British Tween Is Smarter Than You, Einstein

Albert Einstein.
Albert Einstein. Photo: MPI/Getty Images

Lydia Sebastian, a 12-year-old girl from Essex, England, discovered recently that the results of her Mensa test put her in the top one percent of the population in terms of intelligence. After pestering her parents for months to take the Mensa test (specifically the Cattell III B paper), she learned that her inklings about her intelligence were right, and that she had surpassed both Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking by two points in their IQ scores.

Sebastian told CNN that she was “really nervous before the test” and that it was going to be “really hard,” but — brag — while taking it, she realized it was much easier than she thought it would be. After Sebastian achieved a score of 162 (two points higher than Einstein’s speculated score), she told CNN that she believes the comparisons to both Einstein and Hawking are undeserved because “They’ve achieved so much. I don’t think it’s right.”

Of course, a high IQ also needs education and experience to truly change the world, as Einstein and Hawking have, but we’re keeping an eye on Sebastian, who says she wants to go into math. And it’s worth noting she isn’t the first young woman to make it into that top percentile. In August of this year, Nicole Barr (another 12-year-old girl from Essex, England) received the same perfect score as Sebastian. There must be something in the scones.

British Tween Is Smarter Than You, Einstein