Marilyn vos Savant

About

Marilyn vos Savant ( VOSS sə-VAHNT; 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 was born Marilyn Mach on August 11, 1946, in St. Louis, Missouri, to parents Joseph Mach and Marina Ros Savant. Savant says one should keep premarital surnames, with sons taking their father’s and daughters their mother’s. The word savant, meaning someone of learning, appears twice in her family: her maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Maria Savant while her maternal grandfather was Joseph Ros Savant (born Giuseppe Savant Ros), both hailing from Lanzo, Italy. Her father was born in Gladbeck, Prussia to Czech parents born in Bítovany and Borovany. She is of Italian and Czech ancestry. It had been assumed she was descended from the physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach, but this is disproven by her grandfather…