MEET:William James Sidis :The Smartest Man Ever Lived

William James Sidis is another individual whose exact IQ score is unknown. Experts have pegged his IQ somewhere in the range of 250 to 300.

which would give him the highest IQ score in history. What did Sidis do to earn such an accolade? Born in 1898, he entered Harvard at the age 11 to study mathematics, which at the time made him the youngest person to ever enroll at the prestigious university. 

After completing his studies he began teaching, but found that the students in his class who were older than he was did not take kindly to being educated by what they perceived to be a boy. Because of his rapid rise through the educational system he suffered socially, unable to maintain close friendships. The rest of his life was marred by legal trouble after participating in socialist movements, and a stint in a sanatorium after his parents who attempted to reform his political views put him there. 

Upon his release in 1921, the troubled genius stepped away from mathematics and academics entirely, and lived a relatively normal life. He died at the age of 46 from a cerebral hemorrhage.