Marilyn vos Savant
Marilyn vos Savant (born Marilyn Mach; August 11, 1946) is an American magazine columnist who has the highest recorded intelligence quotient (IQ) in the Guinness Book of Records, a competitive category the publication has since retired. Since 1986, she has written "Ask Marilyn", a Parade magazine Sunday column wherein she solves puzzles and answers questions on various subjects, and which popularized the Monty Hall problem in 1990.
Marilyn vos Savant
- Name
- Marilyn vos Savant
- Birth Name
- Marilyn Mach
- Born
- 11 August 1946
- Birthplace
- St.
- Occupation
- * Author
- Full name
- Marilyn Mach.
- Nationality
- United States.
- Education
- Washington University in St. Louis.
- Honours
- Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
- Languages
- English.
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Documentary summary
Marilyn vos Savant (born Marilyn Mach; August 11, 1946) is an American magazine columnist who has the highest recorded intelligence quotient (IQ) in the Guinness Book of Records, a competitive category the publication has since retired. Since 1986, she has written "Ask Marilyn", a Parade magazine Sunday column wherein she solves puzzles and answers questions on various subjects, and which popularized the Monty Hall problem in 1990.
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wikidata · Q234122 · wikipedia · Marilyn vos Savant
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Marilyn vos Savant • Birth Name — Marilyn Mach • Born — 11 August 1946 • Birthplace — St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. • Occupation — * Author • columnist • Children — 2
Biography
Biography
Marilyn vos Savant was born Marilyn Mach on August 11, 1946, in St. Louis, Missouri, to parents Joseph Mach and Marina Ros Savant.[3] Savant says one should keep premarital surnames, with sons taking their father's and daughters their mother's.[4][5] The word savant, meaning someone of learning, appears twice in her family: her maternal grandmother's maiden name was Maria Savant[6] while her maternal grandfather was Joseph Ros Savant[7] (born Giuseppe Savant Ros), both hailing from Lanzo, Italy.[8] Her father was born in Gladbeck, Prussia[9] to Czech parents born in Bítovany and Borovany.[10][11] She is of Italian and Czech ancestry.[12][13] It had been assumed she was descended from the physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach,[14] but this is disproven by her grandfather's baptism record.[15] She went to Meramec Community College and studied philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis but quit two years later to help with a family investment business. Savant moved to New York City in the 1980s to pursue a career in writing. Before starting "Ask Marilyn", she wrote the Omni I.Q. Quiz Contest for Omni, which included intelligence quotient (IQ) quizzes and expositions on intelligence and its testing. Savant married Robert Jarvik (1946–2025),[16] one of the co-developers of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart,[18] on August 23, 1987,[17] and was made Chief Financial Officer of Jarvik Heart, Inc. She has served on the board of directors of the National Council on Economic Education, on the advisory boards of the National Association for Gifted Children and the National Women's History Museum,[19] and as a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.[20] Toastmasters International named her one of "Five Outstanding Speakers of 1999", and in 2003 she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from The College of New Jersey.
Rise to fame and IQ score
Rise to fame and IQ score
Savant was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records under "Highest IQ" from 1985 to 1989[21] and entered the Guinness Book of World Records Hall of Fame in 1988.[22] Guinness retired the "Highest IQ" category in 1990 after concluding IQ tests were too unreliable to designate a single record holder. The listing drew nationwide attention.[23] Guinness cited vos Savant's performance on two intelligence tests, the Stanford–Binet and the Mega Test. She took the 1937 Stanford–Binet, Second Revision test at age 10: she says her first test was in September 1956 and measured her mental age at 22 years and 10 months, yielding a 228 score. This figure was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records; it is also listed in her books' biographical sections and was given by her in interviews. The second test reported by Guinness was the Mega Test, taken in the mid-1980s. The Mega Test yields IQ standard scores obtained by multiplying the subject's normalized z-score, or the rarity of the raw test score, by a constant standard deviation and adding the product to 100, with Savant's raw score reported by Hoeflin to be 46 out of a possible 48, with a 5.4 z-score, and a standard deviation of 16, arriving at a 186 IQ. The Mega Test has been criticized by professional psychologists as improperly designed and scored, "nothing short of number pulverization".[24] Savant sees IQ tests as measurements of a variety of mental abilities and thinks intelligence entails so many factors that "attempts to measure it are useless".[25] She has held memberships with the high-IQ societies Mensa International and the Mega Society.[26]
"Ask Marilyn"Ask Marilyn
"Ask Marilyn"Ask Marilyn
Following her listing in the 1986 Guinness Book of World Records, Parade ran a profile of her along with a selection of questions from Parade readers and her answers. Parade continued to get questions, so "Ask Marilyn" was made. She used her column to answer questions on many chiefly academic subjects; solve logical, mathematical, or vocabulary puzzles posed by readers; answer requests for advice with logic; and give self-devised quizzes and puzzles. Aside from the weekly printed column, "Ask Marilyn" was a daily online column that added to the printed version by resolving controversial answers, correcting mistakes, expanding answers, reposting previous answers, and solving additional questions. No new columns have been published online since October 30, 2022.[27] Three of her books (Ask Marilyn, More Marilyn, and Of Course, I'm for Monogamy) are compilations of questions and answers from "Ask Marilyn". The Power of Logical Thinking includes many questions and answers from the column.
