Hypatia

Philosopher · 428 BC – 348 BC

Plato was a Greek philosopher who founded the Academy in Athens, wrote the foundational dialogues of Western philosophy, and developed the influential theory of Forms.

• Theory of Forms
• The Academy

Why Hypatia taught within the Platonist tradition, leading the Neoplatonist school of Alexandria.

Philosopher · 384 BC – 322 BC

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath whose writings on logic, ethics, biology, politics and metaphysics shaped Western thought for over two millennia.

• Formal logic
• Virtue ethics

Why A pillar of the classical philosophical curriculum she preserved and taught.

Economist · 1723 – 1790

Adam Smith was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher and economist, the father of modern economics, whose work The Wealth of Nations laid the foundations of free-market thought.

• The Wealth of Nations
• The invisible hand

Why Also a philosopher · Comparable historical impact

Philosopher · 1632 – 1677

Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of the early modern era whose rationalist masterpiece, the Ethics, advanced a radical monism identifying God with Nature and made him a foundational figure of modern thought.

• Ethics
• Pantheism (God or Nature)

Why Also a philosopher · Comparable historical impact

Philosopher · 1596 – 1650

René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician and scientist, the "father of modern philosophy", famous for "I think, therefore I am" and for founding analytic geometry.

• I think, therefore I am
• Analytic geometry

Why Also a philosopher & mathematician · Worked in philosophy & mathematics

Mathematician · 780 – 850

Al-Khwarizmi was a Persian mathematician and scholar of the Islamic Golden Age, the "father of algebra", whose name gave us the word "algorithm".

• Founding algebra
• The word 'algorithm'

Why Also a mathematician & astronomer · Worked in mathematics & astronomy

Astronomer · 1473 – 1543

Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer who formulated the heliocentric model placing the Sun, not the Earth, at the center of the universe — a revolution in human thought.

• The heliocentric model
• The Copernican Revolution

Why Also a astronomer & mathematician · Worked in astronomy & mathematics

Mathematician · 1777 – 1855

Carl Friedrich Gauss was a German mathematician and physicist whose profound contributions to number theory, statistics, geometry, astronomy and magnetism earned him the title "Prince of Mathematicians."

• Disquisitiones Arithmeticae
• Gaussian distribution

Why Also a mathematician & astronomer · Worked in mathematics & astronomy

Astronomer · 1564 – 1642

Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, the "father of modern science", whose telescopic discoveries and championing of heliocentrism transformed our understanding of the cosmos.

• Telescopic astronomy
• Defending heliocentrism

Why Also a astronomer & mathematician · Worked in astronomy & mathematics

Physicist · 1643 – 1727

Isaac Newton was an English physicist and mathematician whose laws of motion and universal gravitation laid the foundation of classical mechanics and the Scientific Revolution.

• Laws of motion
• Universal gravitation

Why Also a mathematician & astronomer · Worked in mathematics & astronomy

Mathematician · 570 BC – 495 BC

Pythagoras was an ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher who founded the Pythagorean school and is remembered for the Pythagorean theorem and the idea that number underlies the cosmos.

• Pythagorean theorem
• Pythagoreanism

Why Also a mathematician & philosopher · Worked in mathematics

Theologian · 354 – 430

Augustine of Hippo was a Roman North African theologian and philosopher whose works, including Confessions and City of God, shaped Western Christianity and laid intellectual foundations for medieval and modern thought.

• Confessions
• City of God

Why Also a philosopher · Shared school of thought

Physician · 980 – 1037

Avicenna was a Persian polymath of the Islamic Golden Age, one of the greatest physicians and philosophers of the medieval world, whose Canon of Medicine was a standard text for six centuries.

• The Canon of Medicine
• The Book of Healing

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in philosophy & astronomy

Mathematician · 1707 – 1783

Leonhard Euler was a Swiss mathematician and physicist, the most prolific mathematician in history, whose work shaped modern analysis, number theory, graph theory and mathematical notation.

• Euler's number e
• Euler's identity

Why Also a mathematician · Worked in mathematics & astronomy

Mathematician · 1815 – 1852

Ada Lovelace was an English mathematician widely regarded as the first computer programmer, who saw that Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine could go beyond calculation to manipulate symbols of any kind.

• The first computer program
• Visionary ideas on computing

Why Also a mathematician · Worked in mathematics

Writer · 1759 – 1797

Mary Wollstonecraft was an English Enlightenment writer and philosopher, a pioneer of feminist thought whose A Vindication of the Rights of Woman argued for the education and equality of women.

• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
• Founding feminist philosophy

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in philosophy

Mathematician · 1912 – 1954

Alan Turing was an English mathematician and computer scientist who founded theoretical computer science, helped break the German Enigma cipher in World War II, and pioneered the study of artificial intelligence.

• Turing machine
• Breaking the Enigma code

Why Also a mathematician · Worked in mathematics

Mathematician · 287 BC – 212 BC

Archimedes was an ancient Greek mathematician, physicist and inventor, widely regarded as the greatest mathematician of antiquity and a founder of mathematical physics and engineering.

• Archimedes' principle
• Calculating pi

Why Also a mathematician · Worked in mathematics

Philosopher · 1126 – 1198

Averroes was a philosopher and polymath of Al-Andalus whose commentaries on Aristotle profoundly shaped medieval European philosophy and the relationship between reason and faith.

• Commentaries on Aristotle
• Defending reason and philosophy

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in philosophy

Mathematician · 325 BC – 265 BC

Euclid was an ancient Greek mathematician, the "father of geometry", whose treatise the Elements is the most influential mathematics textbook ever written.

• The Elements
• Euclidean geometry

Why Also a mathematician · Worked in mathematics

Philosopher · 1724 – 1804

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher of the Enlightenment, one of the most influential thinkers in history, who reconciled rationalism and empiricism and transformed ethics, metaphysics and epistemology.

• Critique of Pure Reason
• The categorical imperative

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in philosophy

Physicist · 1831 – 1879

James Clerk Maxwell was a Scottish physicist whose equations unified electricity, magnetism and light into a single electromagnetic theory, one of the greatest achievements in the history of physics.

• Maxwell's equations
• Electromagnetic theory of light

Why Also a mathematician · Worked in mathematics

Theologian · 1225 – 1274

Thomas Aquinas was a medieval Italian theologian and philosopher whose synthesis of Christian theology and Aristotelian philosophy became central to Catholic thought and the high point of scholasticism.

• Summa Theologica
• Reconciling faith and reason

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in philosophy

Writer · 1694 – 1778

Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, philosopher and wit, a tireless champion of reason, free speech and religious tolerance and one of the most influential figures of his age.

• Candide
• Defending free speech and tolerance

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in philosophy