• Question: Who would be the five smartest people right now?

    Asked by smileyluke8 to Colm, Eoin, Joseph, Lauren, Stephen on 15 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Eoin O Colgain

      Eoin O Colgain answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      Einstein was at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) Princeton. It is a good place to find smart people.

      In Ireland de Valera set up DIAS, the Dublin Institute for Advanced Study, modeled on Princeton and was hoping to attract Einstein. In the end, Dev had to settle for Nobel prize winner Schrodinger, one of the pioneers of quantum physics. Not a bad result and the place still exists, but they are very shy .

    • Photo: Joseph Roche

      Joseph Roche answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      I think this one might come down to personal opinions. They are different ways to be smart. Stephen Hawking is often considered one of the smartest people in the world. Kim Ung-yong has the record for highest IQ in the world but no one really trusts IQ tests anymore. Andrew Wiles is a mathematician that solved one of the most difficult problems in the world (you should check it out in a book called Fermat’s Last Theorem) so he probably deserves a mention. Elon Musk is basically Tony Stark and one invention away from becoming Iron Man. Oh and Oprah.

    • Photo: Stephen Scully

      Stephen Scully answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      Lauren, Joseph, Eoin, Colm and ME! 🙂

    • Photo: colm bracken

      colm bracken answered on 18 Nov 2013:

      If you Google this you will find a list of people with the highest IQs and at the top of this list will be a guy called Terence Tao who apparently has an IQ of 230 which is mind boggling. But I think being smart also involves other things than IQ such as creativity and imagination. Einstein was strong in his position of the importance of imagination and I agree with him.
      Also, I am probably biased toward the physicists as I believe physics is the most important subject of study. Therefore my five smartest people are Leonard Susskind, Stephen Hawking, Sir Andrew Wiles (the great mathematician who Joseph already mentioned), and I’m going to include Richard Feynman even though he died a few years ago but he contributed so so much to modern physics. I can’t think of a 5th so I will just do a cop-out and say the late Great Sir Isaac Newton! They are not listed in order by the way.

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