Which of the 19 Smartest People in the World Is From RI?

Which of the 19 Smartest People in the World Is From RI?

Come on, try and guess. When Business Insider named "The 19 Smartest People The World Has Ever Seen," one Rhode Islander made the list. So try to guess, before you read the next line to see what person who calls area code 401 home held their own on a list that includes Microsoft genius Paul Allen, physicist Stephen Hawking, and chess prodigy Bobby Fischer.

James Woods.

The actor who grew up in Warwick and went to Pilgrim High School was, by Business Insider's accounting, "a

brilliant student" who achieved a perfect 800 on the verbal and 779 on the math portions of the pre-1995 SAT. Woods attended the genius-breeding MIT on scholarship and is credited as having an IQ of a mind-blowing 180. (Woods beats out fellow actor Sharon Stone, who has an alleged IQ of 154.)

And not for nothing, but Woods was enrolled in a linear algebra course at UCLA while still in high school in Rhode Island, before accepting the scholarship at MIT.

Smart at cards

Woods has, in fact, become a very successful high-stakes poker-player, and his high intelligence has been credited with his ability to learn and master the complexities of the game.

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Woods shares the honors with a truly remarkable roster of individuals (read all about them, here) including IQ record-breaker William James Sidis, who is said to have had an IQ of 275. Sidis entered Harvard at the age of 11 and was fluent in more than 40 languages by the time he graduated. According to Business Insider, the Ukranian American became embittered over a 1918 arrest under the Sedition Act and spent the years from 1921 until his death at age 46 in 1944 running adding machines and doing "only menial tasks."

It appears that Woods has worked out a far better life, and lifestyle. See, it takes brains.