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80 GENIUSES

Living Geniuses of Our Time

Living geniuses are harder to rank — their work is still unfolding. The page below collects the most-cited contemporary minds in science, technology, philosophy, and the arts.

Adragon Eastwood De Mello

Adragon Eastwood De Mello

IQ 185

Child prodigy who graduated from the University of California with a degree in computational mathematics in 1988, at age

Aeschylus

Aeschylus

IQ 173

An ancient Greek tragedian

Ainan Celeste Cawley

Ainan Celeste Cawley

IQ 250

A Singaporean child prodigy

Akhenaten

Akhenaten

IQ 170

A 18th Dynasty pharaoh

Akrit Jaswal

Akrit Jaswal

IQ 146

An Indian adolescent who performed his first surgery at the age of 7.

Akshay Venkatesh

Akshay Venkatesh

Mathematical Work, Former Child Prodigy

Al-Battani

Al-Battani

A Syrian Arab astronomer, and mathematician.

Al-Kindi

Al-Kindi

A Muslim philosopher, mathematician, physician, and musician who is hailed as the "father of Arab philosophy".

Alan Guth

Alan Guth

An American theoretical physicist and cosmologist.

Albertus Magnus

Albertus Magnus

IQ 180

A 13th century German Dominican friar and saint

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton

IQ 155

An American founding father and statesman

Alfred Wegener

Alfred Wegener

IQ 160

A German polar researcher, geophysicist and meteorologist.

Ibn al-Haytham

Ibn al-Haytham

IQ 175

A Muslim Arab mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age who is referred to as the father of mod

Ali Pasha of Ioannina

Ali Pasha of Ioannina

Was an Ottoman Albanian ruler who served as pasha of a large part of western Rumelia, the Ottoman Empire's European terr

Alireza Firouzja

Alireza Firouzja

An Iranian chess player who earned the Grandmaster title at the age of 14.

Alma Deutscher

Alma Deutscher

Is an English composer, pianist and violinist who completed a short opera The Sweeper of Dreams at age 7.

Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras

IQ 180

Ancient Greek philosopher

Anaximander

Anaximander

IQ 180

A pre-Socratic Greek philosopher

Anaximenes of Miletus

Anaximenes of Miletus

An Ancient Greek, Ionian Pre-Socratic philosopher.

Andrew Wiles

Andrew Wiles

Proving Fermat's Last Theorem

Anish Kumar Giri

Anish Kumar Giri

Anish Kumar Giri is a Dutch chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, he completed the requirements for the grandmaster title

Archimedes

Archimedes

IQ 190

A Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer.

Aristarchus of Samos

Aristarchus of Samos

IQ 175

An ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who presented the first known heliocentric model that placed the Sun at th

Aristotle

Aristotle

IQ 200

A Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece.

Arjun Erigaisi

Arjun Erigaisi

An Indian chess grandmaster.

Aryan Chopra

Aryan Chopra

An Indian chess prodigy who became a grandmaster (GM) in 2016.

Awonder Liang

Awonder Liang

An American chess prodigy.

Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson

IQ 170

An English playwright and poet best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox (c

Bill Gates

Bill Gates

IQ 160

An American business magnate, software developer, and philanthropist. The co-founder of Microsoft Corporation.

Boethius

Boethius

IQ 175

A Roman senator, consul, magister officiorum, and philosopher of the early 6th century.

Bogdan-Daniel Deac

Bogdan-Daniel Deac

Romanian chess player

Bu Xiangzhi

Bu Xiangzhi

A Chinese chess player who became the 10th grandmaster from China at the age of 13 years, 10 months and 13 days,

Callimachus

Callimachus

IQ 165

Architect and sculptor working in the second half of the 5th century BC.

Charlemagne

Charlemagne

IQ 180

The King of the Franks, the King of the Lombards, and the Emperor of the Romans who united the majority of western and c

Yang Chen-Ning

Yang Chen-Ning

A Chinese theoretical physicist who made significant contributions to statistical mechanics, integrable systems, gauge t

Chris Hirata

Chris Hirata

IQ 225

An American cosmologist and astrophysicist.

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

IQ 140

An explorer and navigator from Genoa (now part of Italy) who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, opening t

Christopher Langan

Christopher Langan

IQ 174

An American autodidact described as "the smartest man in America"

Christopher Wren

Christopher Wren

IQ 165

An acclaimed English architect, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist.

Ptolemy

Ptolemy

IQ 175

2nd-century Greco-Egyptian writer & astronomer who wrote several scientific treatises, three of which were of importance

Cleanthes

Cleanthes

A Greek Stoic philosopher and successor to Zeno of Citium as the second head of the Stoic school in Athens.

Confucius

Confucius

IQ 170

a Chinese philosopher considered the paragon of Chinese sages

Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney

Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney

IQ 170

A French philosopher, abolitionist, writer, orientalist, and politician who was one of the first modern writers to advoc

Craig Venter

Craig Venter

An American biotechnologist and businessman known for leading the first draft sequence of the human genome and assemblin

Ctesibius

Ctesibius

IQ 185

Greek inventor and mathematician who is considered to be the father of pneumatics.

