The Greatest Inventors in History — Ranked

Inventors take ideas and turn them into machines. The light bulb, the airplane, the telephone, the personal computer — every one started in a single mind.

This list ranks the inventors whose patents reshaped daily life, organized by impact and breadth.

Marnen Laibow-Koser

b. 1970 • US

IQ 268

Being a child prodigy, proficient with multiple musical instruments and programming techniques.

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William James Sidis

b. 1898 • d. 1944 • US

IQ 250

The Animate And The Inanimate

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Terence Chi-Shen Tao

b. 1975 • AU

IQ 220

When he was two years old, he was able to perform simple arithmetic. By the time he was nine, he was studying college-level math courses. An

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Kim Ung-yong

b. 1962 • KR

IQ 210

Having one of the biggest IQs in the world.

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Aristotle

b. 0384 • GR

IQ 200

A genius whose philosophical ideas are still taught, but his contributions to physics retarded progress for almost two millennia.

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Edith Stern

b. 1952 • US

IQ 200

Holding over 100 US patents and being awarded the ASME Kate Gleason Award.

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

b. 1749 • d. 1832 • DE

IQ 200

Faust

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Leonardo Da Vinci

b. 1452 • d. 1519 • IT

IQ 200

Painting, drawing, sculpting, science, engineering, architecture, anatomy

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Vitalik Buterin

b. 1994 • RU

IQ 200

Ethereum founder, Bitcoin Magazine

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Walter O'Brien (Obrien)

b. 1975 • IE

IQ 197

Inspiration of the television series Scorpion

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Henry Adams

b. 1838 • d. 1918 • US

IQ 195

The Education of Henry Adams, The History of the United States of America 1801–1817

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Hermann von Helmholtz

b. 1821 • d. 1894 • DE

IQ 195

His mathematics of the eye, theories of vision, ideas on the visual perception of space, color vision research, and on the sensation of tone

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Nikola Tesla

b. 1856 • d. 1943 • HR

IQ 195

Inventing the Tesla coil, alternating current machinery, and a transatlantic communications system. Is regarded as one of the most important

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Pierre-Simon Laplace

b. 1749 • d. 1827 • FR

IQ 195

Predicting the existence of black holes

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Richard G. Rosner

b. 1960 • US

IQ 192

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Archimedes

b. 0287 • GR

IQ 190

Archimedes' principleArchimedes' screwhydrostaticsleversinfinitesimalsNeuseis constructions

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Athanasius Kircher

b. 1602 • d. 1680 • DE

IQ 190

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Carl Friedrich Gauss

b. 1777 • d. 1855 • DE

IQ 190

Gaussian elimination, also known as "row reduction" or "Gaussian method" • Gauss–Jordan elimination • Gauss–Seidel method • Gauss's cyclotom

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Christiaan Huygens

b. 1629 • d. 1695 • NL

IQ 190

Explanation of Saturn's rings • Centrifugal force • Collision formulae • Gambler's ruin • Pendulum clock • Huygens–Fresnel principle • Wave

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Enrico Fermi

b. 1901 • d. 1954 • IT

IQ 190

Demonstrating first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction Fermi–Dirac statistics Fermi's golden rule Fermi paradox Fermi method Fermi theo

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Erwin Schrödinger

b. 1887 • d. 1961 • AT

IQ 190

Schrödinger's cat

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Francis Bacon

b. 1561 • d. 1626 • ENG

IQ 190

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John von Neumann

b. 1903 • d. 1957 • HU

IQ 190

Abelian von Neumann algebra Affiliated operator Amenable group Arithmetic logic unit Artificial viscosity Axiom of regularity Axiom of limit

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Joseph-Louis Lagrange

b. 1736 • d. 1813 • IT

IQ 190

Analytical mechanics, celestial mechanics, mathematical analysis, number theory, theory of equations

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Henri Poincaré

b. 1854 • d. 1912 • FR

IQ 190

Poincaré conjecture

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Leonhard Euler

b. 1707 • d. 1783 • CH

IQ 190

See full list

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Linus Pauling

b. 1901 • d. 1994 • US

IQ 190

Alpha sheet • Ancestral sequence reconstruction • Backbonding • Beta sheet • Bond order

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Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot

b. 1796 • d. 1832 • FR

IQ 190

Carnot cycle • Carnot efficiency • Carnot theorem • Carnot heat engine

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Paul Dirac

b. 1902 • d. 1984 • ENG

IQ 190

Sharing the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Erwin Schrödinger "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory"

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Philip Emeagwali

b. 1954 • NG

IQ 190

being the "Bill Gates of Africa"

