Brainbox

Most children learn to read between the ages of four and seven.¹ But some do not like to wait that long. Teddy Hobbs taught himself to read at the age of just two. No sooner could he read English than he began learning seven languages, including Mandarin and Welsh. He is not yet four and he has the reading skills of a nine-year-old.

An intelligence test placed his IQA means of measuring human intelligence. A person's IQ is usually ascertained by making them sit a standardised test. Some have criticised these tests as a means of evaluating intelligence, claiming that they ignore much of what it means to be intelligent. at 139, enough to gain him entry into MensaThe largest and oldest society for people with high-IQs in the world. Mensa is the Latin word for "table". , a society for the world's cleverest people.

Teddy is the latest in a long line of child prodigiesA young person with exceptional talent or skill. . Blaise PascalA 17th Century French mathematician and inventor who started his pioneering work as a teenager. was solving complex maths problems when he was 11. MozartAn 18th Century classical musician who composed more than 800 works. composed music at the age of five.² But what made these people geniuses?

Some think it all comes down to luck. They say superintelligence is usually a genetic fluke combined with environmental factors.

Scientists estimate that 50% of all intelligence differences between people can be explained by genes. The rest, they believe, comes down to chance.

Others, however, think genius is really a matter of perspective. They say IQ tests only measure how good people are at IQ tests. In fact, they are probably quite bad at measuring genius. 

Usually, the people we think of as geniuses are the ones who can think outside the box. That means they do badly on tests that require them to come up with one correct answer, because instead they come up with a blizzard of different, more creative answers.

But not everyone who has this skill is recognised as a prodigy. If the ideas that spring into a creative person's mind help them to compose beautiful music, we call them a genius. If they lead them to believe they are in contact with aliens, we call them delusional.

That is why some think we need a wider understanding of superintelligence. People whose ideas seem bizarre might well be geniuses on the wrong track. And perhaps, they say, we can all be geniuses if we allow our creative minds to flourish.

But others think even if we can all be superintelligent, that does not mean we should want to be. Many child prodigies struggle to make friends amongst people of their own age. They can grow up lonely and isolated, often losing their passion for their childhood talents.

Yes: Genius is just a matter of the way you look at things. We all have the capacity to be creative and inventive. We just need to find more ways of harnessing this power.

No: Superintelligence might be partly about looking at things in an original way, but it is mostly about understanding very complex things, and this is something we inherit. Only a small number of people can be geniuses.

Or... Being a genius is not all it is cracked up to be. For many, it means loneliness and burnout, followed by a more or less ordinary life. We should not want to be geniuses.