Daniel Barenboim

Daniel Barenboim

A pianist and conductor who is a citizen of Argentina, Israel, Palestine, and Spain who gave his first formal concert in

Daniel Bernoulli

Daniel Bernoulli

A Swiss mathematician and physicist for pioneering work in probability and statistics

Daniel Sennert

Daniel Sennert

IQ 170

A renowned German physician and a prolific academic writer, especially in the field of alchemy or chemistry.

Daniil Dubov

Daniil Dubov

Is a Russian chess grandmaster.

Dariusz Świercz

Dariusz Świercz

A Polish-American chess player playing for the United States.

Democritus

Democritus

IQ 185

An Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher primarily remembered today for his formulation of an atomic theory of the univ

Demosthenes

Demosthenes

IQ 160

His orations

Diagoras of Melos

Diagoras of Melos

IQ 155

A Greek poet and sophist of the 5th century BC who allegedly chopped up a wooden statue of Heracles and used it to roast

Diodorus Siculus

Diodorus Siculus

IQ 160

A genius historian from ancient Greece known for his universal history work Bibliotheca Historica.

Diogenes

Diogenes

IQ 170

A genius philosopher who's most famous for carrying a lamp during the day, claiming to be looking for an honest man.

Diogenes Laërtius

Diogenes Laërtius

IQ 155

A biographer of the Greek philosophers whose works have become the foremost surviving source on the history of Greek phi

Diophantus

Diophantus

An Alexandrian genius mathematician, who was the author of a series of books called Arithmetica.

Donald Knuth

Donald Knuth

An American computer scientist who is called the "father of the analysis of algorithms" and is known for the work The Ar

Meister Eckhart

Meister Eckhart

A German theologian, philosopher and mystic who rose into prominence during the Avignon Papacy.

Ecphantus the Pythagorean

Ecphantus the Pythagorean

A shadowy Greek pre-Socratic philosopher who maintained that the Cosmos is made of atoms. His existence is disputed to t

Edith Stern

Edith Stern

IQ 200

An American inventor and mathematician who holds over 100 US patents and was the youngest ever graduate of Florida Atlan

Edward Witten

Edward Witten

An American mathematical and theoretical physicist who was awarded a Fields Medal for the proof of the positive energy t

Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I

IQ 175

A Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last of the five monarchs of t

Elon Musk

Elon Musk

IQ 155

One in a lifetime entrepreneur, business giant, scientist & engineer. The man behind Tesla, Space-X and more.

Emily Bear

Emily Bear

A genius American composer, pianist, songwriter and singer who started playing the piano and composing music as a small

Empedocles

Empedocles

IQ 195

A Greek pre-Socratic philosopher best known for originating the cosmogonic theory of the four classical elements.

Epictetus

Epictetus

IQ 170

A genius Greek Stoic philosopher who taught that philosophy is a way of life and not just a theoretical discipline.

Epicurus

Epicurus

IQ 185

An ancient Greek philosopher and sage who founded the philosophical school of Epicureanism and openly allowed women and

Eratosthenes

Eratosthenes

IQ 175

A Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. He was the chief librarian at the Library of Al

Ethan Bortnick

Ethan Bortnick

An American pianist, singer, songwriter, record producer and musician who discovered a set of music skills when he was o

Étienne Bacrot

Étienne Bacrot

A French chess grandmaster and former chess prodigy who became the first French player to enter the top 10 in January 20

Ettore Majorana

Ettore Majorana

IQ 183

An Italian theoretical physicist who worked on neutrino masses. The Majorana equation and Majorana fermions are named af

Euclid

Euclid

A Greek mathematician, often referred to as the founder of geometry. His Elements is one of the most famous works in the

Eudoxus of Cnidus

Eudoxus of Cnidus

IQ 170

An ancient Greek astronomer, mathematician, scholar, and student of Archytas and Plato. Some fragments of his work are p

Euripides

Euripides

IQ 180

A tragedian of classical Athens who is remembered by the plays Medea, Hippolytus, Electra, The Trojan Women, and Bacchae

Evangelos Katsioulis

Evangelos Katsioulis

IQ 198

A psychiatrist and psychotherapist who has the world's highest measured IQ of 205 and is also ranked first in the World

Evgeny Kissin

Evgeny Kissin

A Russian concert pianist and composer who rose to international fame as a child prodigy. He is known interpretations of

Fabiano Caruana

Fabiano Caruana

An Italian and American chess player and chess prodigy. He became a grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 11 months, and 2

Fibonacci

Fibonacci

An Italian mathematician, considered to be the most talented Western mathematician of the Middle Ages. He popularized th

François Rabelais

François Rabelais

IQ 170

A French Renaissance writer, physician, Renaissance humanist, monk, and Greek scholar.

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Preguntas Frecuentes

Who is the smartest person alive?

Terence Tao (IQ est. 230), Christopher Hirata (IQ est. 225), and Ed Witten are the most-cited living geniuses in scientific rankings.

Is Elon Musk a genius?

Musk's companies — Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink — demonstrate cross-domain operational genius; he is not a research genius in the classical sense.

Who is the greatest living mathematician?

Terence Tao and Grigori Perelman (who proved the Poincaré conjecture and rejected the Fields Medal) top most living-mathematician rankings.

What is Demis Hassabis known for?

Demis Hassabis is co-founder of DeepMind and shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold — the AI that solved protein folding.

Who is the smartest living physicist?

Edward Witten, Roger Penrose, and Juan Maldacena are frequently cited as the smartest living theoretical physicists.