# Was Albert Einstein Really the Smartest Human? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 11, 2015, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405 "2015-02-11T18:40:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2015, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/61 "2015-02-21T22:07:02Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > Statistically speaking, the vast majority of humans never had the opportunities to ever do anything other than live and die behind a plow or a bayonet. The smartest person to ever live is almost certainly someone we have never heard of. The odds that the smartest person ever to live is also someone who had the means, wealth, and/or opportunity to become famous are very, very small. This made me think of this story I once read (in Hyam’s _Zen in the Martial Arts_): "King Hsuan of Chou heard of Po Kung-i, who was reputed to be the strongest man in his kingdom. The king was dismayed when they met, since Po looked so weak. When the King asked Po how strong he was, Po said mildly, “I can break the leg of a spring grasshopper and withstand the winds of an autumn cicada.” Aghast, the King thundered, “I can tear rhinoceros leather and drag nine buffaloes by the tail, yet I am shamed by my weakness. How can you be famous?” Po smiled and answered quietly, “My teacher was Tzu Shang-chi’ui, whose strength was without peer in the world, but even his relatives never knew it because he never used it.” I’m going to postulate I’m the smartest person my friends have met, but I never use it. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2015, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/62 "2015-02-21T22:19:40Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > 1. Neil deGrasse Tyson - He’s a very smart guy and a good TV host. There’s no particular evidence that he’s anything utterly brilliant. There’s no reason to think he’s one of the 30. NdG is clearly a media personality with a small sideline as an academic. His career has been mainly focused on promoting science to the public and, because he has been very successful at this and has gained a large public profile, many assume has made significant academic contributions, when in reality his name has only been on 13 published papers in the last 30 years, most of which he was one of many contributors and hasn’t really made any significant contributions to the field. > [@](#): > > Stephen Hawking - Oh, come on. Yeah, it’s neat that he’s managed to get cameos on various TV shows. It’s great that he overcame his disability. He’s not quite as great a physicist as is sometimes claimed. There’s little evidence that he’s among the 30. On the other sometimes the sword cuts both ways. The fact that Stephen Hawking has such a high media personality can obscure the fact that Stephen Hawking is indisputably one of the greatest living theoretical physicists who’s made major contributions to his field. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2015, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/63 "2015-02-21T22:31:36Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > To be fair, Kasparov isn’t just a great chess player. He also speaks an inordinately large number of languages, and I understand he’s had some success in politics, as well. > > And I’d be inclined to call Kip Thorne the smartest physicist alive, certainly smarter than Hawking, but he’s entirely absent from that list. Hawking is without a doubt quite smart, but I think his reputation for intelligence stems largely from the fact that he fits comfortably into a familiar archetype, the brilliant brain housed in a ruined body. People think he’s smart because he’s basically a real-world Charles Xavier. I would disagree (though I would prefer to talk about the signifcance of their contributions than the nebulous concept of smartness"). Usually it is very difficult to compare physicists directly, but Hawking and Thorne have worked in very similar fields in a very similar time frame (there is less than 6 months difference in their age) and I think it is difficult to compare the two’s contributions without Hawking coming out on top. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/64 "2015-02-22T00:43:45Z")
I just tried to find a list of the greatest physicists alive today. I found several of them, and they are quite inconsistent. Is Hawking one of the 20 best physicists alive today? Yes. Is he one of the 30 smartest people alive today? That’s a lot harder to evaluate. There are a lot of fields out there, and it’s hard to compare them. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/65 "2015-02-22T00:56:51Z")
