Mathematicians

 

Just a few of the people who have contributed to our modern use of mathematics and the sciences. If you know of more to add, please let me know.

Please note, I built this page for an older site where I had forced all letters to lowercase, so the capitalization is inconsistent.

 

A-D || E-H || I-L || M-P|| Q-T || U-X || Y-Z

 

A

Al-Khwarizmi

Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (c 780 - c 850 CE) was a Muslim mathematician whose works introduced our modern numerals (the Hindu Arabic numerals) to Europe, and the title of his book kitab al-jabr wa al-muqabalah provided the source for the term algebra. His name is the source for the term algorithm. [1]

 

Apollonius

Apollonius of Perga (262 - 190 BCE), a mathematician who studied in Alexandria under pupils of Euclid, wrote works that extended Euclid's work in geometry, particularly focusing on conic sections. [1]

 

Archimedes

Archimedes (c 290 - c 211 BCE) studied at Alexandria ad then lived in Syracuse. He wrote extensively on mathematics and developed formulas for the volume and surface area of a sphere, and a way to calculate the circumference of a circle. He also developed the principal of floating bodies and invented military devices that delayed the capture of the city by the Romans. [1]

 

Aristotle

Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE) wrote about many areas of human knowledge, including the field of logic. He was a student of Plato and also a tutor to Alexander the Great. [1]

 

 

 

B

Bayes

Thomas Bayes (1702 - 1761 CE) was an English mathematician who studied probability and statistical inference. [1]

 

Bernoulli

Jakob Bernoulli (1655 - 1705 CE) was a Swiss mathematician who studied concepts in what is now the calculus of variations, particularly the catenary curve. His brother Johann Bernoulli ( 1667 to 1748 CE) also was a mathematician investigating these issues. Daniel Bernoulli (1700 to 1782 CE, son of Johann) investigated mathematics and other areas. He developed Bernoulli's theorem in fluid mechanics, which governs the design of airplane wings. [1]

 

Bolyai

Janos Bolyai (1802 - 1860 CE) was a Hungarian mathematician who developed a version of non-Euclidian geometry. [1]

 

Boole

George Boole (1815 - 1865 CE) was an English mathematician who developed the symbolic analysis of logic now known as Boolean algebra, which is used in the design of digital computers. [1]

 

 

 

C

Chebysheu

Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev (1821 - 1894 CE) was a Russian mathematician who studied probability, among other areas of mathematics. [1]

 

 

 

D

de Morgan

Augustus De Morgan (1806 - 1871 CE) was an English mathematician who studied logic. [1]

 

Descartes

Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650 CE) was a French mathematician and philosopher who is noted for the sentence "I think, therefore I am" and for developing the concept now known as rectangular, or Cartesian coordinates. [1]

 

 

 

E

Eratosthenes

Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276 - 194 BCE) was a Greek mathematician and astronomer who is the first person known to have calculated the circumference of the Earth. [1]

 

Euclid

Euclid (c 300 BCE) was a Greek mathematician who lived in Alexandria and is noted for his treatise on geometry, Elements, which is focused on developing a logical structure with proofs. Much of the work is of the nature of a textbook based on work by earlier writers, but the completeness of the work made it one of the most influential mathematical works of all time. The geometry of out everyday world is still known as Euclidian geometry. [1]

 

Euler

Leonhard Euler (1707 - 1783 CE), a Swiss mathematician who worked much of his life in St. Petersburg and Berlin, advanced mathematical ideas in many areas, including analytic geometry, calculus, trigonometry, the theory of complex numbers, and number theory. He also is responsible for much mathematical notation that is now common, including Σ for summation, e for the base of the natural logarithms, ƒ() for functions, π for circumference of a circle of diameter 1, and i for √-1. [1]

 

 

 

F

Fermat

Pierre de Fermat (1601 - 1665 CE) was a French mathematician who developed number theory, worked on ideas that later became known as calculus, and corresponded with Pascal on probability theory. [1]

 

Fourier

Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768 - 1830 CE) was a French mathematician who studied differential equations of heat conduction, and developed the concept now known as Fourier series. [1]

 

 

 

G

Galois

Evariste Galois (1811 - 1832 CE) was a French mathematician who made crucial contributions to group theory and applied this to the study of the solvability of polynomial equations. [1]

 

Gauss

Carl Friedrich gauss (1777 - 1855 CE) was a German mathematician and astronomer who studied errors of measurement (so the normal curve is sometimes called the Gaussian error curve); developed a way to construct a 17-sided regular polygon with geometric construction; developed a law that says the electric flux over a closed surface is proportional to the charge inside the surface (this law is now included as one of Maxwell's equations); and studied the theory of complex numbers. [1]

 

Gödel

Kurt Gödel (1906 - 1978 CE) was an Austrian born U.S. mathematician who developed Gödel's incompleteness theorem. [1]

 

 

 

H

Researching

 

 

I

Researching

 

 

J

Researching

 

 

K

Kepler

Johannes Kepler (1571 - 1630 CE) was a German astronomer who used observational data to express the motion of the planets according to three mathematical laws: (1) planets move along orbits shaped like ellipses, with the sun at one focus; (2) a radius vector connecting the sun to the planets sweeps out equal areas in equal times (this means that a planet travels fastest when closest to the sun); (3) the square of the orbital period is proportional to the cube of the mean distance from the planet to the sun. [1]

 

Kovaleskaya

Sofya Kovaleskaya (1850 - 1891 CE) was a mathematician who worked in Germany and Sweden and made important contributions in differential equations. [1]

 

 

 

L

Lagrange

Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736 - 1813 CE) was an Italian-French mathematician who developed ideas in celestial mechanics, calculus of variations and number theory. [1]

 

Laplace

Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749 - 1827 CE) was a French astronomer and mathematician who investigated the motion of the planets of the solar system. [1]

 

Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 - 1716 CE) was a German mathematician, philosopher, and political advisor, who was one of the developers of calculus (independently of his rival Newton). [1]

 

Lobachevsky

Nikolay Lobachevsky (1792 - 1856 CE) was a Russian mathematician who developed a version of non-Euclidian geometry. [1]

 

 

 

M

Maclaurin

Colin MacLaurin (1698 - 1746 CE) was a Scottish mathematician who extended the field of calculus. [1]

 

 

 

N

Napier

John Napier (1550 - 1617 CE) was a Scottish mathematician who developed the concept of logarithms. [1]

 

Newton

Sir Isaac Newton (1643 - 1727 CE) was an English mathematician and scientist who developed the theory of gravitation and laws of motion, designed a reflecting telescope using a parapoloid mirror, used a prism to split white light into component colors, and was one of the inventors of calculus (independently of his rival Leibniz). [1]

 

Noether

Emmy Noether (1882 - 1935 CE) was a German mathematician who contributed to abstract algebra. [1]

 

 

 

O

Researching

 

 

P

Pascal

Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662 CE) was a French mathematician who developed the modern theory of probability, invented a calculating machine using wheels to represent numbers, studied fluid pressure, and wrote about religion. [1]

 

Plato

Plato (428 - 348 BCE), one of the greatest of ancient Greek philosophers, established the Academy at Athens with these words over the entrance: "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here." The five regular polyhedra are sometimes called Platonic Solids. [1]

 

Poisson

Simeon-Denis Poisson (1781 - 1840 CE) was a French mathematician who made contributions to celestial mechanics, probability theory, and the theory of electricity and magnetism. [1]

 

Pythagoras

Pythagoras (c 580 - c 500 BCE) was a Greek philosopher and mathematicians who founded a brotherhood that developed religious and mathematical ideas. [1]

 

 

 

Q

Researching

 

 

R

Riemann

Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (1826 - 1866 CE) was a German mathematician who developed a version of non-Euclidian geometry in which there are no parallel lines. This concept was used by Einstein in the development of relativity theory. He also made many other contributions in number theory and analysis. [1]

 

 

 

S

Researching

 

 

T

Taylor

Brook Taylor (1685 - 1731 CE) was a British mathematician who contributed to advanced in calculus. [1]

 

 

 

U

Researching

 

 

V

Researching

 

 

W

Wiles

In the late 20th century, Andrew Wiles wrote a proof confirming Fermat's last theorem.  A theorem which had been unsolved for over 400 hundred years. [2]

 

 

 

X

Researching

 

 

Y

Researching

 

 

Z

Researching

 

 

References

#1

Dictionary of Mathematics Terms 2nd Ed
Douglas Downing
Barron's Educational Series
© 1987, 1995.
IBSN: 0-8120-3097-4
 

 

 

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