I suspect that this test emphasized verbal, as opposed to mathematical,
ability. Feynman received the highest score in the country by a large margin
on the notoriously difficult Putnam mathematics competition exam, although he
joined the MIT team on short notice and did not prepare for the test. [...]
It seems quite possible to me that Feynman’s cognitive abilities might have
been a bit lopsided—his vocabulary and verbal ability were well above
average, but perhaps not as great as his mathematical abilities. I recall
looking at excerpts from a notebook Feynman kept as an undergraduate. While
the notes covered very advanced topics—including general relativity and
the Dirac equation—they also contained a number of misspellings and
grammatical errors. I doubt Feynman cared very much about such things.
According to Feynman, he tested at 125 when he was a schoolboy. (Search for “IQ” in the Gleick biography.)
Gwern says:
Steve Hsu says: