Stephen Hawking — "I have no idea. People who boast about their IQ are losers."
I have no idea. People who boast about their IQ are losers.
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About Stephen Hawking (1942-2018)
British theoretical physicist whose Hawking radiation work and A Brief History of Time (1988) brought black-hole physics to a mass audience while he lived with ALS for 55 years. Closely associated with Roger Penrose (his collaborator on singularity theorems) and Carl Sagan (fellow popularizer who wrote Brief History's foreword). For an intellectual contrast, see William Lane Craig, American philosopher of religion — Craig's Kalam cosmological argument depends on the Big Bang requiring a divine first cause; Hawking's no-boundary proposal was specifically designed to remove the moment that would require one — the cleanest cosmology-vs-natural-theology contrast in modern thought.
Details
In response to a question about his IQ during an interview with The New York Times.
Date: 2004
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Understanding this quote
What it means
When someone asks your IQ, admitting you don't know it signals genuine intellectual confidence. People who memorize and broadcast their test scores are compensating for something — real intelligence shows through what you create, discover, or contribute, not a single standardized number. True mental achievement speaks for itself without needing a numerical badge to announce it.
Relevance to Stephen Hawking
Hawking, diagnosed with ALS at 21 and given two years to live, spent decades rewriting our understanding of black holes, radiation, and spacetime. He never needed a number to prove his mind. His work — Hawking radiation, A Brief History of Time, singularity theorems — was the credential. A man who unlocked universe-scale secrets had zero incentive to cite a test score.
The era
Hawking lived through the IQ-obsession peak of the late 20th century, when Mensa grew rapidly and pop-psychology ranked geniuses by score. Simultaneously, the internet made IQ-bragging ubiquitous in forums and comment sections. His quip landed as a sharp rebuke: in an era fetishizing metrics, the scientist who arguably thought harder than anyone alive dismissed the entire measuring game as losers' territory.
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