Genius Jesus

Geniuses are rare, but fortunately we still have a few of them. In fact, a new generation of visionaries is discovering how to grow organs, peer into black holes, cure plagues and help blind people see. 

Bobby Fischer was a teen chess prodigy and a social misfit.

Steve Martin is literally a comic genius. That arrow through his head went through a Mensa brain.

Two-year-old Elise Tan Roberts, Mensa’s youngest member, can name 35 world capitals and identify three types of triangles.

Wait a minute. There are three kinds of triangles?

Madonnna and Shakira are both divas who make headlines on- and offstage. But with confirmed IQs of 140, each of them just as easily could excel in the boardroom or courtroom.

South Boston street-tough “Good” Will Hunting was “wicked smaaht” — just as competent in vector algebra as he was in a playground brawl.

All these figures are incredibly intelligent. But they’re just as colorful as they are clever. While we value intelligence, we really seem to enjoy people who are quirky smart.

mental_floss magazine is committed to the quirky and smart in culture. It recently chronicled “The New Einsteins” —...