In general usage, a genius is either a polymath or a person gifted with particular talents, mainly regarding intelligence.

People widely called geniuses include:

• Archimedes
• Johann Sebastian Bach
• Charles Darwin
• Rene Descartes
• Thomas Alva Edison
• Albert Einstein
• Richard P. Feynman
• Evariste Galois
• Carl Friedrich Gauss
• Stephen Hawking
• Murray Gell-Mann
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Isaac Newton
• Blaise Pascal
• Ramanujan
• Nikola Tesla
• Alan Turing
• Michael Ventris
• Leonardo da Vinci
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe