Mathematicians

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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'

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

Mathematician · 360 – 415

Hypatia was a mathematician, astronomer and Neoplatonist philosopher of late-antique Alexandria, the most prominent woman scholar of the ancient world, whose brutal murder came to symbolize the end of classical learning.

• Leading the Neoplatonist school of Alexandria
• Mathematics and astronomy