A book critic who reviewed our conspiracy thriller novel The Ninth Orphan criticized our protagonist for having an IQ, or intelligence quotient, higher than Einstein’s. The strong implication in the review was that this was a ridiculous character decision we (the authors) had made.
That all sounds like a valid criticism on the surface, but had this critic gone beyond his own sphere of knowledge and done a little research he would have discovered there are many people whose IQ’s have been recorded to be higher than Einstein’s. American author Marilyn Vos Savant, for example, has an IQ of 192; Russian chess grandmaster and former world champion Garry Kasparov has an IQ of 194. Incidentally, Einstein’s IQ was estimated in the 1920’s to between 160 and 190.
Albert Einstein and Marilyn Vos Savant.
But wait, there’s much more when it comes to the world of super geniuses – as we discovered when researching our new release book THE ORPHAN CONSPIRACIES: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy. Here’s an excerpt from the book…
Quite a few individuals have tested in excess of a 200 IQ score, including South Korean civil engineer Kim Ung-yong (210), former child prodigy and former NASA employee Christopher Hirata (225) and Australian mathematician Terence Tao (225-230).
And last but not least is American child prodigy, mathematician and politician William James Sidis who had an IQ of 250-300. He graduated grammar school at age six, went to Harvard University at age 11 and graduated cum laude at the age of 16. Sidis, who died in 1944, could fluently speak 40 languages by the time he reached adulthood.
Child prodigy William Sidis…IQ 250-300.
Remember, the average IQ is 100 and approximately 50% of those tested score between 90 and 110. According to the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations by Dr. Richard Lynn and Dr. Tatu Vanhanen, the top five countries in terms of average IQ’s of their citizens are Hong Kong (107), South Korea (106), Japan (105), Taiwan (104) and Singapore (103). Further down the list, China, New Zealand and the UK share equal 12th position with a 100 average, while the US is in 19th position with an average citizen IQ of 98.
However, many scholars in the 21st Century now believe IQ scores aren’t everything and it’s likely areas of intelligence exist that cannot be measured in any test. This is possibly substantiated by the number of successful and iconic individuals who recorded very low IQ scores. These include the once highly articulate and outspoken boxer Muhammad Ali who, as a young man, scored only 78 – an IQ so low it supposedly denotes a mild mental disability!
And of course, the list of the world’s so-called most intelligent excludes extremely bright individuals in impoverished parts of the world where IQ’s are rarely tested. The Indian mathematical genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920), was an example of such incredible geniuses who defy all explanation.
Srinivasa Ramanujan…changed the face of mathematics.
Born into poverty in Erode, India, Ramanujan discovered extraordinary mathematical formulas, despite being self-taught with no formal training in mathematics. He changed the face of mathematics as we know it and left many highly-educated and acclaimed Western mathematicians completely gobsmacked.
Furthermore, the other high-IQ individuals mentioned earlier are only in the top bracket of those who agreed to undergo IQ tests and allow their scores to be published. It’s quite conceivable certain elite individuals belonging to secret societies, mystery schools or intelligence agencies do not reveal their IQ scores. That secret intelligence factor was the basis for our fictional Pedemont orphans who we either state or imply have IQ’s of around 200 or higher.
As a result of the accelerated learning techniques within the diverse curriculum that begins before they can even walk or talk, the orphans can assimilate and retain phenomenal amounts of information. By their teens, the child prodigies possess greater amounts of knowledge than even adult geniuses. They are able to solve complex problems, are fully knowledgeable about almost any current world subject or historical event, and are to all intents and purposes organic supercomputers and human library databases.
Again, our orphans are exposed to highly advanced learning methods so that they will have at their disposal all the necessary skills and information to be able to overcome life-and-death problems that may arise on future espionage assignments. They’re taught there is no challenge or question that cannot be overcome, solved or answered as long as they fully utilize the power of their minds.
Each child at the Pedemont Orphanage eventually becomes a polymath – a person who is beyond a genius. It’s a word we use throughout the trilogy as we felt it best describes the orphans’ off-the-scale intellects.
A polymath is actually a multiple-subject genius. However, the criteria for a polymath is someone who is an expert in vastly different, almost unrelated fields. For example, an artist who works in the film, theatre and literary industries and who is a masterful actor, screenwriter, novelist, film director and film producer would not qualify as a polymath as those fields are all artistic mediums and closely related.
Rather, a polymath is someone who has excelled in, or completely mastered, a variety of unrelated or loosely related subjects. These could be as diverse as economics, dance, architecture, mathematics, history, forensic science, cooking and entomology.
And before you go calling yourself a polymath, don’t forget you must be an expert in each field. Unfortunately being a jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none doesn’t count.
One of the best examples of a polymath is Leonardo da Vinci. Born in Italy in 1452, he was a sculptor, painter, architect, mathematician, musician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, botanist, geologist, cartographer and writer. Although Leonardo received an informal education that included geometry, Latin and mathematics, he was essentially an autodidact, or a self-taught individual.
Leonardo…polymath extraordinaire.
The man who many have called the most diversely talented person who ever lived, left behind an array of masterpieces in the painting world alone, including The Last Supper, Mona Lisa and The Vitruvian Man.
The Last Supper…another Leonardo masterpiece.
Read more in THE ORPHAN CONSPIRACIES: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy – available now via Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Orphan-Conspiracies-Conspiracy-Theories-ebook/dp/B00J4MPFT6/
A book that’s for the common people.
Happy reading! –James & Lance
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