Mayim Bialik's IQ Might Surprise You

Fans of hit sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" will, of course, be familiar with Mayim Bialik. A later but invaluable addition to the core cast, her character, Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler, first appeared in the show's Season 3 finale, "The Lunar Excitation." She grudgingly met a similarly unwilling Dr. Sheldon Cooper when they had been matched via online dating (which they'd both been coerced into), and their often befuddling relationship eventually leads to marriage.

The cast of the show are talented actors, some of whom play equally talented scientists. The science the performers are discussing, however, tends to be beyond them. Jim Parsons, for instance, once told David Bianculli of "Fresh Air" (via NPR) that he would relentlessly practice his brilliant, complex, science-laden lines as home, admitting that he "thought 'I need to be able to trust myself to have these words come out.'"

Of David Saltzberg, UCLA physicist who provided legitimacy to the show's science, he said (via NPR), "he'll throw in little inside jokes that I don't find funny because I don't know what the heck he's talking about." Mayim Bialik, however, is also a UCLA scientist of some repute, and it seems she sports the IQ to support that.

According to Biography, Mayim Bialik distinguished herself as an actress from a young age, appearing prominently in "Blossom." She had a five-year stint on the show, before turning to other projects in 1995. Among other things, she had smaller parts in the likes of "MacGyver." After this, she turned back to her education, in which she excelled to the extent that she had offers to study at both Yale and Harvard.

Unwilling to travel so far, Biography went on, she instead completed her education at Los Angeles' University of California. She emerged from the institution in 2007 with a neuroscience Ph.D., as an authority in the same area of science in which Amy Farrah Fowler specializes. On top of that, Bialik also graduated with a degree in Jewish studies and Hebrew. All of this took some academic doing, of course, and Distractify states that her IQ is reportedly between 153 and 160. IQTestA suggested it may even be higher, putting it at 163.

According to the Davidson Institute, an IQ between 130 and 145 in children indicates an individual is "gifted," while an IQ from 140+ to 160+ can be interpreted as "highly gifted" or "exceptionally gifted." Needless to say, this is but one metric and IQ tests and results can vary, but there's no denying that Bialik may well be every bit as intelligent as her brilliant on-screen counterpart.