ProofWiki:Mathematicians
From ProofWiki
For more comprehensive information on the lives and works of mathematicians through the ages, see the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, created by John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson.
- "The army of those who have made at least one definite contribution to mathematics as we know it soon becomes a mob as we look back over history; 6,000 or 8,000 names press forward for some word from us to preserve them from oblivion, and once the bolder leaders have been recognised it becomes largely a matter of arbitrary, illogical legislation to judge who of the clamouring multitude shall be permitted to survive and who be condemned to be forgotten."[1]
[edit] B.C.E.
Thales
c. 625 – 547 B.C.E.
Greek mathematician, scientist, philosopher and astronomer, who (amongst other things) predicted a solar eclipse in 585 B.C.E.
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Pythagoras of Samos
between 580 and 572 B.C.E. – between 500 and 490 B.C.E.
Greek philosopher whose contributions to mathematics were perhaps more limited than is generally believed.
Best known for being said to have provided the first known proof of Pythagoras's Theorem (or one of his students did) which had probably been known to the ancient Egyptians.
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Zeno of Elea
c. 490 – c. 430 B.C.E.
Greek: Ζήνων ὁ Ἐλεάτης.
Pre-Socratic philosopher of southern Italy.
Member of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides. Aristotle called him the "inventor of the dialectic".
Best known for his paradoxes, which Bertrand Russell described as "immeasurably subtle and profound".
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Oenopides of Chios
c. 490 – c. 420 B.C.E.
Mathematician, geometer and astronomer.
Little is known about him except that he came from the island of Chios, and is generally believed to have lived and worked in Athens in his youth.
Estimated the tilt of the Earth's axis with respect to the ecliptic as 24o,
Appears to have introduced the rule that all geometric constructions must be done with a straightedge and compass.
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Socrates
c. 469 – 399 B.C.E.
Socrates (Greek: Σωκράτης, Sōkrátēs) was a Greek philosopher, a teacher of Plato.
Although no writings of his survive (if there ever were any), much of his philosophy has been documented in the works of Plato.
Executed by hemlock in 399 B.C.E. supposedly for the crime of corrupting the young.
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Plato
428/427 – 348/347 B.C.E.
Plato (Greek: Πλάτων, Plátōn, "broad") was a Greek philosopher, a student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle.
"The development of Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato." -- Alfred North Whitehead
Importantly documents the philosophy of Socrates.
Of particular importance was his insistence on the idea of proof.
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Eudoxus of Cnidus
410 or 408 B.C.E. – 355 or 347 B.C.E.
Greek astronomer and mathematician who, among other things:
- Pioneered work on proportion;
- Introduced the astronomical globe;
- Developed the method of exhaustion, this being an early precursor to integral calculus. This was later exploited by Archimedes.
Student of Plato.
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Aristotle
384 – 322 B.C.E.
Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης, Aristotélēs) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.
Phenomenally influential philosopher whose works (for better or for worse) shaped the entirety of the intellectual development of the Western world for over a millennium.
Most important from the point of view of mathematics for formulating the Principle of Non-Contradiction and the Law of the Excluded Middle.
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Aristaeus the Elder
c. 370 B.C.E. – c. 300 B.C.E.
Differentiated by Pappus of Alexandria from another later Aristaeus whose existence is no longer recorded.
Did considerable work on conic sections, but this was rendered obsolete by subsequent work by Apollonius.
Proved that "the same circle circumscribes both the pentagon of the dodecahedron and the triangle of the icosahedron inscribed in the same sphere."
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Aristarchus of Samos
310 – 230 B.C.E.
Greek astronomer and mathematician who used parallax to determine the relative distances of the moon and the sun.
His result was inaccurate, based as it was on faulty input data, but the method was sound.
One of the first to suggest a heliocentric universe.
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Euclid
c. 300 B.C.E.
In Greek: Εὐκλείδης (Eukleídēs), also known as Euclid of Alexandria.
Little is known about him, apart from:
- He taught in Alexandria (then a Macedonian colony);
- He assembled the geometry text The Elements, possibly the most famous mathematics text book of all time.
