21st Century Geniuses: Modern Thinkers Quiz
Written by Tom Cohen
Last updated · 6 min play time
Many of the greatest thinkers in history lived a long time ago (think Aristotle or Da Vinci), but there are some modern geniuses out there who prove that intellectualism is alive and well in 21st century. This is a quiz about those modern thinkers.
When you think of geniuses, your mind might immediately go to Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, or writers like Shakespeare. But you don't have to travel back in time to find true genius. The 21st century is full of great minds who wear the mantle of "genius," like Paul Allen, Bill Gates and chess master Magnus Carlsen.
In this quiz, we'll test your knowledge of these 21st century intellectual giants to see if your smarts match theirs. Time to put on your thinking cap and nail these questions about great modern thinkers.
Quiz written by
Tom CohenI'm a 3-time Emmy-winning game show producer, writer, director and published author. I dig traveling, watching hockey, photographing wildlife and exploring the cultural and social fabric of society.
21st Century Genius Quiz Questions
15 Questions · 52 Plays · No comments
Question 1
Like many intellectual duos, Larry Page and Sergey Brin are geniuses in their field. What company did these two wunderkinds co-found just two years before the new millennium?
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AGoogle
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BeBay
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CYahoo!
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DSnapchat
Page and Brin are the brains behind the company now known as Alphabet, which started out as Google back in 1998. The two tech geniuses met at Stanford, and were collaborators on a research project nicknamed "BackRub, which was the foundation for a "Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine" - in other words, Google.
Question 2
The most accomplished genius always hopes someone will make film about him. What film was based on the work of brilliant statistician Bill James?
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AMoneyball
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BMinority Report
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CEx-Machina
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DThe Bank
Moneyball
Bill James is the most famous member of the Society for American Baseball Research, or SABR, and his "sabermetrics" was chronicled in the 2011 film <i>Moneyball</i>. His analytics became famous for providing an accurate data-based understanding of the reason behind baseball teams losing and winning, and was employed by many MLB teams.
Question 3
Wikipedia refers to Noam Chomsky as a "philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist." They left out genius. Historians often refer to Chomsky as the "father of modern" what?
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ALinguistics
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BConservatism
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CSign language
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DJournalism
Linguistics
Noam Chomsky is a tour de force in the philosophy community, but is known mainly for his contribution in the world of linguistics. He's name has become synonymous with a socialist/anarchist and libertarian point of view, and during the 1960s was quite an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, particularly in his famed essay <i>The Responsibility of Intellectuals</i>.
Question 4
When he passed away in 2013, Frederick Sanger left behind a legacy, one of only four people with two Nobel Prizes. What discipline earned this genius his two Nobels?
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AChemistry
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BLiterature
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CMathematics
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DPeace
Chemistry
Sanger was a chemistry intellect, known for his contributions "concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids." In other words, Sanger's work involved the complex and critical sequencing of DNA and RNA, studies were fundamental to our understand of disease and eventual creation of specific vaccines.
Question 5
Microsoft found Bill Gates was so smart, he didn't need college. So he dropped out. Where did he study for only 2 years before leaving?
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AHarvard University
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BStanford University
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CYale University
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DUniversity of Washington
Harvard University
After scoring 1590 out of 1600 on his SATs, Gates enrolled in Harvard in 1973, only to drop out 2 years later. It was at Harvard that he met fellow student Steve Ballmer, who ended up graduating Harvard magna cum laude. Ballmer would eventually follow Gates as CEO of Microsoft, and stay in that position for 14 years.
Question 6
Despite having autism, Temple Grandin is a living genius, with a PhD from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In what field is she an expert?
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AAnimal sciences
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BChemistry
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CComputer science
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DAerospace Engineering
Animal sciences
Temple Grandin is one of the most prolific and well-known authors and experts in animal behavior and science. Her two bestselling books are called <i>Animals Make Us Human</i> and <i>Animals in Translation</i>. Her ability to understand the world of animals is born from her autism, giving her a deeper sense of connection with non-human beings than most of us.
Question 7
The computer scientist genius best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web is known as Tim BL for short. What does the BL stand for?
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ABerners-Lee
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BBertram-Long
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CBernard-Lowell
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DBerkamp-Lawson
Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee has an impressive resume. Here's a partial list: Director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Founder of the World Wide Web Foundation Senior researcher at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Director of the Web Science Research Initiative Wonder if he started out delivering pizzas like me.