> [@](#): > > I would disagree (though I would prefer to talk about the signifcance of their contributions than the nebulous concept of smartness"). Usually it is very difficult to compare physicists directly, but Hawking and Thorne have worked in very similar fields in a very similar time frame (there is less than 6 months difference in their age) and I think it is difficult to compare the two’s contributions without Hawking coming out on top. I was basing that mostly on the fact that, on every point of physics where they’ve disagreed which has subsequently been resolved, it’s been Thorne who turned out to be right. Of course, when speaking of “the smartest people alive”, or some such, one must also distinguish whether one means “Of people alive right now, who has been the smartest”, vs. “Who is currently smartest”. Most of Hawking’s greatest work, for instance, was done decades ago, and his present output is far inferior. Do we rank him based on his peak, or on his present value? ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/66 "2015-02-22T01:19:20Z")
> [@Asympotically\_fat](#): > > NdG is clearly a media personality with a small sideline as an academic. His career has been mainly focused on promoting science to the public and, because he has been very successful at this and has gained a large public profile, many assume has made significant academic contributions, when in reality his name has only been on 13 published papers in the last 30 years, most of which he was one of many contributors and hasn’t really made any significant contributions to the field. > > On the other sometimes the sword cuts both ways. The fact that Stephen Hawking has such a high media personality can obscure the fact that Stephen Hawking is indisputably one of the greatest living theoretical physicists who’s made major contributions to his field. Not really to argue, but NdG’s greatest contribution may be his media presence. **Inspiration** to others - making science and physics “cool”. Getting the thoughts and ideas out to the public/especially the younger audience in an understandable form could be counted as “genius”. Communication skills are underrated. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/67 "2015-02-22T06:50:10Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I just tried to find a list of the greatest physicists alive today. I found several of them, and they are quite inconsistent. Is Hawking one of the 20 best physicists alive today? Yes. Is he one of the 30 smartest people alive today? That’s a lot harder to evaluate. There are a lot of fields out there, and it’s hard to compare them. I think my point is that with Stephen Hawking people tend to assume that his reputation is mostly undeserved because of his huge media profile, but don’t be fooled he genuinely is someone who reached the pinnacle of his field and was known for his particular brilliance. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/68 "2015-02-22T08:07:29Z")
And don’t forget that Hawking pretty much has to absorb, memorize and internalize virtually all of the information he receives as he lacks the ability to go back and re-read or browse through material after the fact like most of us can. He does have assistants who can do research or find specific items he may want to know more about or revisit, but asking them to do so through his computerized communication system would be a long and laborious process, and quite impractical in terms of going back through certain items in material previously covered. Then, and only then, can he perform the mental gymnastics required to take the facts and other information he’s been exposed to and develop them into the complex calculations and theories he arrives at. Sort of like playing a game of chess in your head, with no board and no pieces and keeping track of every move and each piece’s current location solely in your mind, only considerably more complex and difficult even than that. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/69 "2015-02-22T09:23:51Z")
Asympotically fat writes: \> I think my point is that with Stephen Hawking people tend to assume that his \> reputation is mostly undeserved because of his huge media profile, but don’t be \> fooled he genuinely is someone who reached the pinnacle of his field and was \> known for his particular brilliance. I don’t think that the average person today who’s heard of Stephen Hawking thinks that his reputation is undeserved. I think that they overrate him. By “average person,” I mean all those who know his name, which includes people who know little of what physics is about. Someone who has seen the _Star Trek_ episode with him, Einstein, Newton, and Data playing poker could easily get the idea that his achievements are on the level of Einstein or Newton. They aren’t. He may be one of the 20 best physicists alive, but he’s not the best. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/70 "2015-02-22T13:04:21Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > Statistically speaking, the vast majority of humans never had the opportunities to ever do anything other than live and die behind a plow or a bayonet. The smartest person to ever live is almost certainly someone we have never heard of. The odds that the smartest person ever to live is also someone who had the means, wealth, and/or opportunity to become famous are very, very small. Reminds me of Mark Twain’s “Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven” [Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven, by Mark Twain](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1044/1044-h/1044-h.htm) “The greatest military genius our world ever produced was a brick-layer from somewhere back of Boston—died during the Revolution—by the name of Absalom Jones. Wherever he goes, crowds flock to see him. You see, everybody knows that if he had had a chance he would have shown the world some generalship that would have made all generalship before look like child’s play and ’prentice work. But he never got a chance; he tried heaps of times to enlist as a private, but he had lost both thumbs and a couple of front teeth, and the recruiting sergeant wouldn’t pass him. However, as I say, everybody knows, now, what he would have been,—and so they flock by the million to get a glimpse of him whenever they hear he is going to be anywhere. Cæsar, and Hannibal, and Alexander, and Napoleon are all on his staff, and ever so many more great generals; but the public hardly care to look at them when he is around.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/71 "2015-02-22T13:26:07Z")
Subtle point, here: On the one hand, Hawking really is quite a brilliant man, and deserves a reputation as such. On the other hand, the reputation he has is mostly due to his health conditions, and not due to anything he’s earned. People _should_ know him because he’s brilliant, but they _do_ actually know him because he’s in a wheelchair and talks through a machine. This is illustrated by the fact that most people don’t know of many physicists smarter yet than him, but who didn’t have a wheelchair to make them stand out: Far more people know of Hawking than Feynman (who is unfortunately disqualified from \_\_\_est person alive, but was probably the greatest physicist since Einstein), for instance. ---
**Author:** ![Nelson\_Pike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/72 "2015-02-22T15:56:28Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > I should leave it to others more versed, but it was clear that Minkowski and others were hot on the tail of SR. GR needed [Riemannian geometry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemannian_geometry) - and that was close enough in history that a delay in it could have delayed GR. Without looking it up Minkowski is famous for: (1) being one of Einstein’s college math teachers (2) calling Einstein a “lazy dog” who did not care for mathematics (3) providing the 4-dimensional mathematical (Riemannian) framework for Special Relativity (Einstein quipped that he did not recognize his own theory since the mathematicians had gotten ahold of it) (4) Recognizing that space and time form a continuum, and coining the term “Spacetime” to name it. But this is the first I have heard that Minkowski or anyone else was “hot on the tail of SR”, and I believe GR required much more advanced math than Riemann. The mathematician Poincare recognized that time might be a constant of nature, but neither he nor anyone else appears to have been on the verge of making the final key step which entailed recognizing that an event could not appear simultaneous to observers in different frames of reference (I think that is right- subject to correction by someone better versed). > [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > True, I really mean the first few - say up to the mid 30’s. When you point to the start of QM is a bit harder. Einstein had already received the Nobel in 1921 for his work on the photoelectric effect. Shrodinger of course is closer for real Q Mechanics, not just Q. The discovery of Quantum matrix mechanics (by Heisenberg on the island of Heligoland, where he had gone to seek refuge from an allergy attack in the sea air) can be established essentially to the day, sometime in June 1925. His postdoc supervisor Max Born (who recognized that QM could mathematically described by using matrices) and another postdoc named Pascal Jordan helped him develop the initial insight, with contributions by mail from Englishman Paul Dirac. Likewise Schroedinger’s wave mechanics can be precisely dated to a winter (I think Jan&ff 1926) vacation in an Alpine resort. (During this creative outburst Schroedinger left his poor wife at home, and kept company with a still unidentified lady friend). Einstein famously rejected QM as being fundamental, and made no contributions to its development, unless thought experiments such as Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen can be considered a sort of infidirect contribution, keeping the true believers on their toes if nothing else. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/73 "2015-02-22T16:04:59Z")
I just feel Hawking is being damned a little with faint praise here. Talking about the “best physicist” alive today clearly involves comparing physicists who worked in a variety of fields and who were most active at different times. However ignoring his media profile, ignoring his struggles with disability, he genuinely is one of the most significant figures in late twentieth century theoretical physics and even beyond this his work is characterized by a particular brilliance. ---
