these intellectual luminaries have
changed how we see the world forever
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we’re
counting down our picks for the top ten
modern geniuses
before we begin we publish new content
every day so be sure to subscribe to our
channel and ring the bell to get
notified about our latest videos for
this list we’re looking at prodigal
minds whose life spans bridged the 20th
and 21st centuries while there’s no
concrete definition of genius we’ll be
including people who are generally
considered to be of exceptional
intelligence and to have significantly
contributed to their respective fields
number 10 Edward Witten Witten graduated
Brandeis University with a BA in history
and linguistics but somewhere along the
line realized he had another calling now
a theoretical physicist and professor of
mathematical physics at Princeton the
researcher has made significant
contributions to the fields of quantum
gravity and string theory and is perhaps
best known as the creator of M theory
which attempts to unify consistent
superstring theories and it’s from
hereon that his ideas get even more
complicated suffice it to say he’s
received numerous accolades for his work
and been called by many of his peers as
the world’s smartest living physicist
number nine Ray Kurzweil Ray Kurzweil is
a man of many talents an author and
inventor Chris while focuses on numerous
subjects including nanotechnology
artificial intelligence and
biotechnology you know easy to digest
stuff like that he’s also the inventor
of numerous groundbreaking modern
technologies including a revolutionary
image scanner optical character
recognition system print to speech
reading device and keyboard synthesizer
in 1999 President Bill Clinton awarded
him the prestigious National Medal of
Technology and innovation and he’s been
hailed as a technological genius by many
notable outlets including the Wall
Street Journal number 8
Temple Grandin a professor of animal
science at Colorado University Temple
Grandin has helped revolutionize our
understanding of animal psychology
leading to a more humane and scientific
handling of livestock
she’s also well known for inventing the
hug box a device used to calm those with
autism and hypersensitivity her
phenomenal brain has been studied by
researchers seeking to better understand
the minds of autistic savants time
called her one of the most influential
people in the world and she’s been the
recipient of numerous medals and
honorary degrees number 7 Noam Chomsky
born in 1928 Noam Chomsky has
contributed extensively to the fields of
linguistics and cognitive science
throughout his long life in his 20s
Chomsky created the transformational
grammar theory while attending Harvard
and at 28 published a landmark work in
the field of linguistics syntactic
structures he’s continued to develop his
influential linguistic theories
throughout his career and is often
regarded as one of the most important
scholars in history known as the father
of modern linguistics we can attribute
much of what we know today about the
human sciences to Noam Chomsky number
six Tim berners-lee if you’re watching
this right now you can thank Tim
berners-lee the man who invented the
world wide web in November of 1989 for
his achievement berners-lee has been
duly decorated having received the 2013
Queen Elizabeth Prize for engineering
the 2016 Turing award and made the 14th
member of the Order of Merit he
currently serves as the director of the
World Wide Web Consortium and the web
Science Research initiative while
teaching computer science at Oxford and
MIT talk about a busy guy number five
garry kasparov born in the soviet union
in 1963 Kasparov took an interest in
chess from a young age by the age of 10
he was training under famous coach
vladimir of mecca gone off and became a
chess master at fifteen winning the
sikorsky Memorial Tournament when
Kasparov was 20 he was ranked the best
chess player in the world and broke the
record for the youngest person to hold
that distinction he’s since won a record
11 chess Oscars and was ranked the best
chess player in the world from 1986 to
2005 in fact it took IBM’s supercomputer
deep-blue to beat him in a famous AI vs.