Monty Hall problem
Monty Hall problem
Savant was asked the following question in her September 9, 1990, column:[28] Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car, behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say #1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say #3, which has a goat. He says to you, "Do you want to pick door #2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors? This question is called the Monty Hall problem due to its resembling scenarios on the game show Let's Make a Deal, hosted by Monty Hall. It was a known logic problem before it was used in "Ask Marilyn". She said the selection should be switched to door #2 because it has a probability of success, while door #1 has just. To summarize, of the time the opened door #3 will indicate the location of the door with the car (the door you had not picked and the one not opened by the host). Only of the time will the opened door #3 mislead you into changing from the winning door to a losing door. These probabilities assume you change your choice each time door #3 is opened, and that the host always opens a door with a goat. This response provoked letters from thousands of readers, nearly all arguing doors #1 and #2 each have an equal chance of success. A follow-up column reaffirming her position served only to intensify the debate and soon became a feature article on the front page of The New York Times. Parade received around 10,000 letters from readers who thought that her workings were incorrect.[29] Under the "standard" version of the problem, the host always opens a losing door and offers a switch. In the standard version, Savant's answer is correct. However, the statement of the problem as posed in her column is ambiguous.[30] The answer depends on what strategy the host is following. If the host operates under a strategy of offering a switch only if the initial guess is correct, it would clearly be disadvantageous to accept the offer. If the host merely selects a door at random, the question is likewise very different from the standard version. Savant addressed these issues by writing the following in Parade magazine, "the original answer defines certain conditions, the most significant of which is that the host always opens a losing door on purpose. Anything else is a different question."[31] She expounded on her reasoning in a second follow-up and called on schoolteachers to show the problem to classes. In her final column on the problem, she gave the results of more than 1,000 school experiments. Most respondents now agree with her original solution, with half of the published letters declaring their authors had changed their minds.[32]
"Two boys" problem
"Two boys" problem
Like the Monty Hall problem, the "two boys" or "second-sibling" problem pre-dates Ask Marilyn, but generated controversy in the column,[33] first appearing there in 1991–1992 in the context of baby beagles: A shopkeeper says she has two new baby beagles to show you, but she doesn't know whether they're male, female, or a pair. You tell her that you want only a male, and she telephones the fellow who's giving them a bath. "Is at least one a male?" she asks him. "Yes!" she informs you with a smile. What is the probability that the other one is a male? When Savant replied "one out of three", readers[34] wrote the odds were 50–50. In a follow-up, she defended her answer, saying, "If we could shake a pair of puppies out of a cup the way we do dice, there are four ways they could land", in three of which at least one is male, but in only one of which none are male. The confusion arises here because the bather is not asked if the puppy he is holding is a male, but rather if either is a male. If the puppies are labeled (A and B), each has a 50% chance of being male independently. This independence is restricted when at least A or B is male. Now, if A is not male, B must be male, and if B is not male, A must be male. This restriction is introduced by the way the question is structured and is easily overlookedmisleading people to the erroneous answer of 50%. See Boy or Girl paradox for solution details. The problem re-emerged in 1996–97 with two cases juxtaposed: Savant agreed with the teacher, saying the chances were only 1 out of 3 that the woman had two boys, but 1 out of 2 the man had two boys. Readers argued for 1 out of 2 in both cases, prompting follow-ups. Finally, she began a survey, asking female readers with exactly two children, at least one of them male, to give the sex of both children. Of the 17,946 women who responded, 35.9%, about 1 in 3, had two boys.[35] • Woman has • young boy, older girl — young girl, older boy — 2 boys — 2 girls • Probability: — 1/3 — 1/3 — 1/3 — 0 • Man has • young boy, older girl — young girl, older boy — 2 boys — 2 girls • Probability: — 0 — 1/2 — 1/2 — 0