**Author:** ![Nelson\_Pike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/74 "2015-02-22T16:21:40Z")
> [@Asympotically\_fat](#): > > I just feel Hawking is being damned a little with faint praise here. Talking about the “best physicist” alive today clearly involves comparing physicists who worked in a variety of fields and who were most active at different times. However ignoring his media profile, ignoring his struggles with disability, he genuinely is one of the most significant figures in late twentieth century theoretical physics and even beyond this his work is characterized by a particular brilliance. In 1905 alone Einstein contributed seminal papers on: (1) Special Relativity (2) The Photoelectric Effect (3) Brownian Motion All of which had far-ranging effects, and all of which have won permanent place in the intellectual history of human beings. Further contributions were made in Relativity and Quantum Theory (although not Quantum Mechanics). Now is the time to spell out exactly what work of particular brilliance places Hawking within sight of the place assigned to Einstein. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/75 "2015-02-22T16:54:33Z")
> [@Nelson\_Pike](#): > > Without looking it up Minkowski is famous for: > > (1) being one of Einstein’s college math teachers > (2) calling Einstein a “lazy dog” who did not care for mathematics > (3) providing the 4-dimensional mathematical (Riemannian) framework for Special Relativity (Einstein quipped that he did not recognize his own theory since the mathematicians had gotten ahold of it) > (4) Recognizing that space and time form a continuum, and coining the term “Spacetime” to name it. Basically Minkowski, who also happened to be one of Einstein’s teachers (I can’t comment on the veracity of your quotes), provided a further level of abstraction to special relativity by pointing out that it could be put into a geometric context in a 4D pseudo-Euclidean space. This was of course done after Einstein had formulated SR. However this proved key in that Einstein realized that by using the techniques that Riemann used to expand the subject of analytic geometry of Euclidean spaces to Riemannian geometry, he could create a relativistic theory of gravity GR. > [@](#): > > But this is the first I have heard that Minkowski or anyone else was “hot on the tail of SR”, and I believe GR required much more advanced math than Riemann. The mathematician Poincare recognized that time might be a constant of nature, but neither he nor anyone else appears to have been on the verge of making the final key step which entailed recognizing that an event could not appear simultaneous to observers in different frames of reference (I think that is right- subject to correction by someone better versed). Minkowski wasn’t as far as I’m aware on the verge of discovering SR before Einstein, but it is clear that others (particularly Poincare and Lorentz) were. In many ways all Einstein did was to put the ideas of Lorentz and Poincare into a more elegant form. Riemannian geometry if you like is the subset of pseudo-Riemannian geometry where the metric signature is limited to (n,0) and the mathematics of GR is largely the subset of pseudo-Riemannian geometry where the signature is limited to (3,1) so it uses almost identical mathematical tools > [@](#): > > The discovery of Quantum matrix mechanics (by Heisenberg on the island of Heligoland, where he had gone to seek refuge from an allergy attack in the sea air) can be established essentially to the day, sometime in June 1925. His postdoc supervisor Max Born (who recognized that QM could mathematically described by using matrices) and another postdoc named Pascal Jordan helped him develop the initial insight, with contributions by mail from Englishman Paul Dirac. Likewise Schroedinger’s wave mechanics can be precisely dated to a winter (I think Jan&ff 1926) vacation in an Alpine resort. (During this creative outburst Schroedinger left his poor wife at home, and kept company with a still unidentified lady friend). The revolution brought about in the development of quantum physics by Heisenberg and Schroedinger usually leads to what had gone before to be termed “the old quantum theory” as opposed to the new quantum mechanics of Schroedinger and Heisenberg. > [@](#): > > Einstein famously rejected QM as being fundamental, and made no contributions to its development, unless thought experiments such as Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen can be considered a sort of infidirect contribution, keeping the true believers on their toes if nothing else. Einstein made several important contributions to QM. Firstly he did a number of pieces of work in the area of the old quantum theory (most famously on the photoelectric effect) that were to become key motivators to quantum mechanics, secondly he translated and expanded Bose’s work on quantum statistics (Bose-Einstein statistics), thirdly his debates with the leading proponents of quantum mechanics stimulated the development of the theory. The EPR paradox may’ve been intended to discredit quantum mechanics, but it actually was the first time the concept of quantum entanglement was recognized. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/76 "2015-02-22T17:08:19Z")
