Isaac Newton’s IQ

Isaac Newton is estimated to have an IQ Level of 190.

Isaac Newton’s IQ is off the chart

But wait… Isaac Newton died long before IQ tests were invented, so we can’t really put an exact number on his IQ. However, when you look at the huge advances he made in both Physics and mathematics, and the typically high IQ of modern theoretical physicists and mathematicians, we can assume that his IQ is quite high.

When you are researching Newton, most people put his IQ at about the 170-190 range, which is very high, and would put him as having one of the highest IQ levels of basically anyone in history. For comparison, it’s the same as World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov. A normal intelligence quotient (IQ) ranges from 85 to 115 (According to the Stanford-Binet scale).

IQ Levels of People Still Living

• Physicist / Engineer Kim Ung-yong has a verified IQ of 210
• Bouncer Christopher Michael Langan has a verified IQ of 195
• Engineer Philip Emeagwali is alleged to have an IQ of 190
• World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov is alleged to have an IQ of 190
• Author Marilyn Vos Savant has a verified IQ of 186
• Actor James Woods is alleged to have an IQ of 180
• Politician John H. Sununu is alleged to have an IQ of 180
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is alleged to have an IQ of 180
• Mathematician Andrew Wiles is alleged to have an IQ of 170
• World Chess Champion Judith Polgar is alleged to have an IQ of 170
• Chess Grandmaster Robert Byrne is alleged to have an IQ of 170
• World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer is alleged to have an IQ of 167
• Mathematician / Physicist Stephen W. Hawking is alleged to have an IQ of over 160
• Microsoft Founder Paul Allen is alleged to have an IQ of over 160
• Actress Sharon Stone is alleged to have an IQ of 154

IQ Levels From the Past

In 1926, psychologist Dr. Catherine Morris Cox – who had been assisted by Dr. Lewis M. Terman, Dr. Florence L. Goodenaugh, and Dr. Kate Gordon – published a study “of the most eminent men and women” who had lived between 1450 and 1850 to estimate what their IQs might have been. Data from that study as well as other sources around the net were compiled to form the following list. Please drop me a comment if you have additions or corrections (make sure and cite sources).

• 190 – Ludwig Wittgenstein
• 190 – Sir Isaac Newton
• 190 – François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)
• 180 – Leonardo da Vinci
• 180 – David Hume
• 180 – Buonarroti Michelangelo
• 179 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• 176 – Emanuel Swedenborg
• 176 – Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
• 175 – Johannes Kepler
• 175 – Edmund Spenser
• 175 – Baruch Spinoza
• 174 – John Stuart Mill
• 171 – Blaise Pascal
• 170 – Michael Faraday
• 170 – George Friedrich Händel
• 170 – Antoine Lavoisier
• 170 – Martin Luther
• 165 – Galileo Galilei
• 165 – Charlotte Brontë
• 165 – Johann Sebastian Bach
• 165 – Thomas Hobbes
• 165 – Carl von Linné
• 165 – John Locke
• 165 – Joseph Priestley
• 165 – Ludwig van Beethoven
• 165 – Samuel Johnson
• 162 – René Descartes
• 162 – Madame De Stael
• 160 – Albert Einstein
• 160 – Robert Boyle
• 160 – Benjamin Franklin
• 159 – Immanuel Kant
• 156 – Linus Carl Pauling
• 156 – Sofia Kovalevskaya
• 156 – Thomas Chatterton
• 156 – Olof Palme
• 155 – Rembrandt van Rijn
• 155 – Miguel de Cervantes
• 155 – Jonathan Swift
• 153 – Charles Darwin
• 153 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• 150 – George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)
• 150 – Nicolaus Copernicus
• 150 – Abraham Lincoln
• 145 – Napoleon Bonaparte
• 145 – Anna Lindh
• 143 – George Sand (Aurore Dupin)
• 140 – George Washington
• 130 – Ulysses S. Grant
• 130 – Sir Francis Drake