At what age did Edith Stern, recognized as the smartest woman in the world, graduate from university?

Edith Helen Stern (born 1952) is an American inventor and mathematician and former Vice President for Research and Development at IBM. She holds over 100 US patents and was awarded the ASME Kate Gleason Award. Stern was a child prodigy, who read the Encyclopædia Britannica at the age of 5 and was the youngest ever graduate of Florida Atlantic University at the age of 15.

Stern's father, the scholar Aaron Stern, had been in concentration camps during World War II. He married Stern's mother, Bella, in a ghetto in Warsaw. Aaron Stern suffered from cancer and was treated at the Mayo Clinic because of a request from Albert Einstein. He encouraged his daughter to become an academic, in a technique he referred to as total education immersion. She used flashcards to communicate messages before she could talk, including expressing her age at 11 months old, had mastered the alphabet by the age of two, and played chess by the age of three.

She used a homemade abacus to learn mathematics, and was simultaneously taught ethics and compassion for people from different backgrounds. Despite her father not supporting IQ tests, Stern's IQ was said to be 205 at the age of 5. By the age of 6 Stern had read Plato, Freud and Darwin. Stern enrolled in college at the age of twelve, and earned a degree from Miami-Dade Junior College by the age of 15. She earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics at Florida Atlantic University in 1967, and was their youngest ever graduate.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org

Test your knowledge

What are your thoughts on this subject?

18 Comments

Pat Wells

The U.S. tends to choose the most intelligent, best looking, most successful entrepreneur, etc., from only people in the United States while ignoring the fact that the "best" of everything could be in other countries. Every professional team that wins a championship here is deemed the "world champion." Arrogant and inaccurate to say the least.

dmarkc

Pat Wells, guess that makes us the world champions of arrogance.

Peter Dunkelberger

nowhere is it written that she is the smartest woman in the world. And, while graduating from college at 15 is quite an achievement, it is not like she went to Harvard or Stanford.

darylhopper dh

Mike Hibner, what's that suppose to mean?

Emm Yo

I feel tiny next to a mind like that.

ToniP

Pat Wells, brain washed.

Howard Groopman

15 was pretty obvious given the choices.

Howard Groopman

Francie Carlson, No point in taking a trivia quiz if you need to look up the answer. It proves nothing. Might as well guess.

Louella Wilson

"the smartest woman in the world"??? Though certainly a child prodigy as stated.

Louella Wilson

Francie Carlson, surely 15 was obvious!

wexlerbob

No one has ever claimed that my son was the smartest woman. But he did earn his associate degree at 15 and his Bachelor degree at 17. I believe he was about 8 when he took his first college course, chemistry. But he was only allowed to audit that one. He had pretty good communication skills long before he was 2.

Shirley Dutt

Huh! An actual question from Lilly.

Pat Wells

The reason top players from around the world choose to play baseball in the U.S. is MONEY. Other countries have very highly developed baseball teams, but players don't earn the big bucks. Winning the World Series doesn't make that team the world champion--they're only the U.S. champion. Most countries don't play American football (except Canada), so the winner of the Super Bowl is still the U.S. Champion, since the sport isn't played in the majority of countries. The NBA champ is also declared the "world champion," yet other countries have very competitive basketball teams. It's pure arrogance to declare a team "World Champion" unless it has competed against every other country for that title. The World Cup solves the problem with international competition that determines the world champ; all sport should follow suit if they want to be deemed "World Champion."

Joe Mangan

Jas Newman, soccer teams coming out on top in Brazil were never considered world champions, nor were the best rugby teams of New Zealand. So be it if people are gullible enough to swallow the marketing ploy of calling their national champions world champions.