The first is Australian-born of Chinese descent and the second is South Korean. Together, these two individuals boast a combined IQ well over 500 points! This piece highlights geniuses who far outstrip renowned figures such as Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton.
Terence Tao, the “Mozart of Mathematics”
Born in 1975 in Australia to Hong Kong–born parents, Terence Tao is simply one of the finest mathematicians of his generation. After completing his master’s degree at Flinders University (Australia), he earned a PhD at Princeton University (United States) after receiving a Fulbright scholarship. Author of more than 300 papers published in various journals, Tao has served as a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) since the mid-1990s, starting at the age of 21. In 2021, he was named to sit on the President’s Council of Science and Technology Policy for the Biden administration, alongside around thirty other distinguished scientists.
Still relatively little known to the general public, Terence Tao nevertheless has an IQ of 230! For a long time, he was considered the person with the highest IQ in the world. Moreover, his work enjoys international recognition, particularly in number theory, representation theory, combinatorics, harmonic analysis, and partial differential equations. This recognition has helped him amass numerous awards, including the Fields Medal in 2006.
Kim Young-hoon, the Newcomer
In terms of IQ, another individual would have unseated Tao in 2024, as reported by the Korea Herald. Indeed, South Korean Kim Young-hoon would now stand as the person with the highest IQ in history, following the World Memory Championships. According to the organizers, the 35-year-old achieved a score of 276 on the test administered after his victory.
This Seoul-born graduate of Yonsei University is the only South Korean member of the Mega Society and the Giga Society, exclusive associations that admit only people with exceptionally high IQs. He is also the founder of the United Sigma Intelligence Association, a nonprofit organization bringing together more than a hundred highly intelligent individuals from around the world, including figures from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.
Dating back to the early 20th century, the notion of IQ has been defined with several bands according to the score, following the Wechsler classification. They are: 69 and below (extremely low intelligence), 70 to 79 (borderline), 80 to 89 (below average), 90 to 109 (average), 110 to 119 (above average), 120 to 129 (high), and 130 and above (very superior). Finally, Terence Tao and Kim Young-hoon stand far ahead of renowned figures such as Albert Einstein (160), Isaac Newton (190), and Garry Kasparov (190).
