Why do physics majors have high IQs

[potato123]

Did they start out with a high iq or did it increase because they were working with a lot of math and physics problems.

 

[PietKuip]

As a physics teacher, I doubt that your premiss is true :(

 

[russ_watters]

Physics is hard and hard subjects attract smart people and weed-out less smart ones.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Before we rush out and try and answer why something is true, shouldn't we find out if it is true? OP, do you have any evidence for this?

 

[micromass]

And why would anybody care about IQ anyway?

 

[zoobyshoe]

As a physics teacher, I doubt that your premiss is true :(

So, what's your experience? You're saying you encounter a lot of physics majors who don't seem to have high I.Q.s?

 

[Mark44]

Here is some data from GRE scores. It's not very fresh, with the scores obtained between 1983 and 1986, some time after I took the GRE, "GRE, Interpreting your GRE General and Subject Test Scores"

The material below is an excerpt from Table 3: General Test Average Scores for Seniors and Non-enrolled College Graduates, Classibied by Intended Graduate Major Field Group.

$\begin{bmatrix}\text{Major field group} & \text{No. of Examinees} &\text{Verbal} & \text{Quant ability} & \text{Analytical ability} \\ \text{language and other humanities} & 29508 &540 & 531 & 553\\ \text{Education} &24042 &450 & 479 & 506 \\ \text{Behavioral sciences} &58352 &509 & 525 & 542 \\ \text{Bioscience} & 18838 & 507 & 581 & 569 \\ \text{Health sciences} &32043 &469 & 504 & 521 \\ \text{Engineering} & 33335 &478 & 674 & 580 \\ \text{Math} & 20729& 490 & 657 & 596 \\ \text{Physical sciences} & 18599& 518 & 635 & 587 \\ \end{bmatrix}$

 

[S.G. Janssens]

Here is some data from GRE scores.

Honestly speaking, I don't think I would have been eligible for a PhD program in the USA. From limited experience I know that I'm very bad at GRE type tests, and I even tried them just in the comfort of my own living room. Fortunately, here they are not a factor, at least for admission to mathematics and science programs.

I also wonder to what degree they really measure intelligence and / or academic ability. Should I at some point be in the position to decide upon admittance of a candidate, the test result would probably play a very small role. I just wouldn't find it fair to judge someone on the basis of something I myself would dread.

 

[fresh_42]

And why would anybody care about IQ anyway?

Well, I think the definition of IQ, which is ambiguous for there are more than one, plays a role. It's often mistakenly messed up with education or knowledge. I like to consider it as a measure for the length of free associative chains or the difficult to measure capability to abstract. The latter is certainly needed in Physics.

 

[micromass]

Well, I think the definition of IQ, which is ambiguous for there are more than one, plays a role. It's often mistakenly messed up with education or knowledge. I like to consider it as a measure for the length of free associative chains or the difficult to measure capability to abstract. The latter is certainly needed in Physics.

Dunno. I have a below average IQ (96) and I do fine in math and physics. So it's not necessary in my opinion. Just one data point though, but certainly one more than the OP provided :D

 

[zoobyshoe]

Dunno. I have a below average IQ (96) and I do fine in math and physics. So it's not necessary in my opinion. Just one data point though, but certainly one more than the OP provided :D

I think your I.Q. is certainly higher than that. I would speculate you just don't respond well to the situation of an I.Q. test; the pressure.

 

[PietKuip]

So, what's your experience? You're saying you encounter a lot of physics majors who don't seem to have high I.Q.s?

Of course it is above average (above 100). But I do not think the physics majors that I teach are smarter than other students.
Maybe this is different at other universities, because those are more selective and/or because smart students choose to pursue a physics major somewhere else.

 

[micromass]

I think your I.Q. is certainly higher than that. I would speculate you just don't respond well to the situation of an I.Q. test; the pressure.

Well, pressure is part of the IQ test. So yes, perhaps I am smarter than my IQ indicates. But then there are various confounding factors like pressure making IQ a meaningless number.

