In science, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a German lawyer, poet, painter, statesman, and scientist known as the "founder of human chemistry" for the publication of his 1809 semi-biographical scientific novella Elective Affinities a scientific treatise on the origin of love - a publication that he considered his "greatest work". [1] He is also considered a pioneer of human thermodynamics for his theories on human energies and affinities, the latter of which was determined to be a measure of "free energy" in 1882. Goethe, along with William James Sidis, both of which who were driven to outline a thermodynamic theory of life, are coincidently both among the top hand-full of people in the world to have estimated IQs of 210+. Goethe, according to English novelist Georgi Eliot, is: [2]


Goethe, by way of his 1809 theory of human elective affinities, as found in coded story form in his Elective Affinities, in which, as he wrote to many people, he had not only placed numerous different elements within the text, but that many of these were hidden within it and that past the transparent or non-transparent veils in the novel one may be able to see the ‘truly intended Gestalt’, is truly the all-time greatest mind to have ever walked the face of the earth, beyond that of either Newton, Einstein, or Da Vinci. [3] The genus and logic of Goethe's mind, for instance, who had stated "how I look forward to the effect that this novel [Elective Affinities] will have in a few years on many people rereading it", is now only beginning to come into light, some 200-years after publication. [4] The logic of Goethe's human affinity theories, for instance, is currently forming the basis of the new beta-stage, science-based pair matching site ReactionMatch.com, situated on the premise of "matching affinities in love the chemical reaction."

Goethe's human chemistry

see main: Goethe's human chemistry

Goethe spent a period of over 50 years studying chemistry, human life, and its driving passions. His conclusion on the phenomenon of human life was that human beings are chemical species and that both the work of life and the underlying vicissitudes of relationships, in all varieties, e.g. marriage, friendships, social interactions, etc., are chemical reactions. In short, using Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman's 1775 chemistry textbook A Dissertation on Elective Attractions, Goethe outlined a novella in which each character is considered as different type of chemical species and each chapter plays out a variation on a different type of elective affinity reaction.

Cox's 1926 estimate of Goethe's IQ
Goethe, being generally known as polymath of great and varied knowledge, is also regarded as having one of the world's highest IQ. [5] Specifically, in 1926 psychologist Catharine Cox, who had been assisted by psychologists Lewis M. Terman, Florence L. Goodenaugh, and Kate Gordon, published the results of her studies of 301 ratings of individual case histories of the behavior and performance of 301 eminent young men and women, between 17 and 26 years of age, born 1450 to 1850, prepared from 1,500 biographical sources, reported as estimated intelligence quotients based on The Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale, and corrected for regression to the mean, in her book Early Mental Traits of Three Hundred Geniuses. Goethe was assigned the highest intelligence quotient of all with a IQ value of 210. [6]

References
1. (a) Thims, Libb. (2007). Human Chemistry (Volume One), (preview). Morrisville, NC: LuLu.
(b) Thims, Libb. (2007). Human Chemistry (Volume Two), (preview), (ch. 10: "Goethe's Affinities", pgs. 371-422). Morrisville, NC: LuLu.
2. Eliot, George [1871] (2004). in Gregory Maertz (ed.): Middlemarch. Broadview Press. Note by editor of 2004 edition, Gregory Maertz, (p. 710).
3. Letter from Goethe to friend, composer Karl Friedrich Zelter as discussed in: Tantillo, Astrida, O. (2001). Goethe’s Elective Affinities and the Critics. New York: Camden House.
4. (a) Thims, Libb. (2007). Human Chemistry (Volume One), (preview), (Google books). Morrisville, NC: LuLu.
(b) Thims, Libb. (2007). Human Chemistry (Volume Two), (preview), (Google books). Morrisville, NC: LuLu.
(c) Thims, Libb. (2008). The Human Molecule, (preview). Morrisville, NC: LuLu.
(d) Sterner, Robert W. and Elser, James J. (2002). Ecological Stoichiometry: the Biology of Elements from Molecules to the Biosphere, (chapter one), (pg. 3, 47, 135). Date: Oct. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
5. (a) Estimated IQs of the Greatest Geniuses
(b) Top 10 Geniuses of All Time (according to Buzan's Book Of Genius, 1994).
6. (a) Cox, Catharine, M. (1926). Early Mental Traits of Three Hundred Geniuses (Genetic Studies of Genius Series), Stanford Univ Press.
(b) Cox's IQ Estimates of 301 Geniuses - IQ Comparison Site.com