Consider that there is also an extreme selection bias for who studies higher physics in terms of motivation to study physics vs. desire/need for money.
Given that the income delta between a researcher at CERN and a professional software engineer at Google is >10x I'd be skeptical that this selection always translates to intelligence. Anecdotally, many PhD Physicists transfer into software for monetary reasons and do not come across as intrinsically smarter than the average engineer of equivalent experience.
Given that the income delta between a researcher at CERN and a professional software engineer at Google is >10x I'd be skeptical that this selection always translates to intelligence. Anecdotally, many PhD Physicists transfer into software for monetary reasons and do not come across as intrinsically smarter than the average engineer of equivalent experience.