 

[fresh_42]

I think your I.Q. is certainly higher than that. I would speculate you just don't respond well to the situation of an I.Q. test; the pressure.

I'm sure as well, it is. There are some immanent problems in IQ test which make them difficult especially for mathematicians or people who think that way. Firstly mathematicians are trained to look out for contradictions, incompleteness and counterexamples. That takes time off the clock. Secondly the questions are usually ambiguous: "Continue the sequence: 1, 4, 9, 16 ... " which are appropriate to make mathematicians scream.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Continue the sequence: 1, 4, 9, 16 ...

Obviously it's 1,4,9,16,26,39,56...

 

[fresh_42]

Obviously it's 1,4,9,16,26,39,56...

I hope I didn't start a competition to post all solutions now ...

 

[mathwonk]

this was my favorite way to motivate the lagrange (polynomial) interpolation formula to kids.

 

[jack476]

Did they start out with a high iq or did it increase because they were working with a lot of math and physics problems.

Physics is inherently a very difficult and very deep subject. It's intellectually stimulating in many different ways, it has a considerable amount of philosophical weight, it connects the natural and "soft" sciences (chemistry, biology, geology, engineering, and according to some, economics) to the abstract sciences (math and logic), it's extremely socially and politically relevant (climate change, nuclear energy, and material science all being very relevant topics to the direction of society right now), and most importantly you get to play with lasers and computers and rockets. That all tends to attract smart people, and smart people tend to have high IQs.

It also engages deep thinking, challenging natural assumptions about the world (the "naive empiricism" that educational psychologists like Schoenfeld refer to), and builds problem-solving and reasoning skills. Because of that, it's just as likely that people with high IQs are a natural fit for physics as it is that studying physics leads to a higher IQ.

 

[collinsmark]

I don't agree with statements that people "have" IQs. After researching the premise behind IQ test construction, I'm confident that the claim that somebody "has" some sort of inherent number that objectively measures the person's "smartness," is a flawed (but fortunately, that's not what IQ tests are necessarily intended to measure). You can take an IQ test and get a score. But you are not defined by that score. An IQ is not something that you inherently "have."

I would rephrase the title of the thread to be something more like,

"Why do physics majors, on average, score higher on IQ tests than other college majors?"​

And of course (as requested in Post 4 by @Vanadium 50) the implied claim that physics majors actually do score higher than other college majors would have to be verified. [Edit: Also, the particular IQ test version that all students took (and it really should be the same IQ test version for all students in the study) would need to be referenced. This is important because the answer to the question might be that the IQ test version itself was overly biased or even that the IQ test version itself was a load of hooey.]

I'm not just being nit-picky with the grammar here. The difference in meaning isn't trivial.

 

[gleem]

I don't think most physics majors have high IQ,s (what ever that is) only perhaps above average. Supposedly Feynman's IQ was 125 and is not considered high. Based on my experience I did't think most of my class mates where smarter than I.and I didn't consider myself overly smart. Success in physics for me was a keen interest in the subject.and hard work. It is observed that many measured with extremely high IQ I.e. geniuses do not end up contributing much to society. Keen interest drives people to use their talents to satisfy their needs to understand. With regards to physics facility with mathematical logic is important but how is that taken into account by typical IQ assessments?

I think physicists are special. I think poets are special. I think philosophers are special. I think engineers are special. It just takes the right combination of talents and abilities. I think you know in what you are special. I think at some point you say, "Yes I can do this."

 

[Sophia]

I think that the traditional iq tests were made to assess the kind of thinking that is needed in physics. It is based on math, logic, 3d thinking and understanding words and text. Of course people who are good at physics have these abilities.
It is the same as asking why many artists are able to distinguish x shades of colours.
I think that it is a combination of innate abilities and the environment. Tasks given at school rely on the same abilities that are tested in iq tests so the brain learns to work that way.
If they can't do that, either because they have other talents or their environment was not stimulating enough, they will not become physicist.