Fermat's Last Theorem
Fermat's Last Theorem
A few months after Andrew Wiles said he had proved Fermat's Last Theorem, Savant published the book The World's Most Famous Math Problem (October 1993),[36] which surveys the history of Fermat's Last Theorem as well as other mathematical problems. Reviewers questioned her criticism of Wiles' proof, asking whether it was based on a correct understanding of mathematical induction, proof by contradiction, and imaginary numbers.[37] Especially contested was Savant's statement that Wiles' proof should be rejected for its use of non-Euclidean geometry. Savant stated that because "the chain of proof is based in hyperbolic (Lobachevskian) geometry", and because squaring the circle is seen as a "famous impossibility" despite being possible in hyperbolic geometry, then "if we reject a hyperbolic method of squaring the circle, we should also reject a hyperbolic proof of Fermat's last theorem." Specialists flagged discrepancies between the two cases, distinguishing the use of hyperbolic geometry as a tool for proving Fermat's Last Theorem from its use as a setting for squaring the circle: squaring the circle in hyperbolic geometry is a different problem from that of squaring it in Euclidean geometry, whereas Fermat's Last Theorem is not inherently geometry specific. Savant was criticized for rejecting hyperbolic geometry as a satisfactory basis for Wiles' proof, with critics pointing out that axiomatic set theory (rather than Euclidean geometry) is now the accepted foundation of mathematical proofs and that set theory is sufficiently robust to encompass both Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry as well as adding numbers. Savant retracted the argument in a July 1995 addendum, saying she saw the theorem as "an intellectual challenge'to find another proof using only tools available to Fermat in the 17th century. However, Wiles' original proof, presented in 1993, was found to contain an error during the peer review process, necessitating a subsequent correction by Wiles and Richard Taylor, which ultimately led to the acceptance of the proof in 1994. The book came with a glowing introduction by Martin Gardner, which had been based on an earlier draft of the book that did not contain any of the contentious views.
Identity
Identity
Marilyn vos Savant is recorded with the occupation playwright. Recorded as columnist, journalist, writer and playwright. Recorded at birth as Marilyn Mach.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1946
Marilyn vos Savant was born on 11 August 1946.
Publications
• 1985 – Omni I.Q. Quiz Contest (McGraw-Hill) • 1990 – Brain Building: Exercising Yourself Smarter (co-written with Leonore Fleischer) • 1992 – Ask Marilyn: Answers to America's Most Frequently Asked Questions (St. Martin's Press) • 1993 – The World's Most Famous Math Problem: The Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem and Other Mathematical Mysteries (St. Martin's Press) • 1994 – More Marilyn: Some Like It Bright! The Best of the "Ask Marilyn" Letters Published in Parade Magazine from 1992-1994 (St. Martin's Press) • 1994 – "I've Forgotten Everything I Learned in School!": A Refresher Course to Help You Reclaim Your Education • 1996 – Of Course I'm for Monogamy: I'm Also for Everlasting Peace and an End to Taxes (St. Martin's Press) • 1996 – The Power of Logical Thinking: Easy Lessons in the Art of Reasoning...and Hard Facts about Its Absence in Our Lives • 2000 – The Art of Spelling: The Madness and the Method • 2002 – Growing Up: A Classic American Childhood (W. W. Norton)
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.MILESTONES: August 11 birthdays for Viola Davis, Tomi Lahren, Joe Rogan. Brooklyn Eagle. August 11, 2020.
- 2.LLC, New York Media. New York Magazine. New York Media, LLC. February 6, 1989.
