According to the latest list ''30 Smartest People Alive Today'' from Super Scholar, three representatives from Croatia have found their place on this prestigious list.
The American portal Superscholar.org which is dedicated to education and knowledge as the most important links in the history of humans, used IQ results and other factors in compiling the list.
The average result on an IQ test is 100, with most people in the world falling in the category ‘’85-114’’. Anyone with a result over 140 is considered ‘’above average’’, and anyone with a result above 160 is considered ‘’a genius’’.
As expected, the list is topped by a brilliant Stephen Hawking, followed by an array of accomplished academics, smart young intellectuals, former child prodigies and IQ wizards such as Paul Allen, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Manahel Thabet, Garry Kasparov, Terence Tao, Donald Knuth, and many others.
As far as Croatia is concerned, three super smart Croats made the country very proud; Nikola Poljak who placed as the 14th on the list, Ivan Ivec (18th) and Mislav Predavec (23rd).
Nikola Poljak is a Croatian researcher and physicist with an IQ of 183. He was born in Cakovec in 1982, and works as an assistant research fellow and instructor at the University of Zagreb’s experimental physics department. Poljak is also an assistant research fellow at CERN, working on the collaborative A Large Ion Collider Experiment in Geneva, Switzerland. Two years ago, Poljak was also among the top 30 smartest people in the world.
Ivan Ivec is a 41-year old mathematician and IQ test specialist with an IQ of 174. He has a PhD in mathematics and works as a professor in the A.G.Matos high school in Samobor. Ivec is a member of Croatia’s MENSA and has a website dedicated to IQ testing.
Mislav Predavec is also a mathematician with an IQ of 190. He was born in Zagreb in 1967 where he works as a professor. ‘’I always felt that I was a step ahead of others. As material in school increased, I just solved the problems faster and better’’, commented Predavec. His unique abilities were recognized from his early age.