human match held in 1997 number 4 Neil
deGrasse Tyson thanks to his role as a
host on TV science programs Neil
deGrasse Tyson is arguably the world’s
most well known astrophysicist but he’s
much more
just a science communicator when he was
nine years old Tyson developed a
feverish interest in astronomy
after visiting the Hayden Planetarium in
the Rose Center for Earth and space he
went on to become director of the very
planetarium that inspired his interest
in astronomy and has since won numerous
awards in his field including the NASA
distinguished Public Service Medal and
the Hubbard medal
he’s also been the recipient of 19
honorary doctorates number 3 bill gates
a discussion of modern geniuses wouldn’t
be complete without mention of Microsoft
founder Bill Gates Gates took an
interest in computing in his early teens
when he started writing programs on a
general electric computer he graduated
with a 1590 on his SATs and enrolled in
Harvard although he would eventually
drop out to focus on his company with
co-founder Paul Allen he unveiled
Microsoft in April 1975 and when Gates
was just 19 Microsoft’s operating
systems including ms-dos and Microsoft
Windows would go on to revolutionize
personal computers Gates is now worth
about 90 billion dollars making him the
second richest person in the world
number 2 Elon Musk like this is the guy
who sent a freaking car into space musk
showed signs of being extremely
intelligent by a young age teaching
himself to program when he was just 10
at 28 musk created an online payment
program called XCOM which would later
become PayPal never one to rest on his
laurels
he created SpaceX his biggest claim to
fame a few years later since that time
he’s also founded Tesla open AI neural
Inc and the boring company in between
proposing novel technologies like the
Hyperloop and the musk electric jet in
other words he’s a James Bond villain
or an entrepreneurial Q number one
Stephen Hawking standing on the
shoulders of giants theoretical
physicist and cosmologist Stephen
Hawking Sean a light on some of the most
perplexing mysteries of the universe
before he passed away in March of 2018
he was one of those rare geniuses who
could also explain his ideas to laymen
as evidenced by his bestseller a brief
history of time an iconic figure who
continued to blaze new trails in science
despite considerable physical
limitations Hawking made intellectual
inroads into the composition of black
holes the origin of the universe and the
relationship between general relativity
and quantum mechanics he’s remembered
today as one of the greatest minds of
our time do you agree with our pics
check out these other great clips from
WatchMojo and be sure to subscribe and
ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos
changed how we see the world forever
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we’re
counting down our picks for the top ten
modern geniuses
before we begin we publish new content
every day so be sure to subscribe to our
channel and ring the bell to get
notified about our latest videos for
this list we’re looking at prodigal
minds whose life spans bridged the 20th
and 21st centuries while there’s no
concrete definition of genius we’ll be
including people who are generally
considered to be of exceptional
intelligence and to have significantly
contributed to their respective fields
number 10 Edward Witten Witten graduated
Brandeis University with a BA in history
and linguistics but somewhere along the
line realized he had another calling now
a theoretical physicist and professor of
mathematical physics at Princeton the
researcher has made significant
contributions to the fields of quantum
gravity and string theory and is perhaps
best known as the creator of M theory
which attempts to unify consistent
superstring theories and it’s from
hereon that his ideas get even more
complicated suffice it to say he’s
received numerous accolades for his work
and been called by many of his peers as
the world’s smartest living physicist
number nine Ray Kurzweil Ray Kurzweil is
a man of many talents an author and
inventor Chris while focuses on numerous
subjects including nanotechnology
artificial intelligence and
biotechnology you know easy to digest
stuff like that he’s also the inventor
of numerous groundbreaking modern
technologies including a revolutionary
image scanner optical character
recognition system print to speech
reading device and keyboard synthesizer
in 1999 President Bill Clinton awarded
him the prestigious National Medal of
Technology and innovation and he’s been
hailed as a technological genius by many
notable outlets including the Wall
Street Journal number 8
Temple Grandin a professor of animal
science at Colorado University Temple
Grandin has helped revolutionize our
understanding of animal psychology
leading to a more humane and scientific
handling of livestock
