The Greatest Inventors in History

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the greatest inventor of all time?

What inventor had the highest IQ?

Who invented the lightbulb?

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