Who had an IQ over 200?

Who Really Has the Highest IQ?

When we talk about genius, names like Marilyn vos Savant and Terence Tao often come up. Vos Savant, famously listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for her IQ of 228, became a household name through her "Ask Marilyn" column, where she solved complex logic problems with ease. But she’s not alone in that rarefied intellectual space.

Terence Tao, a mathematician of extraordinary achievement, is estimated to have an IQ between 225 and 230. A child prodigy who earned his PhD from Princeton at 20, Tao now pioneers work in harmonic analysis and number theory. Similarly, Christopher Hirata, who scored an IQ of 225, was doing college-level astrophysics by age 13 and helped NASA design missions to Mars.

Then there’s Kim Ung-Yong, a South Korean child prodigy who could read and write multiple languages by age four and was invited to work at NASA by age eight. His IQ is estimated at 210. American inventor Edith Stern, with an IQ between 200 and 210, began reading at age two and later revolutionized smart meter technology at IBM.

William James Sidis, often cited as having an estimated IQ between 250 and 300, remains one of history’s most enigmatic geniuses. Though never formally tested, he was reading by age two and entered Harvard at 11. Tragically, his life was marked by isolation and obscurity, proving that extreme intelligence doesn’t guarantee happiness.

There are also controversial claims—like Ainan Celeste Cawley, said to have an IQ of 263—though these are unverified. High IQs spark fascination, but they don’t tell the whole story of a person’s impact or fulfillment.