# Was Isaac Newton the smartest person that ever lived? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 28, 2005, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774 "2005-09-28T01:38:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![GrahamWellington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/54ee81/32.png) [@GrahamWellington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrahamWellington)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/1 "2005-09-28T01:38:20Z")
Not including Jesus (because He’s God, 1/3rd of the Holy Trinity) or myself (because I AM the most smart, though I just can’t prove it:-), I’d have to say Newton was the smartest of 'em all. And who’s ever in second comes in at a very distant second. And sooooooo what are YOUR thoughts? 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/2 "2005-09-28T01:46:36Z")
Not sure it should be counted against him, but Newton was big into astrology and alchemy. A genius, but still a man of his times, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/3 "2005-09-28T02:05:55Z")
According to this website: [http://www.aceviper.net/aceviper\_net/ace\_intelligence/aceviper\_famous\_people\_iq\_list/aceviper\_famous\_people\_iq\_list.html](http://www.aceviper.net/aceviper_net/ace_intelligence/aceviper_famous_people_iq_list/aceviper_famous_people_iq_list.html) Newton is ranked with a 190 IQ. People listed with 200 or higher IQ’s are: Emanuel \*\*Swedenborg \*\* Sweden 205 Gottfried Wilhelm von **Leibniz** Germany 205 Hugo \*\*Grotius \*\* Writer Holland 200 Johann Wolfgang von **Goethe** Germany 210 John Stuart \*\*Mill \*\* Universal Genius England 200 Kim \*\*Ung-Yong \*\* Korea 200 Leonardo **da Vinci** Universal Genius Italy 220 Sir Francis **Galton** Scientist & doctor England 200 Thomas **Wolsey** Politician England 200 William James **Sidis** USA 200 (I have no idea why they made that list in alphabetical order by _first_ name) Anyway, I have heard that \*\*William James Sidis \*\*may have been the smartest person who ever lived. (No doubt, other Dopers will offer their choices). ---
**Author:** ![Leviosaurus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Leviosaurus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leviosaurus)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/4 "2005-09-28T02:15:29Z")
Aristotle. Invented logic. 'Nuff said. ---
**Author:** ![cabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@cabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cabdude)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/5 "2005-09-28T02:23:17Z")
What about Archimedes? Invented freakin’ calculus!! That stuff is hard. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/6 "2005-09-28T02:25:25Z")
> [@wolf\_meister](#): > > According to this website: > [Loading...](http://www.aceviper.net/aceviper_net/ace_intelligence/aceviper_famous_people_iq_list/aceviper_famous_people_iq_list.html) > Newton is ranked with a 190 IQ. > People listed with 200 or higher IQ’s are: > Emanuel \*\*Swedenborg \*\* Sweden 205 > Gottfried Wilhelm von **Leibniz** Germany 205 > Hugo \*\*Grotius \*\* Writer Holland 200 > Johann Wolfgang von **Goethe** Germany 210 > John Stuart \*\*Mill \*\* Universal Genius England 200 > Kim \*\*Ung-Yong \*\* Korea 200 > Leonardo **da Vinci** Universal Genius Italy 220 > Sir Francis **Galton** Scientist & doctor England 200 > Thomas **Wolsey** Politician England 200 > William James **Sidis** USA 200 > > (I have no idea why they made that list in alphabetical order by _first_ name) > Anyway, I have heard that \*\*William James Sidis \*\*may have been the smartest person who ever lived. (No doubt, other Dopers will offer their choices). Those IQ’s are just made up. Since they are giving exact scores, they have to be referring to the results of a standard IQ test. Even if the guesser is still assigning a number based on research about those people it still doesn’t work. We can’t measure IQ’s that high at all. An IQ of 200 is 6.7 standard deviations above the mean. The chance of someone scoring that high is less than the number of people that have ever lived and yet your list shows many of them. It is absurd to not only make up scores like that for historical people and yet differentiate them with relatively small point spreads. Once you get to 1 chance in infinity, it doesn’t really matter if one person has more infinities than the others. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/7 "2005-09-28T02:31:48Z")
Dropping in to cast my vote for da Vinci. ---
**Author:** ![Leviosaurus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Leviosaurus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leviosaurus)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/8 "2005-09-28T02:32:19Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Once you get to 1 chance in infinity, it doesn’t really matter if one person has more infinities than the others. 'Cept for Aristotle. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/9 "2005-09-28T02:33:22Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > Not sure it should be counted against him, but Newton was big into astrology and alchemy. A genius, but still a man of his times, I guess. He was also fiery religious, virulently anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic, and generally batshit crazy in many ways, though his brilliance was indeed spooky. (Rather like John Nash, a prick of a fellow but “a beautiful mind” that can do things most simply cannot.) Newton was also a lifelong virgin. On his deathbed he was very proud of the fact he was going to die “innocent”. He’s a major side character in the novel [Quicksilver](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060593083/qid=1127875322/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1789917-5731230?