> [@Nelson\_Pike](#): > > In 1905 alone Einstein contributed seminal papers on: > > (1) Special Relativity > (2) The Photoelectric Effect > (3) Brownian Motion > > All of which had far-ranging effects, and all of which have won permanent place in the intellectual history of human beings. Further contributions were made in Relativity and Quantum Theory (although not Quantum Mechanics). > > Now is the time to spell out exactly what work of particular brilliance places Hawking within sight of the place assigned to Einstein. I have not drawn any comparisons between Einstein and Hawking and I don’t feel the need to either. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/77 "2015-02-22T18:07:55Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > O.K., let’s go through that list that Thudlow Boink lined to. First of all, using the usual definition of I.Q. these days, to be one of the 30 smartest people in the world, you would have to have an I.Q. of about 187 or higher. Nobody has an I.Q. of more than 200, because even if you’re the smartest person in the entire existence of the human race, there have only been about 100 billion people. To be honest, you should never trust any claim of an I.Q. higher than 160. So let’s look at that list: > > 1. Paul Allen - O.K., he made a lot of money. Some people who also did so are that brilliant. There’s little evidence that he’s one of the 30 smartest. > > 2. Christopher Langan - We’ve discussed him before, so do a search on the SDMB if you want to know our opinion of him. He’s a very smart and very arrogant guy who grew up in a rather poor and miserable environment. He doesn’t listen to anyone else. He’s convinced that his philosophical theory is the greatest thing ever. There’s little evidence that he’s one of the 30 smartest. > > 3. Judit Polgár - She’s probably the best female chess player in history. She was intensely tutored by her father. Who knows if she’s one of the 30 smartest? > > 4. Marilyn vos Savant - As has been discussed before, her supposed I.Q. of 228 is only according to an old definition of I.Q. that has no relevance to the modern one. Who knows what her real I.Q. is? There’s little evidence that she’s one of the 30. > > 5. John H. Sununu - He got his bachelor’s at 22, his master’s at 24, and his Ph.D. at 27, so there’s nothing interesting about that. He taught at a university, served as a dean there, and then became a politician. Several other people have done the same, so there’s no evidence in that alone. > > 6. Neil deGrasse Tyson - He’s a very smart guy and a good TV host. There’s no particular evidence that he’s anything utterly brilliant. There’s no reason to think he’s one of the 30. > > 7. Kim Ung-Yong - As I pointed out above, no one can have an I.Q. of 210. He was a child prodigy, but he hasn’t done anything utterly great as an adult. There’s no evidence that he’s one of the 30. > > 8. Mislav Predavec - He’s a professor, an owner of a company, and the head of a high I.Q. society. There’s no evidence that he’s done anything that great. There’s no reason to think he’s one of the 30. > > 9. Manahel Thabet - She has an interesting biography. There’s no such thing as quantum mathematics. Who knows if she’s one of the 30? > > 10. Richard Rosner - I don’t know why he’s even mentioned. Where does this I.Q. of 190 come from? There’s no reason to have him in the 30. > > 11. Chris Hirata - Again, it’s impossible to have an I.Q. of 225. Who knows if he’s one of the 30. > > 12. Steven Pinker - He’s the only person on the list I’ve met, sort of, since I got his signature on some books at a signing he did. He’s done some important stuff. There’s no evidence that he’s one of the 30. > > 13. Ivan Ivec - He knows a lot about mathematics and I.Q. tests. That doesn’t tell us much. There’s little evidence that he’s in the 30. > > 14. Garry Kasparov - He was once the chess world champion. Why does the compiler of this list think that that makes someone one of the smartest people in the world? There’s little evidence that he’s of the 30. > > 15. Terence Tao - He was a child prodigy. He’s one of the best mathematicians in the world. Who knows if he’s one of the 30? > > 16. Scott Aaronson - He’s done some important work in theoretical computer science. Who knows if he’s one of the 30? > > 17. Nikola Poljak - It’s interesting that there are two Croatians on the list. He has done some good work in physics. There’s no reason to think that he’s one of the 30. > > 18. Alan Guth - He’s done very important work in cosmology. He’s one of the best physicists in the world. Who knows if he’s one of the 30? > > 19. Donald Knuth - He’s a very important computer scientist. His work is quite well known. Who knows if he’s one of the 30? > > 20. Noam Chomsky - He’s the best known person in linguistics