Einstein IQ test: are you smarter than Einstein?

It is the question behind most searches for an Einstein IQ test, and it has an honest two-part answer.

On a test score, you can compare. Take a reasoning test and you get a number on the same scale as his estimate. A score of 160 would be higher than about 99.997% of people. Most people score between 85 and 115, and 130 is already about the top 2%.

On being Einstein, nobody can. His estimate is a guess from his achievements, and his achievements came from deep knowledge of physics, years of focused work, unusual independence of mind and a lot of imagination, not from puzzle speed alone. A high score says you reason well. It does not say you would have found relativity.

So the useful version of the question is: how does your reasoning compare with the scale his estimate sits on? That one a test can answer.

No physics required: Einstein's specialist knowledge would not have helped him here either. These are practice items written for this page, not questions from the test.

No one has a verified IQ score for Stephen Hawking. Asked about his IQ in a 2004 New York Times interview, he said he had no idea, and added that "people who boast about their IQ are losers."

The figure you see quoted, 160+, is an estimate from his achievements, with a plausible range of 150 to 170 and low confidence. Take the test and your result will sit on the same scale that estimate is expressed in.

Read the Stephen Hawking IQ profile

Leonardo died in 1519, nearly four centuries before the first IQ test. Any number is inferred from his notebooks, paintings and engineering designs, so there is no da Vinci score to beat, only an estimate: 160+, range 160 to 180, low confidence.

For perspective, a score of 130 on a modern test already puts you in about the top 2%. Take the test and see how far along the curve you get.

Read the Leonardo da Vinci IQ profile

Newton was born in 1643, inside the period covered by Catharine Cox's 1926 study of historical geniuses, which is one reason his name appears in so many IQ lists. Cox worked from biographies, not tests, and her estimates depended heavily on how much was recorded about each person's early life.

This site's estimate for Newton is 160+, with a range of 160 to 190 and low confidence. No one has a verified score, so the fair comparison is your measured result against his estimated range.

Read the Isaac Newton IQ profile

Bill Gates has never published an IQ score. He is widely reported to have scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT, which is a college admissions test, not an IQ test.

The estimate on his profile is 155+ (range 150 to 165, low confidence). Take the test to see how your own measured result compares with that estimate.

Read the Bill Gates IQ profile

Elon Musk has not published an IQ score, and none has been verified. Numbers circulating online are guesses.

His profile here carries an estimate of 155+, range 140 to 165, rated very low confidence. Your result from the test will be a measurement; his is not.

Read the Elon Musk IQ profile

Tesla never took an IQ test. In his 1919 autobiography, My Inventions, he described building and testing machines entirely in his imagination before making them, the kind of visual thinking that estimates of his IQ lean on.

The estimate here is 160+, range 145 to 170, very low confidence. The test below includes five spatial reasoning puzzles if you want to test your own visual imagination.

Read the Nikola Tesla IQ profile

• 25 visual puzzles in five sets: patterns, spatial reasoning, sequences, analogies and rules. Each set runs from easy to hard.
• A 12-minute timer. You can go back and change answers until it runs out.
• No maths formulas, vocabulary or physics.
• The same scoring for everyone. It is not age-adjusted and it is not a clinical assessment.
• No sign-up to start. When you finish, you choose a report to see your result.