Ground Report

If the survey conducted by The Telegraph is to be believed, Britain has more living geniuses per head of population than anywhere else in the world. Nearly, a quarter of those featured in the list of 100 living geniuses are Britons, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the world wide web, in joint first place, and physicist Stephen Hawking at seven in the list, the survey claims. British artists and musicians feature heavily, including Brit Art leader Damien Hirst at number 15, poet Seamus Heaney at 26,Sir Paul McCartney at 58, David Bowie at 67, Harry Potter author JK Rowling at 83 and filmmaker Ken Russell at 100. Osama Bin Laden comes at number 43, a spot he shares with Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and Mohammed Ali, the former world heavyweight-boxing champion. In comparison, The Americans have 43 geniuses on the list – one per 6.9 million people.The firm emailed 4,000 Britons and asked them to nominate up to 10 living people who they considered geniuses. They received back 1,100 nominations for individuals in all walks of life.The panel then ranked the list in order of genius and presented a shortlist of 100, who were thereafter further scored against five factors.