The who I am going to talk about isn’t academically intelligent. He’s no scientist nor a surgeon. Magnus Carlsen…
He studied at a typical sports school but quit after finishing his secondary schooling.
With an IQ of over 190, he’s none other than the current Chess World Champion, Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen, also called Magnus Carlsen.
To give you a point of reference to other super smart people, I have included a list with some of the most famous people with high IQ’s in the past 200 years. But most importantly let’s discover what IQ represents…
So What is IQ?
Although we have often come across this term in the course of our lives, we still need to set some standards to distinguish good value from average.
The intelligence quotient is nothing other than the number a person achieves after taking one of the many standardized tests to measure the intelligence level of individuals. Originally, the intelligence quotient was calculated as a ratio of mental age to chronological age IQ = MA / CA x 100, where MA is mental age, CA is chronological age.
Today, however, intelligence values are calibrated with values of actual population values. Here’s a graph showing how people fare when they take an IQ test:
This is, as you can see, a bell-shaped curve. It shows that most measurements fall in the middle and fall less at points further from the centre. In our case, this means that most people’s IQ scores fall in and around the average range, while much fewer people score very low or very high.
The general score of 95% of the population from these tests ranges between 70 and 130. Since there are quite a few different classifications, the Stanford-Binet Scale of Human Intelligence is the most commonly used one, and we shall use that as a reference. According to this scale, people who have a score higher than 145 are considered geniuses.
You already saw the list of the people with the highest IQ in the world; let’s meet these geniuses, but please remember that IQ tests are not necessarily all that accurate in estimating someone’s overall intelligence, even if they are good markers for specific cognitive skills, such as mathematical ability and logical reasoning.
(Also, note that this list is NOT exhaustive and may not include the name of every person with a high IQ).
- Stephen Hawking (IQ Score: 160) …
- Paul Allen (IQ Score: 160-170) …
- Albert Einstein (IQ Score: 160-185) …
- Judit Polgar (IQ Score: 170) …
- John H. …
- Philip Emeagwali (IQ Score: 185) …
- Mislav Predavec (IQ Score: 185)
But back to Magnus. At the age of 2, he could solve 50-piece jigsaw puzzles; at 4, he enjoyed assembling Lego sets with instructions intended for children aged 10–14.
A 5-year-old Magnus was introduced to chess by his father. However, he preferred memorizing the areas, population numbers, flags, and capitals of every country in the world, which in the end, he did.
Fast forward 8 years, and he has become a Grandmaster, the highest possible title (Below World Chess Champion) in chess at the meager age of 13.
From July 2011 to date, he has remained the highest-rated chess player, second in duration to only Garry Kasparov.
In 2013, Carlsen formally became the World Champion by defeating Viswanathan Anand soundly. Since then, he has remained champion, defeating whoever dared to challenge him comfortably.
On April 21, 2014, he achieved the highest ever live rating in chess. At an astounding 2889.2, no one could or would ever come close to it in all of history.
Later that year, Carlsen officially became the first triple world chess champion, holding every title possible, simultaneously, a first in chess history!
While all these feats are undoubtedly admirable, his raw intellectual power isn’t fully revealed.
He played 10 Harvard Lawyers, at the same time blindfolded and absolutely crushed all of them.
If you thought that was impressive, be prepared.
Magnus played 70 professional chess players (ELO Rating between 1800 to 2000) at once. In the end, he won a staggering 68 games, losing only 2!
Not yet impressed?
I have one last ace up my sleeve.
From July 2018 till October 2020, Magnus had not lost any match. Out of the 125 games he played against different Grandmasters, former World Champions, and top 100 players in the world, he won a staggering 42 of them while drawing the rest.
And I might have forgotten to mention the fact that he was the number one ranked fantasy football player in the entire world.
That ladies and gentleman, is why Magnus Carlsen is the smartest human ever.
