Take the Einstein IQ Test

What was Einstein's IQ?

Estimate

160+

Range

150 to 170

Confidence

Low

Tested score

None on record

There is no authenticated record that Einstein took a modern standardized IQ test. Einstein’s exceptional scientific reasoning is directly evidenced; the popular 160 figure is an unverified retrospective estimate.

Einstein lived from 1879 to 1955, so IQ tests existed for most of his adult life, but no score was ever published. He was also outside Catharine Cox's famous 1926 study of genius IQs, which only covered people born between 1450 and 1850. And the story that he failed maths is a myth: he had taught himself calculus by about 15.

If his real score were 160, only about 1 in 31,560 people would score that high. The full evidence is on the Albert Einstein IQ profile.

How your result would compare

Your result will be a measurement on a scale where 100 is average. Here is where the landmarks sit, with Einstein's estimate at the far end. Percentages are computed from the normal curve (mean 100, standard deviation 15).

Famous IQ estimates compared

Every number below is an estimate, not a test result. Ranges and confidence ratings come from each person's profile.

Stephen Hawking IQ 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 below and your result will sit on the same scale that estimate is expressed in.

Da Vinci IQ test

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.

Isaac Newton IQ test

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.

Bill Gates IQ test

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.

Elon Musk IQ test

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.

Nikola Tesla IQ test

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.