- 3.Kate Koupa Obituary (2011) - Saint Louis, MO - St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Legacy.com.
- 4.vos Savant, Marilyn. Ask Marilyn. Parade. November 25, 2007.
- 5.vos Savant, Marilyn. Keeping It in the Family. Parade. January 23, 2008.
- 6.New York, Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1925. FamilySearch. 25 July 1914.
- 7.United States, World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. FamilySearch. 12 September 1918.
- 8.New York, Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1925. FamilySearch. 1 August 1903.
- 9.Missouri, World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1940-1945. FamilySearch. 16 Oct 1940.
- 10.Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1820-1948. FamilySearch. 24 May 1913.
- 11.DigiArchiv of SRA Trebon - ver. 25.07.28. digi.ceskearchivy.cz.
- 12.vos Savant, Marilyn. Ask Marilyn: The 'First Sandwich Generation': True Trend or Marketing Invention?. Parade. May 4, 2013.
- 13.Baumgold, Julie. In the Kingdom of the Brain. New York Magazine. New York Media, LLC. February 6, 1989.
- 14.Vitez, Michael. Two of a Kind. The Chicago Tribune. October 12, 1988.
- 15.Czech Republic, Church Books, 1552-1981. FamilySearch. 3 August 1879.
- 16.Longman, Jeré. Robert Jarvik, 79, Dies; a Designer of the First Permanent Artificial Heart. The New York Times. May 29, 2025.
- 17.Love Stories We Love. Parade: Entertainment, Recipes, Health, Life, Holidays. February 6, 2015.
- 18.McCleary, Kathleen. Marilyn's Rules for a Happy Marriage. Parade: Entertainment, Recipes, Health, Life, Holidays. September 11, 2018.
- 19.About – National Women's History Museum – NWHM.
- 20.Center for Inquiry. CSI Fellows and Staff.
- 21.Knight, Sam. Is a high IQ a burden as much as a blessing?. Financial Times. Financial Times Ltd. April 10, 2009.
- 22.Ask Marilyn Stream. Parade: Entertainment, Recipes, Health, Life, Holidays. October 23, 2022.
- 23.Castles, Elaine E. Inventing Intelligence. Financial Times. ABC-CLIO. 3. June 6, 2012. 978-1-4408-0338-3.
- 24.Carlson, Roger D. Test Critiques Test Critique: The Mega Test. PRO-ED. 431–435. 1991. 0-89079-254-2.
- 25.vos Savant, Marilyn. Ask Marilyn: Are Men Smarter Than Women?. Parade. July 17, 2005.
- 26.Thompson, D. Marilyn's Most Vital Statistic. The Courier-Mail. July 5, 1986.
- 27.Ask Marilyn column archive on Parade Magazine. parade.com.
- 28.vos Savant, Marilyn. Game Show Problem. marilynvossavant.com.
- 29.Tierney, John. Behind Monty Hall's Doors: Puzzle, Debate and Answer?. The New York Times. July 21, 1991.
- 30.MontyHallPaper.pdf.
- 31.Game Show Problem. marilynvossavant.com.
- 32.vos Savant, Marilyn. Ask Marilyn. Parade. 1992.
- 33.The problem appeared in Ask Marilyn on October 13, 1991, with a follow-up on January 5, 1992 (initially involving two baby beagles instead of two children), and then on May 26, 1996, with follow-ups on December 1, 1996, March 30, 1997, July 20, 1997, and October 19, 1997.
- 34.vos Savant, Marilyn. The Power of Logical Thinking. St. Martin's Press. 19–21. 1996. 9780312156275.
- 35.Stansfield, William D. The Most Widely Publicized Gender Problem in Human Genetics. Human Biology. 81. 1. 3–11. February 2009. 10.3378/027.081.0101.
- 36.Fermat's Last Theorem and Wiles' proof were discussed in her Parade column of November 21, 1993, which introduced the book.
- 37.Boston, Nigel. Review of The World's Most Famous Math Problem. American Mathematical Monthly. The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 102, No. 5. 102. 5. 470–473. May 1995. 10.2307/2975048.
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Wikidata, structured authority record Q234122: Marilyn vos SavantWikimedia Foundation
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Identity and origins. She also worked under the name Marilyn vos Savant. Her recorded language was English. She married Robert Jarvik.
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