Archimedes
c. 287 – 212 B.C.E.
Known as Archimedes of Syracuse.
Greek mathematician, physicist, astronomer, engineer and general all-round inventor.
Perfected the method of exhaustion.
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Eratosthenes of Cyrene
c. 276 – c. 195 B.C.E.
Ancient Greek: Ἐρατοσθένης.
Greek geometer and astronomer best known for his estimate of the size of the Earth.
Also famous for his Sieve of Eratosthenes.
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Apollonius of Perga
c. 262 – c. 190 B.C.E.
Ancient Greek: Ἀπολλώνιος, also known (in the Latin form) as Pergaeus. Greek geometer and astronomer best known for his work on conic sections, in which he uses techniques in analytic geometry which anticipated the work of Descartes.
Greatly influential, he provided the names of the ellipse, parabola and hyperbola.
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Piṅgalá
c. 5th or 2nd century B.C.E.
Indian mathematician about whom practically nothing is known, not even when he lived.
Notable for being the first in history to mention what is now known as Pascal's Triangle.
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[edit] 0 - 500 C.E.
Heron of Alexandria
c. 10 – c. 70 C.E.
Heron (or Hero) of Alexandria (Greek: Ἥρων ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς) was a Greek mathematician and engineer.
Famous for writing about the aeolipile, otherwise known as Hero's Engine (although he didn't actually invent it), and the device known as Heron's fountain.
Also noted for Heron's formula for calculating the area of a triangle whose side lengths are known.
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Nicomachus of Gerasa
c. 60 – c. 120 C.E.
Nicomachus (Greek: Νικόμαχος) was a Neo-Pythagorean about whom very little is known.
Unusual in that he used the system of Arabic numerals rather than the then-current cumbersome Roman numerals.
Appears to have had more influence than his (perhaps limited) abilities may have merited.
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Menelaus of Alexandria
c. 70 – c. 140 C.E.
Greek mathematician and astronomer.
Very little is known about him.
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Ptolemy
c. 90 – c. 168 C.E.
Latin name: Claudius Ptolemaeus, in Greek: Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος (Klaúdios Ptolemaîos), but known generally as "Ptolemy".
Roman citizen, of either Greek or Egyptian ancestry.
Mathematician, astronomer and general all-round scientist.
Best known for being the author of several scientific works, including Almagest.
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Diophantus of Alexandria
between 200 and 214 C.E. – between 284 and 298 C.E.
Author of a series of books called Arithmetica, most of which are now lost, concerning the solution of algebraic equations.
Sometimes referred to as "the father of algebra", but some claim the title should belong to Al-Khwarizmi.
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Iamblichus Chalcidensis
c. 245 – c. 325
Usually known as Iamblichus. His name in Ancient Greek is Ἰάμβλιχος, probably from Syriac or Aramaic ya-mlku, "He is king".
Assyrian philosopher of the neo-Platonist school.
His main involvement in mathematics concerns the fact that he may have known the fifth perfect number, but there is no hard evidence of this fact.
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Pappus of Alexandria
c. 290 – c. 350
One of the last great Greek mathematicians of antiquity.
Very little is known about him, except that he flourished at around 320 C.E. through dint of the eclipse of the sun in Alexandria in that year which he discussed in his commentary on Ptolemy's Almagest.
Noted for his multi-volume Collection, and for Pappus's Theorem.
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Sun Tzu
c. 3rd – 5th century C.E.
Otherwise known as Sun Zi.
Chinese mathematician and astronomer.
Best known for his work on Diophantine equations. His work is the source of the Chinese remainder theorem.
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Theon of Alexandria
c. 335 – 405
Greek: Θέων.
Alexandrian mathematician and astronomer.
Best known for being the father of Hypatia of Alexandria.
His edition of Euclid's The Elements was an authority until well into the 19th century.
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Hypatia of Alexandria
c. 360 – 415
Greek: Ὑπατία.
Egyptian mathematician, astronomer, scientist and philosopher. Daughter of Theon.