she’s also well known for inventing the
hug box a device used to calm those with
autism and hypersensitivity her
phenomenal brain has been studied by
researchers seeking to better understand
the minds of autistic savants time
called her one of the most influential
people in the world and she’s been the
recipient of numerous medals and
honorary degrees number 7 Noam Chomsky
born in 1928 Noam Chomsky has
contributed extensively to the fields of
linguistics and cognitive science
throughout his long life in his 20s
Chomsky created the transformational
grammar theory while attending Harvard
and at 28 published a landmark work in
the field of linguistics syntactic
structures he’s continued to develop his
influential linguistic theories
throughout his career and is often
regarded as one of the most important
scholars in history known as the father
of modern linguistics we can attribute
much of what we know today about the
human sciences to Noam Chomsky number
six Tim berners-lee if you’re watching
this right now you can thank Tim
berners-lee the man who invented the
world wide web in November of 1989 for
his achievement berners-lee has been
duly decorated having received the 2013
Queen Elizabeth Prize for engineering
the 2016 Turing award and made the 14th
member of the Order of Merit he
currently serves as the director of the
World Wide Web Consortium and the web
Science Research initiative while
teaching computer science at Oxford and
MIT talk about a busy guy number five
garry kasparov born in the soviet union
in 1963 Kasparov took an interest in
chess from a young age by the age of 10
he was training under famous coach
vladimir of mecca gone off and became a
chess master at fifteen winning the
sikorsky Memorial Tournament when
Kasparov was 20 he was ranked the best
chess player in the world and broke the
record for the youngest person to hold
that distinction he’s since won a record
11 chess Oscars and was ranked the best
chess player in the world from 1986 to
2005 in fact it took IBM’s supercomputer
deep-blue to beat him in a famous AI vs.
human match held in 1997 number 4 Neil
deGrasse Tyson thanks to his role as a
host on TV science programs Neil
deGrasse Tyson is arguably the world’s
most well known astrophysicist but he’s
much more
just a science communicator when he was
nine years old Tyson developed a
feverish interest in astronomy
after visiting the Hayden Planetarium in
the Rose Center for Earth and space he
went on to become director of the very
planetarium that inspired his interest
in astronomy and has since won numerous
awards in his field including the NASA
distinguished Public Service Medal and
the Hubbard medal
he’s also been the recipient of 19
honorary doctorates number 3 bill gates
a discussion of modern geniuses wouldn’t
be complete without mention of Microsoft
founder Bill Gates Gates took an
interest in computing in his early teens
when he started writing programs on a
general electric computer he graduated
with a 1590 on his SATs and enrolled in
Harvard although he would eventually
drop out to focus on his company with
co-founder Paul Allen he unveiled
Microsoft in April 1975 and when Gates
was just 19 Microsoft’s operating
systems including ms-dos and Microsoft
Windows would go on to revolutionize
personal computers Gates is now worth
about 90 billion dollars making him the
second richest person in the world
number 2 Elon Musk like this is the guy
who sent a freaking car into space musk
showed signs of being extremely
intelligent by a young age teaching
himself to program when he was just 10
at 28 musk created an online payment
program called XCOM which would later
become PayPal never one to rest on his
laurels
he created SpaceX his biggest claim to
fame a few years later since that time
he’s also founded Tesla open AI neural
Inc and the boring company in between
proposing novel technologies like the
Hyperloop and the musk electric jet in
other words he’s a James Bond villain
or an entrepreneurial Q number one
Stephen Hawking standing on the
shoulders of giants theoretical
physicist and cosmologist Stephen
Hawking Sean a light on some of the most
perplexing mysteries of the universe
before he passed away in March of 2018
he was one of those rare geniuses who
could also explain his ideas to laymen
as evidenced by his bestseller a brief
history of time an iconic figure who
continued to blaze new trails in science
despite considerable physical
limitations Hawking made intellectual
inroads into the composition of black
holes the origin of the universe and the
relationship between general relativity
and quantum mechanics he’s remembered
today as one of the greatest minds of
our time do you agree with our pics
check out these other great clips from
WatchMojo and be sure to subscribe and
ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos
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