10 Smartest People with the Highest IQs in History

William James Sidis had a predicted IQ of 250-300

 William James Sidis (April 1, 1898 – July 17, 1944) was an American child prodigy with exceptional mathematical and linguistic abilities. His IQ was estimated to be between 250 and 300 (measures of IQ have changed over time since then) - one of the highest ever recorded - he entered Harvard early at age 11, and as an adult was conversant in over 40 languages and dialects. He became famous first for his precocity, and later for his eccentricity and withdrawal from the public eye. He avoided mathematics entirely in later life, writing on other subjects under a number of pseudonyms.

Physicist / Engineer Kim Ung-yong has a verified IQ of 210

 Kim Ung-Yong (born March 8, 1962) is a Korean former child prodigy. Kim was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records under "Highest IQ"; the book estimated the boy's score at about 210. Shortly after birth, Kim began to display extraordinary intellectual ability. He began speaking at 2 months, could converse fluently by 6 months, and was able to read Korean, Japanese, German, and English by his second birthday. Furthermore, it took him about a month to learn a foreign language. After 7 months he learned concepts of Algebra and could understand concepts of differential calculus. At the age of four, on November 2, 1967, he solved complicated differential and integral calculus problems on Japanese television. Even in early childhood, he began to write poetry and was an amazing painter.

Bouncer Christopher Michael Langan has a verified IQ of 195

 Christopher Michael Langan (born c. 1952) is an American autodidact whose IQ was reported by 20/20 and other media sources to have been measured at between 195 and 210. Billed by some media sources as "the smartest man in America", he rose to prominence in 1999 while working as a bouncer on Long Island. Langan has developed his own "theory of the relationship between mind and reality" which he calls the "Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU)".

Engineer Philip Emeagwali is alleged to have an IQ of 190

 Philip Emeagwali (born in 1954) is a Nigerian -born engineer and computer scientist/geologist who was one of two winners of the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, a prize from the IEEE, for his use of a Connection Machine supercomputer to help analyze petroleum fields.

World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov is alleged to have an IQ of 190

 Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born Garry Kimovich Weinstein, 13 April 1963, Baku, Azerbaijan) is a Russian (formerly Soviet) chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time. Kasparov became the youngest ever undisputed World Chess Champion in 1985 at the age of 22. He held the official FIDE world title until 1993, when a dispute with FIDE led him to set up a rival organization, the Professional Chess Association. He continued to hold the "Classical" World Chess Championship until his defeat by Vladimir Kramnik in 2000. He is also widely known for being the first world chess champion to lose a match to a computer under standard time controls, when he lost to Deep Blue in 1997.

Sir Isaac Newton is alleged to have an IQ of 190

 Sir Isaac Newton PRS (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727 [NS: 4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727]) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived." His monograph Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, lays the foundations for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws, by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the Scientific Revolution.

Francois-Marie Arouet (Voltaire) is alleged to have an IQ of 190

 François-Marie Arouet, (21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, freedom of expression, free trade and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poetry, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform, despite strict censorship laws with harsh penalties for those who broke them. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma and the French institutions of his day. Voltaire was one of several Enlightenment figures (along with Montesquieu, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Émilie du Châtelet) whose works and ideas influenced important thinkers of both the American and French Revolutions.

Ludwig Wittgenstein is alleged to have an IQ of 190

 Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947. In his lifetime he published just one book review, one article, a children's dictionary, and the 75-page Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921). In 1999 his posthumously published Philosophical Investigations (1953) was ranked as the most important book of 20th-century philosophy, standing out as "...the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations". Bertrand Russell described him as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating".

Author Marilyn Vos Savant has a verified IQ of 186

Marilyn vos Savant ( born August 11, 1946) is an American magazine columnist, author, lecturer, and playwright who rose to fame through her listing in the Guinness Book of World Records under "Highest IQ". Since 1986 she has written "Ask Marilyn", a Sunday column in Parade magazine in which she solves puzzles and answers questions from readers on a variety of subjects.

Actor James Woods is alleged to have an IQ of 180

 James Howard Woods (born April 18, 1947) is an American film, stage and television actor. Woods is known for starring in critically acclaimed films such as Once Upon a Time in America, Salvador, Nixon, Ghosts of Mississippi, The Last Day of Summer, Casino, and in the television legal drama Shark. He has won three Emmy Awards, and has gained two Academy Award nominations. He is also well known for appearing several times in the comedy animated series Family Guy, as well as the voice of Hades in Disney's Hercules.