Head of Platonist school in Alexandria in c. 400 A.D.
Notable for:
- Being the first woman in mathematics notable enough to have been remembered by history;
- Being murdered by a mob of Christians for holding pagan beliefs.
Her death has been argued as signalling the decline of learning in the Western world, and the start of the "dark ages", from which recovery would not happen for another thousand years.
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[edit] 501 - 1000 C.E.
Brahmagupta
598 – 668
Indian mathematician and astronomer.
Gave definitive solutions to the general linear equation, and also the general Quadratic Equation.
Best known for the Brahmagupta-Fibonacci Identity.
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Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi
c. 780 – c. 850
Full name: محمد بن موسى ابو جعفر الخوارزمي - Muḥammad bin Mūsā Abū Ǧaʿfar al-Ḫawārazmī.
Mathematician who lived and worked in Baghdad.
Famous for his book "The Algebra", which contained the first systematic description of the solution to linear and quadratic equations.
Sometimes referred to as "the father of algebra", but some claim the title should belong to Diophantus.
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Abū Bakr al-Karajī
c. 953 – c. 1029
Full name: Abū Bakr ibn Muḥammad ibn al Ḥusayn al-Karajī (or al-Karkhī).
Persian mathematician best known for the Binomial Theorem and what is now known as Pascal's Rule for their combination.
Also one of the first to use the Principle of Mathematical Induction.
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Alhazen Ibn al-Haytham
965 – c. 1039
Full name:
- Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham
- In Arabic: ابو علي، حسن بن حسن بن الهيثم
- In Persian: ابن هیثم
Best known as Alhacen or (deprecated) Alhazen.
Persian philosopher, scientist and all-round genius who made significant contributions to number theory and geometry.
His work influenced the work of René Descartes and the calculus of Isaac Newton.
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[edit] 1001 - 1500 C.E.
Chia Hsien
c. 1010 – c. 1070
Chia Hsien or Jia Xian (贾宪) was a Chinese mathematician best known for inventing Pascal's Triangle about 500 years before Pascal.
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Omar Khayyám
1048 – 1131
Full name: Ghiyath al-Din Abu'l-Fath Umar ibn Ibrahim Al-Nishapuri al-Khayyami (Persian: غیاث الدین ابو الفتح عمر بن ابراهیم خیام نیشاپوری) .
Persian mathematician better known nowadays for his poetry.
Noted for being one of the first to discuss in print what is now known as Pascal's Triangle.
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Bhāskara II Āchārya
1114 – 1185
Bhāskara (Kannada: ಭಾಸ್ಕರಾಚಾರ್ಯ) was an Indian mathematician and astronomer.
He is known as Bhāskara II, Bhāskara Āchārya ("Bhāskara the teacher"), or Bhāskarāchārya, to distinguish him from Bhāskara I).
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Leonardo Fibonacci
c. 1170 – c. 1250
Italian mathematician also known as Leonardo of Pisa, Leonardo Pisano, Leonardo Bonacci or usually just Fibonacci.
One of the most important figures in the history of the development of mathematics.
The name "Fibonacci" comes (posthumously) from "filius Bonacci", "son of Bonacci" (his father was nicknamed "Bonacci", meaning "good-natured" or "simpleton"). These were the days before official surnames.
Wrote the highly influential and important "Liber Abaci" in which he discussed the Hindu-Arabic number system and its practical applications.
Most famous for the Fibonacci numbers. The number sequence itself was known to Indian mathematicians as early as the 6th century, but it was Fibonacci's "Liber Abaci" which made them well-known throughout Europe.
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Yang Hui
c. 1238 – c. 1298
Simplified Chinese: 杨辉; traditional Chinese: 楊輝; pinyin: Yáng Huī, courtesy name Qianguang (谦光).
Chinese mathematician who is best known for an early treatment of Pascal's Triangle (also known as Yang Hui's Triangle), although acknowledging that it was given an earlier treatment by Chia Hsien in a work which is now lost.
