2 to 3% of our population. This is the share represented by a category of individuals designated as HPI. “Popularized by the eponymous series, HPI is much more than a mysterious acronym”, writes Sandrine Belmont, doctor of psychology and author of the book HPI, Who are they really?

Based on the intello heroine (160 IQ) played by Audrey Fleurot, the writer and psychologist told us that the fiction of TF1 “has not much to do with reality”. Believing further that “it is not representative of all HPI”. To understand the origin of this phenomenon, it is necessary to clearly define the concept of intelligence quotient.

According to the definition taken from Larousse Medical, online, IQ designates the “ratio between the mental age and the real age of an individual, multiplied by 100, the mental age being evaluated by a series of tests” . It was in 1905 that the French psychologists Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon theorized this term. If the concept has often been revised and discussed over time in several studies, the result obtained makes it possible to evaluate the intelligence of a child or an adult.

On average, the intelligence quotient is estimated around 100. If you have an IQ test result above 130, you are considered a gifted person (or HPI). Beyond that, few are those who would be endowed with a great capacity for intelligence, like simple anonymous people or philosophers and scientists who have made our history.

According to the Science and Life website, psychologists and scientists have tried to evaluate, a posteriori, the “estimated IQ” of many scholars based on their work. Newton, Einstein and the Enlightenment… Who are the most intelligent personalities of all time? Planet gives you the top 5 in pictures in our slideshow.