this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2026
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i mean, iq is a normal distribution. it caps at 200. 160 represents the 99.996th percentile, and above that the error bars are so large that the result is uneless.
It's not capped, really. But the claimed 250 IQ would be 10 standard deviations from the mean, so he'd be the most intelligent person in a population of ~10^24^ people.
~10^11^ humans have ever lived on earth.
It's capped in practical terms by the highest score a test can be given. Unless getting a perfect just means you have another harder round.
The most likely explanation is that he was from outer space
Smells like von neumann
so what you are saying is that it has a cap, which is based on the number of people he is compared against?
No, but without people to compare against, there is a limit to how high the scale can stay accurate. This is different from it actually having a cap, though.
After 30 years on the internet, this might be the absolute nerdiest conversation I have ever seen. I'm impressed.
I'm honored
Strictly speaking, a normal distribution doesn't cap, neither at 0 nor at 200. Maybe the scores achievable by standardized tests do, of course.
they usually cap at 150. but yeah it's not a hard cap, it's an asymptotic curve. statistically the chance of getting 201 or higher is the same as getting -1 or lower.
That’s just how clever he was, silly.
I was going to mention the same thing. Even the "smartest man alive" would be in those useless upper bounds.
To explain that upper bounds issue to others, imagine being the top score on a leaderboard. Some of that's going to be random chance and other factors, even if most of the time you score in the top 1% of scores consistently.