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Vilfredo Pareto

b. 1848 • d. 1923 • IT

IQ 190

The Pareto Principle

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Wilhelm Ostwald

b. 1853 • d. 1932 • LV

IQ 190

Catalysis, Coining the term 'Mole' and HSL and HSV

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William Shakespeare

b. 1564 • d. 1616 • GB

IQ 190

Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, King Lyr

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Alan Turing

b. 1912 • d. 1954 • ENG

IQ 185

Cryptanalysis of the Enigma • Turing's proof • Turing machine • Turing test • Unorganised machine • Turing pattern • Turing reduction • The

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Alfred J. Lotka

b. 1880 • d. 1949 • US

IQ 185

The Lotka–Volterra equations

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Auguste Comte

b. 1798 • d. 1857 • FR

IQ 185

Formulating the doctrine of positivism.

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Blaise Pascal

b. 1623 • d. 1662 • FR

IQ 185

Pascal's law

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Ctesibius

b. 0285 • d. 0222 • EG

IQ 185

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Democritus

b. 0460 • GR

IQ 185

Atomism and Aetiology

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Heraclitus

b. 0535 • d. 0475 • GR

IQ 185

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Hero of Alexandria

b. 0010 • d. 0070 • GR

IQ 185

Aeolipile • Heron's fountain • Heron's formula • Vending machine

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Humphry Davy

b. 1778 • d. 1829 • GB

IQ 185

Electrolysis, aluminium, sodium, potassium, calcium, strontium, magnesium, barium, boron, Davy lamp

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James Clerk Maxwell

b. 1831 • d. 1879 • SCT

IQ 185

Statistical mechanics • Maxwell's equations • Displacement current • Maxwell relations

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Leon Winiarski

b. 1865 • d. 1915 • PL

IQ 185

Essay on Social Mechanics

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Otto von Guericke

b. 1602 • d. 1686 • DE

IQ 185

vacuum, atmospheric pressure, Electrostatics

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Pierre Louis Maupertuis

b. 1698 • d. 1759 • FR

IQ 185

Principle of least action, precursor of transmutation

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Robert Boyle

b. 1627 • d. 1691 • IE

IQ 185

Boyle's law and Corpuscularianism

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Roger Joseph Boscovich

b. 1711 • d. 1787 • HR

IQ 185

Precursor of the atomic theoryFounder of Brera Observatory

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Satyendra Nath Bose

b. 1894 • d. 1974 • IN

IQ 185

Bose–Einstein condensateBose–Einstein statisticsBose–Einstein distributionBose–Einstein correlationsBose gasBosonIdeal Bose Equation of Stat

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Thomas Edison

b. 1847 • d. 1931 • US

IQ 185

The phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb

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Thomas Young

b. 1773 • d. 1829 • GB

IQ 185

Wave theory of light • Double-slit experiment • Astigmatism • Young–Dupré equation • Young–Helmholtz theory • Young–Laplace equation • Young

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William Gilbert (physician)

b. 1544 • d. 1603 • GB

IQ 185

Studies of magnetism, De Magnete

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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin

b. 1824 • d. 1907 • GB

IQ 185

Joule–Thomson effect Thomson effect (thermoelectric) Mirror galvanometer Siphon recorder Kelvin material Kelvin water dropper Kelvin wave K

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Ettore Majorana

b. 1906 • d. 1938 • IT

IQ 183

The Italian theoretical physicist was an expert in electrically neutral subatomic particles created in nuclear reactions, but later mysterio

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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

b. 1646 • d. 1716 • DE

IQ 182

Discourse on Metaphysics,Théodicée, integral calculus

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Theodor Schwann

b. 1810 • d. 1882 • DE

IQ 182

Cell theory, Schwann cells, Pepsin

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Albertus Magnus

b. 1200 • d. 1280

IQ 180

Systematic study of mineralsdiscovery of the element arsenic

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Alexander Graham Bell

b. 1847 • d. 1922 • SCT

IQ 180

Invention of the telephone.

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Alexander von Humboldt

b. 1769 • d. 1859 • DE

IQ 180

Biogeography, Kosmos (1845–1862), Humboldt Current, magnetic storm, Humboldtian science, Berlin Romanticism

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Alexander the Great

b. 0356 • d. 0323 • MK

IQ 180

Creating one of the largest empires by the age of 30.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the greatest inventor of all time?

Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla are the two most-cited candidates. Edison held 1,093 US patents; Tesla pioneered AC power and wireless transmission.

What inventor had the highest IQ?

Nikola Tesla, with IQ estimated at 160–195, is most often listed. Tesla spoke 8 languages and could memorize entire books.

Who invented the lightbulb?

Thomas Edison developed the first commercially practical incandescent bulb (1879), but earlier inventors including Joseph Swan made working prototypes.