 

[Sophia]

I also want to add that the IQ is just a theoretical concept that was invented by white men with western education. It, in my opinion, to some degree measures person's theoretical ability to do well at certain subjects. It does not measure motivation, interest or the environment.
It says absolutely nothing of a person's success or happiness in life.
I think that people tend to overestimate this imaginary number.

 

[Lisa!]

I think majoring in physics has decreased my IQ substantially and I'm serious!

 

[Tolklein]

I can't say I hold much stock in the tests either, an interesting experiment would be for a university to administer all incoming students to an IQ test and then again at graduation.

 

[S.G. Janssens]

I also want to add that the IQ is just a theoretical concept that was invented by white men with western education.

I don't understand the relevance of this. Newton and Hilbert, for example, were "white men with Western education" who are guilty of inventing (or rather: discovering?) numerous theoretical concepts. Otherwise, I think I largely agree with you, as I believe you have more expertise on this topic than I do.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

Continue the sequence: 1, 4, 9, 16 ... "

Obviously it's 1,4,9,16,26,39,56...

Here in lies the problems with pattern recognition, two different people can see two different patters, of which both are correct. @Vanadium, what pattern did you see? I saw the number being incremented by an amount that itself increments by 2 (+ 3, + 5, +7...) so to me the next numbers would be 25, 36, 49...

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I don't understand the relevance of this. Newton and Hilbert, for example, were "white men with Western education" who are guilty of inventing (or rather: discovering?) numerous theoretical concepts. Otherwise, I think I largely agree with you, as I believe you have more expertise on this topic than I do.

There is a difference between discovering/characterising a natural phenomenon and creating a test. The act of creating the questions, or even just the format for the test is open to cultural bias. This is a debate that has gone on for a very long time and there doesn't appear to be a clear answer from what I've read (especially given that the tests change all the time). IIRC there was one study in the 70s that found that swapping pen and paper for wire resulted in better scores in the matrix questions for Zambian children and worse for American children.

In any case I'm also in the camp that argues IQ is generally useless (at the very least misused). It doesn't reliably tell you anything about the individual because humans are far more complicated than a simple number (e.g. incredibly smart people can believe some really stupid things but have a consistently high IQ). Credible qualifications on specific subject are a much better measure of capability.

 

[Vanadium 50]

what pattern did you see?

a(n+1) = a(n)-th composite number, with a(0) = 1

 

[micromass]

a(n+1) = a(n)-th composite number, with a(0) = 1

Did you use the integer sequence database (OEIS) for that, or did you come up with that on your own?

 

[newjerseyrunner]

I think scientists may simply SOUND smarter because they are trained to be extremely meticulous and analytical. I think a great example would be the #4 post in this thread. Engineers are the same way, because we can't assume anything, we have to account for all situations and assume that the documentation is wrong. (in computer science, you aren't even guaranteed that x equals itself.) Nullius in verba.

I dislike classifying people as above or below average intelligence as a whole. There are many types of intelligences, some people excel at some and flounder at others. Mathematics gets the attention because most people consider it "hard" so those of us who are good at it are considered smart by the average person. I know many people who are great mathematicians but can barely remember what they had for breakfast. I know a guy who can remember what he had for breakfast on an arbitrary date decades ago, but struggles with children's logic games.

I also feel like IQ would fluctuate depending on time of day, mood, brain chemistry... I know that in the morning, my short term memory is very sharp, by the end of the day I can't remember where I put the spoon I was eating dinner with. I feel like my ability to do creative problem solving also diminishes throughout the day, and I plan my work around that, purposefully doing design work early in the day and mindless coding later.I'll give a great example of the difference between genius and IQ. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. I don't particularly think one was smarter than the other, but I'm sure Woz would score significantly higher on an IQ test. Woz is a logical genius and Jobs was a creative/social genius.