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Chu Shih-Chieh
c. 1260 – c. 1320
Acknowledged as one of the greatest Chinese mathematicians of his era, known under several names and transliterations: pinyin: Zhū Shìjié, Wade-Giles: Chu Shih-chieh, simplified Chinese: 朱世杰, traditional Chinese: 朱世傑, courtesy name Hanqing (汉卿), pseudonym Songting (松庭), he spent 20 years travelling around China teaching mathematics.
Chu was his family name, Shih-chieh his given name.
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Piero Della Francesca
1412 – 1492
Italian painter and mathematician.
Recognized as one of the most important Renaissance painters, but was also a creditable mathematician.
His surviving mathematical works concern such subjects as: the abacus; the five Platonic solids, and perspective in painting.
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Scipione del Ferro
1465 – 1525
Italian mathematician.
- First one to come up with a solution to the general cubic equation, which was later published by Cardano and is now known as Cardano's Formula.
- Contributed towards the rationalization of fractions.
Petrus Apianus
1495 – 1552
Also known as Peter Apian. Born as Peter Bienewitz (or Bennewitz), he Latinized his name (Biene is German and Apis is Latin for "bee") while at Leipzig University.
German humanist and mathematician.
One of his books significantly appears in the painting The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger.
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Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia
1499/1500 – 1557
Italian mathematician, engineer and surveyor.
- Published first Italian translations of Archimedes and Euclid.
- Devised a solution to the general cubic equation independently of Scipione del Ferro, later published by Cardano and now known as Cardano's Formula.
[edit] 1501 - 1600 C.E.
Gerolamo Cardano
1501 – 1576
Italian mathematician, physician, inventor, astrologer and gambler.
- Published systematic methods for solving cubic and quartic equations. Neither were supposedly discovered by him:
- The formula for solving the cubic was passed to him by Tartaglia, but (as he discovered later) was in fact originally discovered by Scipione del Ferro.
- The formula for solving the quartic was discovered by his student Ferrari (and bears Ferrari's name).
- Wrote the first systematic treatment of probability.
Also known as Jerome Cardan (the French and English form of his name), Hieronimo Cardano or Hieronymus Cardanus (the Latin form).
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Robert Recorde
1510 – 1558
Welsh physician and mathematician.
Best known for inventing the equals sign. This was just part of his contribution towards the development and systematization of mathematical notation.
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Lodovico Ferrari
1522 – 1565
Italian mathematician.
- Student of Gerolamo Cardano.
- First one to devise a solution to the general quartic equation, which was later published by Cardano and is now known as Ferrari's Method.
Rafael Bombelli
1526 – 1572
Italian mathematician whose influence may have been greater than is currently recognised.
- Documented the rules for multiplication involving negative numbers.
- Pioneered the work on the understanding of imaginary numbers, using as a springboard Cardano's Formula for the solution of the cubic.
- Developed a method of solving square roots by an approach related to continued fractions.
Pietro Antonio Cataldi
1548 – 1626
Italian mathematician and philanthropist who taught mathematics and astronomy.
- Worked on the development of perfect numbers and continued fractions.
- Attempted in vain (as so many before and since) to prove Euclid's fifth postulate.
- Supposed to have discovered the 6th and 7th Mersenne primes M17 and M19 in 1588.
John Napier
1550 – 1617
Scots mathematician famous for his development of natural logarithms.
His name is spelt variously as Jhone, and Napeir, Nepair, Nepeir, Neper, Napare, Naper, Naipper.
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Henry Briggs
1561 – 1630
English mathematician most famous for converting natural (Napierian) logarithms into common (Briggsian) logarithms.
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William Oughtred
1574 – 1660
English mathematician credited with the invention of the slide rule.
Also credited with inventing a circular version although precedence for this was disputed with his student Richard Delamain.
Experimented with notations in his famously compact writings, inventing some new symbology which stuck, notably
, sin and cos.
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Willebrord Snell
1580 – 1626
Full name in the original Dutch: Willebrord Snel van Royen, or Willebrord van Royen Snell, also Willebrord Snellius
Dutch applied mathematician and astronomer who founded the modern science of geodesy, by pioneering the technique of triangulation.