Question 8
Paul McCartney should be included on any list of 21st century geniuses, though most of his work was written during the 20th century. In case you didn't know, Sir Paul's real first name is what?
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AJames
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BWilliam
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CJohn
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DStephen
James
James Paul McCartney was born in 1942 in Liverpool and went on to become one of the most well-known and critically-acclaimed songwriters of all-time (of course, along with his mate John Lennon). Quotes about the brilliance of Sir Paul include: "One of the greatest phenomena in the history of mass entertainment;" "Widely regarded as the greatest concentration of singing, songwriting, and all-around musical talent that the rock 'n roll era has produced."
Question 9
Love him or hate him, Elon Musk is a genius entrepreneur. Before Tesla and SpaceX, what was the name of Musk's early company that became PayPal?
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AX.com
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BDollars.com
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CCashKing.com
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DBucksBuddy.com
X.com
The plainly-named X.com was co-founded by Musk in 1999, and was one of the first online banks. It was notable because it was insured by the FDIC. Just a year after it was founded, Musk's X.com merged with Confinity Inc. which soon changed its name to PayPal, and the rest is online payment history.
Question 10
Only a genius could pull off the anonymous and unpredictable art installations of the artist known as Banksy. The critically-acclaimed 2010 film he directed was called Exit Through the what?
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AGift shop
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BBack door
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CMuseum
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DTurnstile
Gift shop
<i>Exit Through the Gift Shop</i> was subtitled <i>A Banksy Film</i>, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It tells the heartwarming story of Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant in Los Angeles who, like the director, was obsessed with street art. To this day, nobody knows Banksy's true identify.
Question 11
Google "modern genius" and Hungarian-born investor and philanthropist George Soros is sure to pop up. What foundation did Soros start to support progressive causes around the world?
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AOpen Society Foundation
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BBlue Skies Foundation
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CClear Vision Foundation
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DForward Progress Foundation
Open Society Foundation
Soros' foundation officially adopted the name Open Society Foundation in 2010, but the seeds of the organization were planted way back in 1984, when Soros merged the Soros Foundation in New York with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. OSF is known for its work advancing justice, education, public health and independent media.
Question 12
It takes a sharp mind to become the Dalai Lama. A spiritual and intellectual giant, the real name of the 14th Dalai Lama is Tenzin what?
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AGyatso
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BGyoza
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CGyaru
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DGyada
Gyatso
Tenzin Gyatso is more commonly known as the Dalai Lama, though is somewhat unwieldy spiritual name is Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso. He's known to be a brilliant and innovative thinker, which is why he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, and the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal in 2006. He's often considered to be Mahatma Gandhi's "spiritual heir to nonviolence."
Question 13
In the first decade of the 21st century, Nate Silver became known as a genius in the business of predicting elections. What website did he launch in 2008 to showcase his prognostications?
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AFiveThirtyEight.com
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BPolitico.com
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CPredictIt.org
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DGlassbooth.org
FiveThirtyEight.com
Silver's FiveThirtyEight.org was an obvious play on the number of electoral votes needed to win the U.S. presidency. He was remarkably accurate during the election of 2008 and again 4 years later. In 2013, his site was acquired by ESPN to pivot to sports in addition to politics. Now the site covers a broad array of predictive analytics.
Question 14
Terence Tao is considered one of the geniuses of our age. A professor at UCLA, he researches topics like differential equations and algebraic combinatorics. Stuff like that. In what country was Tao born?
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AAustralia
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BUnited Kingdom
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CChina
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DJapan
Australia
Terence Tao is arguably the most famous Australian-American ever in the field of mathematics. He holds the distinction of having won the 2006 Fields Medal and the 2014 Breakthrough Prize. He is also a MacArthur Fellow, and has published more than 300 hundred research papers. Only 300? What has he been doing with his time?
Question 15
In the world of filmmaking, the Coen brothers are bona fide geniuses. What was their first movie, released in 1984?
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ABlood Simple
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BHudsucker Proxy
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CThe Big Lebowski
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DRaising Arizona
Blood Simple
The noir thriller <i>Blood Simple</i> was released in 1984, and was the directorial debut of the famed Coen Brothers. They've kept their genius going well into the 21st century, and as of summer 2021, have directed 18 films. They are only two of only nine filmmakers who have won three Oscars for the same film (<i>Barton Fink</i>).
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