Top 100 living geniuses
The Telegraph 7 Dec 2008
The Simpsons creator Matt Groening ranked number four in the list of living geniuses, but joint top of the list was British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee.
British geniuses feature heavily in a recent list that notes the greatest living thinkers of our time - proportionately more than any other country.
The top 100 living geniuses was compiled by a panel of six experts in creativity and innovation from Creators Synectics, a global consultants firm.
The company emailed 4,000 Britons this summer and asked them to nominate up to 10 living people who they considered geniuses.
Each genius was then awarded scores out of ten against criteria which included: paradigm shifting; popular acclaim; intellectual power; achievement and cultural importance.
The List 1= Albert Hoffman (Swiss) (died April 2008) Chemist 1= Tim Berners-Lee (British) Computer Scientist 3 George Soros (American) Investor & Philanthropist 4 Matt Groening (American) Satirist & Animator 5= Nelson Mandela (South African) Politician & Diplomat 5= Frederick Sanger (British) Chemist 7= Dario Fo (Italian) Writer & Dramatist 7= Steven Hawking (British) Physicist 9= Oscar Niemeyer (Brazilian) Architect 9= Philip Glass (American) Composer 9= Grigory Perelman (Russian) Mathematician 12= Andrew Wiles (British) Mathematician 12= Li Hongzhi (Chinese) Spiritual Leader 12= Ali Javan (Iranian) Engineer 15= Brian Eno (British) Composer 15= Damian Hirst (British) Artist 15= Daniel Tammet (British) Savant & Linguist 18 Nicholson Baker (American Writer 19 Daniel Barenboim (N/A) Musician 20= Robert Crumb (American) Artist 20= Richard Dawkins (British) Biologist and philosopher 20= Larry Page & Sergey Brin (American) Publishers 20= Rupert Murdoch (American) Publisher 20= Geoffrey Hill (British) Poet 25 Garry Kasparov (Russian) Chess Player 26= The Dalai Lama (Tibetan) Spiritual Leader 26= Steven Spielberg (American) Film maker 26= Hiroshi Ishiguro (Japanese) Roboticist 26= Robert Edwards (British) Pioneer of IVF treatment 26= Seamus Heaney (Irish) Poet 31 Harold Pinter (British) Writer & Dramatist 32= Flossie Wong-Staal (Chinese) Bio-technologist 32= Bobby Fischer (American) Chess Player 32= Prince (American) Musician 32= Henrik Gorecki (Polish) Composer 32= Avram Noam Chomski (American) Philosopher & linguist 32= Sebastian Thrun (German) Probabilistic roboticist 32= Nima Arkani Hamed (Canadian) Physicist 32= Margaret Turnbull (American) Astrobiologist 40= Elaine Pagels (American) Historian 40= Enrique Ostrea (Philippino) Pediatrics & neonatology 40= Gary Becker (American) Economist 43= Mohammed Ali (American) Boxer 43= Osama Bin Laden (Saudi) Islamicist 43= Bill Gates (American) Businessman 43= Philip Roth (American) Writer 43= James West (American) Invented the foil electrical microphone 43= Tuan Vo-Dinh (Vietnamese) Bio-Medical Scientist 49= Brian Wilson (American) Musician 49= Stevie Wonder (American) Singer songwritee 49= Vint Cerf (American) Computer scientist 49= Henry Kissinger (American) Diplomat and politician 49= Richard Branson (British) Publicist 49= Pardis Sabeti (Iranian) Biological anthropologist 49= Jon de Mol (Dutch) Television producer 49= Meryl Streep (American) Actress 49= Margaret Attwood (Canadian) Writer 58= Placido Domingo (Spanish) Singer 58= John Lasseter (American) Digital Animator 58= Shunpei Yamazaki (Japanese) Computer scientist & physicist 58= Jane Goodall (British) Ethologist & Anthropologist 58= Kirti Narayan Chaudhuri (Indian) Historian 58= John Goto (British) Photographer 58= Paul McCartney (British) Musician 58= Stephen King (American) Writer 58= Leonard Cohen (American) Poet & musician
67= Aretha Franklin (American) Musician 67= David Bowie (British) Musician 67= Emily Oster (American) Economist 67= Steve Wozniak (American) Engineer and co-founder of Apple Computers 67= Martin Cooper (American) Inventor of the cell phone
72= George Lucas (American) Film maker 72= Niles Rogers (American) Musician 72= Hans Zimmer (German) Composer 72= John Williams (American) Composer 72= Annette Baier (New Zealander) Philosopher 72= Dorothy Rowe (British) Psychologist 72= Ivan Marchuk (Ukrainian) Artist & sculptor 72= Robin Escovado (American) Composer 72= Mark Dean (American) Inventor & computer scientist 72= Rick Rubin (American) Musician & producer 72= Stan Lee (American) Publisher
83= David Warren (Australian) Engineer 83= Jon Fosse (Norwegian) Writer & dramatist 83= Gjertrud Schnackenberg (American) Poet 83= Graham Linehan (Irish) Writer & dramatist 83= JK Rowling (British) Writer 83= Ken Russell (British) Film maker 83= Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov (Russian) Small arms designer 83= Erich Jarvis (American) Neurobiologist
91=. Chad Varah (British) Founder of Samaritans 91= Nicolas Hayek (Swiss) Businessman and founder of Swatch 4 91= Alastair Hannay (British) Philosopher
94= Patricia Bath (American) Ophthalmologist 94= Thomas A. Jackson (American) Aerospace engineer 94= Dolly Parton (American) Singer 94= Morissey (British) Singer 94= Michael Eavis (British) Organiser of Glastonbury 94= Ranulph Fiennes (British) Adventurer
100=. Quentin Tarantino (American) Filmmaker