There is no way to definitely know this and answer this question. There are too many variables to account for. Even if we forced every single person on the planet to take an IQ test, the world's smartest person might be having a bad day and not perform at peak levels. Smart people are smart, but they are not infallible. The other problem with relying only on an IQ test is that there were lots...
There is no way to definitely know this and answer this question. There are too many variables to account for. Even if we forced every single person on the planet to take an IQ test, the world's smartest person might be having a bad day and not perform at peak levels. Smart people are smart, but they are not infallible. The other problem with relying only on an IQ test is that there were lots of very smart people that existed before IQ tests were around.
Another problem is that despite an IQ test being somewhat objective, deciding who the smartest person in the world is has some subjectivity to it. I looked at two ranked lists for the current smartest, living person in the world. One listed Stephen Hawking as the smartest. The other listed Terence Tao as the smartest, and it didn't include Hawking in the list at all. The Terence Tao list stated his IQ at 230, which is super high. But I found a third list that listed several other people with an IQ of over 300, but they were ranked behind Tao, which means the ranking is not entirely dependent on an IQ test. Of the three lists that I checked, there are a few people that are listed on all three lists. Terrence Tao is more often than not ranked "smarter" than the other people on all three lists, so if I have to pick one, single smartest person in the world today, I would pick him.
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