| Rank | Name | IQ | Born | Known For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 1st | John Forbes Nash Jr. 🇺🇸 | 180 | 1928 | Nash equilibrium <br> Nash embedding theorem <br> Nash functions <br> Nash–Moser theorem <br> Hilber… |
| 2 2nd | Isaac Asimov 🇺🇸 | 170 | 1920 | The Foundation series |
| 3 3rd | Marion Tinsley 🇺🇸 | 170 | 1927 | Never losing a world championship match |
| 4 | Robert M. Pirsig 🇺🇸 | 170 | 1928 | Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Lila: An Inquiry into Morals (1991) |
| 5 | Theodore Maiman 🇺🇸 | 165 | 1927 | Inventing the laser |
| 6 | Marvin Minsky 🇺🇸 | 160 | 1927 | Artificial intelligence <br> Confocal microscope <br> Useless machine <br> Triadex Muse <br> Percep… |
| 7 | Truman Capote 🇺🇸 | 150 | 1924 | Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and In Cold Blood (1966) |
| 8 | Stanley Kubrick 🇺🇸 | 150 | 1928 | Spartacus <br> The Shining <br> 2001: A Space Odyssey <br> A Clockwork Orange |
| 9 | Martin Luther King Jr. 🇺🇸 | 140 | 1929 | Civil rights movement, Peace movement |
| 10 | Rosalind Franklin 🇬🇧 | — | 1920 | Structure of DNA <br> Fine structure of coal and graphite <br> Virus structures |
| 11 | György Cziffra 🇭🇺 | — | 1921 | Entered the Franz Liszt Academy at age nine, after some four years performing in a traveling circus |
| 12 | Aage Niels Bohr 🇩🇰 | — | 1922 | Explained the structure of the atomic nucleus, unifying the liquid-drop and shell models to produce… |
| 13 | Yang Chen-Ning 🇨🇳 | — | 1922 | Yang–Mills theory <br> Gauge theory <br> Yang–Mills–Higgs equations |
| 14 | Esther Lederberg 🇺🇸 | — | 1922 | Lambda phage, specialized transduction, replica plating, fertility factor F, Plasmid Reference Cente… |
| 15 | Stan Lee 🇺🇸 | — | 1922 |
The Roaring Twenties brought jazz, mass media, and modernism to the forefront as the world recovered from the shock of the Great War. Quantum mechanics was being invented in real time by Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and Bohr, while radio and cinema were creating entirely new forms of culture. Prosperity and creative explosion existed alongside rising fascism and the instability that would soon produce the Great Depression.
John Forbes Nash Jr. is ranked #1 among geniuses born in the 1920s with an estimated IQ of 180, known for Nash equilibrium <br> Nash embedding theorem <br> Nash functions <br> Nash–Moser theorem <br> Hilbert's nineteenth probl….
Our database includes 26 notable geniuses born between 1920–1929, spanning fields from science and mathematics to philosophy, literature, and the arts.
The average estimated IQ of documented geniuses born in the 1920s is 162, with the highest recorded being 180.
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