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), a very heavy book that I would recommend to anybody who has an interest in Newton, his times, or just likes incredibly imaginative yet super well researched historical fiction. (His hatred of Leibniz is a major point in the book.) While Newton was definitely brilliant, I’d probably go with Eratosthenes (even though he was called _Beta_, “second best at everything”, in his lifetime) or, of course, Rosie O’Donnell. Benjamin Franklin, while he lacked Newton’s almost pathological insight and concentration on mathematics, was no slouch either, particularly in his ability to practicalize his observations (the stove, the lightning rod, the postal service, etc.). ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/10 "2005-09-28T02:46:58Z")
**Sampiro** , have you read _Isaac Newton_ by James Gleick? ---
**Author:** ![GrahamWellington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/54ee81/32.png) [@GrahamWellington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrahamWellington)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/11 "2005-09-28T02:54:49Z")
Hmm my cat’s name is Spooky. Maybe I really am up their with Newton. I read a bio of Newton several years ago titled Never at Rest, by Richard Westfall. And he never made any mention at all of Newton being anti-semetic; only that he decided to learn Hebrew to gain a better understanding of the Bible. ---
**Author:** ![GrahamWellington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/54ee81/32.png) [@GrahamWellington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrahamWellington)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/12 "2005-09-28T03:08:21Z")
Madonna 140??? God! I must then be at least at around 180! Also, what kind of list such as this would say that Newton was a scientist and yet not also list him as a (TOP!) mathematician? Interesting list just the same, thanks! ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/13 "2005-09-28T03:45:16Z")
I usually toss a Rene Descartes or an Emmanual Kant into the mix, just to spice things up a bit. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/14 "2005-09-28T05:21:26Z")
High School Choir Director _ **INSISTED** _ that the smartest person ever was Mozart. :rolleyes: Btw, if any of you remember a SNL skit with Joe Piscopo playing a goateed choir director, I swear that the skit was about that man- down to the physical resemblence. ---
**Author:** ![gouda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c77e96/32.png) [@gouda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gouda)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/15 "2005-09-28T06:23:09Z")
And another vote for da Vinci. ---
**Author:** ![lorinada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b5e925/32.png) [@lorinada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorinada)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/16 "2005-09-28T06:32:10Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Those IQ’s are just made up. Since they are giving exact scores, they have to be referring to the results of a standard IQ test. Not only that, they would have had to have taken the _same_ IQ tests, since scoring is not standardized. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/17 "2005-09-28T07:38:30Z")
Off the top of my head, I’d go for Leonardo Da Vinci - excellence across multiple, unrelated fields is a strong qualifier, in my book. Of course there might be someone who did it better than him, but he’s the one that springs immediately to mind. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/18 "2005-09-28T08:44:43Z")
People, aren’t we forgetting our _raison d’etre_, Cecil Adams? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![ReubenH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a6a055/32.png) [@ReubenH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ReubenH)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/19 "2005-09-28T10:07:02Z")
Just this morning I read [this interesting article](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-1801764,00.html) about how one form of heart surgery has been greatly improved following a surgeon’s study of a few of Leonardo Da Vinci’s anatomical drawings. > [@](#): > > “That has been a big step forward,” he said. “We hadn’t thought carefully enough about the importance of the opening phase of the valve on normal heart function to allow extremes of exercise. Leonardo worked it out in the 1500s." Another vote for Da Vinci here! ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774/20 "2005-09-28T10:45:51Z")
_Any one_ of Newton’s _three_ major discoveries (laws of motion; calculus; laws of optics) would have made him a scientific immortal. The fact that he believed in some really stupid and/or crazy things doesn’t diminish this. It merely reminds us that human progress is a spotty, haphazard thing – even geniuses can be wrong half of the time, especially when looked back at hundreds of years later. The fact that he was a vain, snotty, egocentric jerk merely reminds us that geniuses can be those things too. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-newton-the-smartest-person-that-ever-lived/323774.md?page=2)