Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Mathematics/2023 April 14

= April 14 =

how is it been possible to me that one may been is advanced mathematics is science with 115 iq?
is it been possibility of the one human being to maybe is been able to calculate advanced mathematics with only 115 iq? what is been your specific iq? 216.168.139.239 (talk) 13:15, 14 April 2023 (UTC)


 * See savant syndrome. 41.23.55.195 (talk) 13:56, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * apologies me for miscommunication perhaps borne from language talking from me. please know you link i know it short so that maybe you think i'm troll but know that i'm not please understand i when say that what happen when person dont have savant autism? can normal person is able calculate advanced mathematics to or is only intelligent individual? is it been a possibility for that to happen or not? what is the difference between ormal person only holding 115 iq vs a high people with genius brain? please understand. 216.168.139.239 (talk) 14:38, 14 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Richard Feynman, the famous physicist supposedly had an IQ of 125, but mentioned that IQ isn't everything. Hard work (studying hard) and persistence might accomplish the same thing. A high IQ is basically the ability of a brain to figure out the answer to a problem faster than someone with a lower IQ. Often someone with a lower IQ will not see the answer to a problem and give up too soon. Dhrm77 (talk) 15:31, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * but surely we is been must taking into account that perhaps he was had a bad day? he is very intelligent fellow... 216.168.139.239 (talk) 17:10, 14 April 2023 (UTC)


 * IQ is no longer really considered a reasonable measurement of a person's intelligence. See Intelligence quotient, which covers some of it, but no one should think that a single number can possibly capture anything reasonable about a person's ability to think.  IQ measures your ability to answer a specific set of questions on a specific kind of standardized test, and the transferability of that skill to anything else is basically nil.  So, don't worry about IQ.  It's providing very little to no information to you about the potential ability of a person to do anything except answer questions on an IQ test.  If you want more information on this, Here's an article published by Oxford University, Here's one from New Scientist magazine, Here's one from a popular journalism website, Here's an article in The Guardian.  It's actually easier to find articles explaining the the non-validity of IQ tests than articles that defend their use; in situations where they are still used, it's mostly cultural inertia (we've been using them for this purpose for decades, so we keep doing so) rather than any real utility. -- Jayron 32 15:36, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you, anon. I will read these. 216.168.139.239 (talk) 17:10, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The question sounds to me like a misunderstanding of what maths is about. It is not about calculating big numbers correctly in ones head. It is more the study of logic and pattern. As to IQ it is fashionable now to say it means nothing but it is a pretty good masure of straightforward mental ability. It does not measure a lot of important things like how agreeable a person is or even how much insight they have into themselves, but give a person off the street a problem and a person with a high IQ the same problem and the result is almost as certain as if they had to run a race against Usain Bolt. And they might not even be able to understand the solution whereas they could eventually reach the finish line. This is why politicians and managers are in general not all that much more intelligent - people just can't relate to many of the things someone who is far more intelligent says. NadVolum (talk) 17:23, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It's not that it means "nothing". It's that "it doesn't mean more than what the test designed to test for it means".  Which is to say, as a measure of a person's ability to complete a certain very narrow set of mental tasks that are represented on the IQ test, it measures their ability to do those mental tasks.  The problem comes when people say "Because a person has a high ability to do these specific mental tasks, they are intelligent (in a general way)". The test purports to be a measure of "intelligence", as a single concept, which is highly flawed.  A person may be very good at some mental tasks, but that has no correlation to other tasks. There's an uncountable continuum of things that go into "intelligence" and to generalize how smart a person is at every possible thing based on a single score on a test is, frankly, pretty bonkers even on the face of it.  Also I'd argue that politicians and managers (at least the ones that are good at their job) are likely very intelligent when it comes to convincing other people to do things; that's a real mental skill to both be able to read other people quickly and also to say the right things to get other people to do what you need them to do.  That's certainly intelligence; it just may not be one of the things a specific IQ test measures.  -- Jayron 32 18:02, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Is it bomkers to suppose Usain Bolt would probably beat you at practically any sport you care to mention? NadVolum (talk) 18:32, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * i don't believe usain bolt could beaten a woman at a childbirthing contest 216.168.139.239 (talk) 18:48, 14 April 2023 (UTC)


 * First, the numeric value that people are so fond of using is essentially meaningless. The average is supposed to be 100, but without a measure of standard deviation 115 could mean anything above average. A more meaningful measure is which percentile you're in. For example Mensa requires that you're in the top 2%, they don't use a numeric cutoff like 130. Another way you can measure is number of standard deviations above or below average. That can be computed fairly easily from the percentile and vice versa. Second, once you get to about two standard deviations above average then even these measurements don't mean a lot. There are too many different ways to excel at some things and not others. So you can have excellent analytical skills but be terrible at memorization, or be gifted as an artist but lost when it comes to numbers. And so depending on the test you can get radically different scores. I've taken Mensa's test and they try to test a wide variety of abilities, such as short term memory and vocabulary. In the end they just give you pass or fail; they don't give you any kind of score other than that.
 * Given all that, a 115 IQ doesn't really mean much, and it makes me wonder how you obtained this number. There are many websites that claim to test your IQ, but anything other than a test from a reputable organization should be taken "for entertainment purposes only". --RDBury (talk) 06:28, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * With IQ tests "graded on a curve" to achieve the $$\mathcal{N}(100,15^2)$$ distribution, a requirement of belonging to the top 2% corresponds to an IQ cutoff of 130.8. --Lambiam 18:52, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * If you have a look at Intelligence quotient you'll see that IQ nowadays is standardized to a normal distribution so 115 means one standard deviation above the average of the population the test is for. That is one possible reason they chose it. NadVolum (talk) 13:36, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Who chose 115? --Lambiam 18:40, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Having a look through WIkipedia Lewis Terman seems to have been the first to use 100 as a baseline and the standard deviation then used to vary from about 13 to 16 in different tests, then David Wechsler set up the business of fitting it to a normal distribution with standard deviation 15. NadVolum (talk) 21:34, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * One possible reason Wechsler chose 15 as the standard deviation is that 115 means one standard deviation above the average?? That is too circular for me. --Lambiam 06:55, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The question was why the person enquiring here chose 115, not Wechsler! The intersection option is precluded by his dying forty years ago ;-) NadVolum (talk) 09:53, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The way the OP is written makes me suspect its author is not familiar with the concept of standard deviation. --Lambiam 16:31, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
 * 115 is mentioned in the lead of Intelligence quotient though, one doesn't have to know what standard deviation means or how is calculated to get a feel from the text there. NadVolum (talk) 11:13, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * erm I actually did get an IQ test from a reputable source! 63.151.121.146 (talk) 13:43, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * And I have seem do to get a scoring of one hundred and fifteen fro said reputable is been source 63.151.121.146 (talk) 13:44, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * There are lots of places where you can get an IQ test, and they are not all created equal. A friend had multiple IQ tests done, and between the highest and the lowest scores given, there was a 38 point difference. So not only IQ tests are not very accurate but it also depends on your state of mind when you get tested. You get different score if you are alert, tired, sleepy, or on a good or bad day... Furthermore, tests don't necessarily test the same abilities. Some includes word questions, some are just about symbols, some are mostly about math. And if you get too many tests, you can end-up getting very good at solving specific kinds of problems that appear often in tests. Dhrm77 (talk) 16:31, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay? 63.151.121.146 (talk) 20:21, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * im simply just not sure how this relates, fellow wikipedaholic hehehe 216.168.139.239 (talk) 14:07, 19 April 2023 (UTC)