in the world. He’s also an arrogant jerk who has screwed up the field with his poorly argued ideas. There’s no reason to think that he’s one of the 30. > > 21. Evangelos Katsioulis - He’s done many interesting things. It’s impossible to say that someone is the smartest person among 30 billion. There’s no reason to say that he’s one of the 30. > > 22. Magnus Carlsen - He’s the best chess player in the world. Why does the compiler of this list think that chess players are always among the smartest people in the world? There’s little reason to think that he’s among the 30. > > 23. Shahriar Afshar - He’s a very good physicist. He runs a company. There’s no reason to list him among the 30. > > 24. Akshay Venkatesh - He was a child prodigy. He’s a very good mathematician. There’s no reason to list him among the 30. > > 25. Saul Kripke - He was a child prodigy. He’s one of the most important philosophers. Who knows if he’s among the 30? > > 26. Ruth Lawrence - She was a child prodigy. She’s a very good mathematician. There’s little reason to list her in the 30. > > 27. Grigori Perelman - He’s one of the best mathematicians in the world. He’s also weird as all get out. Who knows if he’s among the 30? > > 28. Andrew Wiles - He’s one of the best mathematicians in the world. He proved Fermat’s Last Theorem. Who know if he’s among the 30? > > 29. Edward Witten - He may be the best physicist in the world. He actually kicked around a little before deciding to go into physics. Who knows if he’s in the 30? > > 30. Stephen Hawking - Oh, come on. Yeah, it’s neat that he’s managed to get cameos on various TV shows. It’s great that he overcame his disability. He’s not quite as great a physicist as is sometimes claimed. There’s little evidence that he’s among the 30. What about Dr. Sheldon “Shellie” Cooper, PhD, PhD? He earned two PhDs by the time he was 18, theoretically discovered a new super-heavy element, concluded string theory was crap, developed “The Roommate Agreement” (diversity) and has kissed Dr. Amy Farah-Fowler, and is the most annoying man on television. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/78 "2015-02-22T19:49:11Z")
Yeah, Einstein didn’t have nearly the impact on quantum mechanics that Heisenberg or Schrödinger did, but he definitely made important contributions to it. Heck, his Nobel Prize was for (very preliminary) work in quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was the product of a great many brilliant minds, first among them Heisenberg and Schrödinger, but also including (in no particular order) Einstein, Planck, de Broglie, Fermi, Dirac, Pauli, Bose, and probably a couple more I’m not remembering. This is in contrast to, say, general relativity, which really was for the most part the creation of a single man. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2015, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/79 "2015-02-23T06:06:13Z")
Chronos: how many decades to get to general relativity if Big Al had dropped dead on Jan 1, 1906 and done no further work on it, including calling attention to special relativity? Special relativity was a huge leap. But to take that as a starting point to then reach general relativity seems to me to take such an extraordinary vision of the universe that it might have been a quarter to half a century ahead of its time. Not so with the laws of motion, optics or calculus, all of which were on the verge of being discovered. From my point of view, Newton was by far the best mind of his time, and saw clearly what others were struggling to comprehend, and sometimes they were succeeding. But general relativity by 1915 is, in my opinion, the equivalent of describing a vision of a fifth of God’s physics workshop. The man’s theory predicted frickin’ _frame dragging_ that has only 100 years later been proven to happen exactly as predicted by the theory. ---
**Author:** ![Nelson\_Pike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2015, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405/80 "2015-02-23T22:18:11Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Yeah, Einstein didn’t have nearly the impact on quantum mechanics that Heisenberg or Schrödinger did, but he definitely made important contributions to it. Heck, his Nobel Prize was for (very preliminary) work in quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was the product of a great many brilliant minds, first among them Heisenberg and Schrödinger, but also including (in no particular order) Einstein, Planck, de Broglie, Fermi, Dirac, Pauli, Bose, and probably a couple more I’m not remembering. This is in contrast to, say, general relativity, which really was for the most part the creation of a single man. Quantum _theory_ existed when AE published his 1905 photoelectric paper and won his 1921 Nobel Prize, but quantum _mechanics_ did _not_ exist, and would not exist until Heisenberg’s discovery on Helgoland in 6/25. Quantum mechanics began on that specific date. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-albert-einstein-really-the-smartest-human/712405.md?page=5)