelligent man.

17. Edward Witten (IQ: Unknown)

Edward Witten is an American mathematical and theoretical physicist. He has contributed to string theory, M-theory, quantum gravity, and super-symmetry. He is one of the renowned physicists of his generation and the world’s intelligent person. He is also one of the smartest people in the world.

He has been one of the influential people represented in TIME magazine and an intelligent man in the world. He has earned the Fields Medal, the Dirac Prize, the Albert Einstein Medal, and the Nemmers Prize in Mathematics.

18. Shahriar Afshar (IQ: Unknown)

Shahriar Afshar is an Iranian American Physicist and entrepreneur. He created the 4D Soundkix mini speakers and got an award for them. He is the smartest person alive whose inventions have been so innovative, that we can easily call him the most intelligent man in the world.

Currently, he is a research professor of Physics. The president and the CEO of consumer electronics start-up, Immerz. Asher holds the 8^th position in the list of smartest people.

19. Kim Ung-Yong (IQ: 210)

Kim Ung-Yong is a Civil Engineer and South Korean professor. He accomplished the highest IQ score. He started his university education at the age of 3. He completed his Ph.D. in Physics at the age of 16 from Colorado State University. After that started working with NASA. Also, he holds the position of Guinness World Record for high IQ. He is one of the most intelligent men in the world.

20. Ruth Lawrence (IQ: Unknown)

Ruth Lawrence is a British-Israeli genius mathematician. In 1985 she was in the headlines as she secured her bachelor’s degree from Oxford University at 13. Now she is working as a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Einstein Institute of Mathematics. Ruth is working on algebraic topology and knot theory and it is very complicated if applied practically.

21. Stephen Hawking (IQ: 160-170)

Stephen Hawking is an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author. He managed to complete his education despite being in depression. He had a motor neuron disease. He wrote a book, “A Brief History of Time” in 1988 which became very famous. Everyone knows that he is one of the smartest people in the world.

He has been one of the first researchers of many theories on black holes. He has been invited as a guest in many TV programs such as Simpsons, Futurama, and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

22. Grigori Perelman (IQ: Unknown)

Grigori Perelman is a mathematician who belongs to Russia. He is the first man to contribute to Mathematics. After that, he left it all at once. He completely shocked everyone with his hard work. Grigori was awarded the Fields Medal (The Nobel Award) but later he rejected the award. He wasn’t the kind of guy who was interested in fame and money.

23. Benjamin Netanyahu (IQ: 180)

Benjamin Netanyahu became the first prime minister of Israel after the state was established. He was born in Israel. Benjamin was a sharp-minded person and has a very high IQ level. He was ranked 11 among the world’s 50 most famous influencers in 2010. He served as the 9^th prime minister of Israel.

24. Christopher Hirata (IQ: 225)

Christopher Hirata is an American cosmologist and astrophysicist. He is an intellectual person. At 13, he became a U.S. resident to receive an international Physics Olympiad gold medal. He started studying at the California Institute of Technology when he was 14 years old.

Christopher worked with NASA on humans going to mars at the age of 16. He is working as a professor at The Ohio State University. He teaches topics such as dark energy, gravitational lensing, cosmic microwave background, galaxy clustering, and general relativity.

25. Richard Rosner (IQ: 190)

Richard Rosner is an American T.V writer. He is a famous reality show personality. He has experienced a complete ride in his career. He has worked as a stripper, doorman, male model, and waiter. In 2000, he was famous for his role in Who wants to be a Millionaire? He has written TV shows such as Jimmy Kimmel Live.

He has been a competitive participant. Also, he read a Greek psychiatrist named Evangelos Katsioulis for 20 hours a day to outdo him. In 2013, he got the “World’s second genius directories of the year” award.

26. Paul Allen (IQ: 160-170)

Paul Allen is a co-founder of Microsoft who quit this position in 2000. He is an American businessman, computer programmer, researcher, investor, and philanthropist. Because he was suffering from a cancer named “Hodgkin’s Lymphoma”.

In 2003, he founded the Allen Institute of Brain Science. Paul was a genius as he started this while surviving such a deadly illness. In 2011, he founded a space transport company known as Stratolaunch Systems. He is a famous philanthropist. He also made donations that surpass the amount of 1.5 billion dollars.

27. Mislav Predavec (IQ: 190)

Mislav Predavec is one of the risk takers. She said that “Most difficult intelligent tests are one of my favorite tasks”. He has high professional skills and is the third smartest person on the planet. Mislav has taken the initiative for most of the high IQ societies like GeneraIQ. Also, he’s an ace Croatian Mathematician. He is among the genius people in the world.

28. Ainan Cawley (IQ: 263)

Ainan Cawley is an Irish genius. He is 21 years old now. When he was 8 years old, at Singapore Polytechnic- started taking 3-year chemistry courses. He learned the first pi 518 decimal places at 9. He is also gifted with entertainment skills. He has written down the script, and composed music for the Reflection film at 12. He has the highest IQ in the world.

29. Nikola Tesla (IQ: 160-310)

Nikola Tesla is a Serbian American Inventor. He developed and invented many big technologies. He first invented the Alternating Current Motor. Tesla also developed the transmission of technology and AC generation. He is one of the known faces in the highest IQ in the world list.

30. Edith Stern (IQ: 203)

Edith Stern is an American inventor and mathematician. Her journey started at a very young age. She started going to college when she was 12 years old. Stern as an adult age she continued to shine in mathematics.

In the 1970s, she also started at IBM. At the age of 15, she completed her graduation from Florida Atlantic University. She is the vice president of research and development. Also, she holds 100 US patents and awarded with ASME Kate Gleason Award.