Developed an improved method for determining the value of π (pi) using polygons.
Known today for rediscovering Snell's Law in 1621, governing the refraction of light.
Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac
1581 – 1638
Also known as Claude (Gaspard) Bachet.
First to discuss the solution of indeterminate equations by means of continued fractions.
First member to hold Seat 13 of the Académie Française.
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Thomas Hobbes
1588 – 1679
English thinker better known for being an astute political philosopher than as a mathematician.
Best known in mathematical circles for believing that he had solved the problem of Squaring the Circle.
Generally considered a mathematical ignoramus, his influence was perhaps of greater importance than generally considered, if only because of the stimulating controversy and discussion he raised.
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Marin Mersenne
1588 – 1648
French theologian, philosopher, mathematician and music theorist.
Most famous for his work with Mersenne primes.
Claimed in 1644 that the only primes
for which 2p − 1 is prime are 2,3,5,7,13,17,19,31,67,127 and 257.
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Albert Girard
1595 – 1632
Professional French lutenist who also studied mathematics, working in the fields of algebra, trigonometry and arithmetic.
Gave an inductive formula for the Fibonacci numbers.
First stated in 1632 that every prime of the form 4k + 1 is the sum of two squares in only one way.
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René Descartes
1596 – 1650
Also known as Renatus Cartesius.
French mathematician and philosopher who invented the Cartesian coordinate system, and thence the field of analytic geometry.
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Pierre de Fermat
c. 1600 – 1665
French lawyer, also an amateur mathematician famous for lots of things. Especially:
- Fermat's Little Theorem
- Claimed to have found a proof for what became known as Fermat's Last Theorem, but it has since been doubted that this is in fact the case (he may have been mistaken).
Although he claimed to have found proofs of many theorems, few of these have survived.
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[edit] 1601 - 1700 C.E.
Antoine Gombaud
1607 – 1684
Antoine Gombaud, Chevalier de Méré was a French gambler, writer, philosopher and amateur mathematician best known for his work in probability theory.
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John Wallis
1616 – 1703
English mathematician who made considerable contributions towards the invention of the calculus.
Credited with introducing the symbol
for infinity.
One of the first English mathematicians to use the techniques of analytic geometry as defined by Descartes.
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Blaise Pascal
1623 – 1662
French mathematician and philosopher who explored probability theory and projective geometry.
Most famous for the construction now commonly known as Pascal's Triangle.
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Giovanni Domenico Cassini
1625 – 1712
Italian/French mathematician, astronomer, engineer, and astrologer.
Most of his important discoveries were in the field of astronomy.
Also known as Giandomenico Cassini or Jean-Dominique Cassini.
Not to be confused with his son, also called Jean-Dominique Cassini.
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Georg Mohr
1640 – 1697
Born Jørgen Mohr, latinised as Georg(ius) Mohr.
Danish mathematician and geometer now famous for proving in 1672 that any geometrical construction that can be made with compasses and straightedge can also be achieved by using only compasses. This result was overlooked at the time. Lorenzo Mascheroni made the same discovery in 1797. However, it was only in 1928 that Mohr's priority came to light.
Other books of his are rumoured but none have come to direct light.
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Isaac Newton
1642 – 1727
Hugely influential English all-rounder famous for:
- Inventing calculus, independently of Leibniz.
- Successfully providing a mathematical model for the force of gravity;
- Formulating the Principle of Conservation of Momentum and Principle of Conservation of Angular Momentum;
- Building the first practical optical reflecting telescope;
- Developing a theory of colour based on the splitting of light with a prism;
and much more.
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Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
1646 – 1716
German mathematician and philosopher who is best known for being the co-inventor (independently of Isaac Newton) of calculus.
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Giovanni Ceva
1647 – 1734
Italian mathematician best known for Ceva's Theorem, a result in geometry.
Also rediscovered and published Menelaus's Theorem.
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Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus
1651 – 1708
German mathematician more famous for inventing a brand of porcelain.
Worked on techniques in algebra, and also investigated catacaustic curves.
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Michel Rolle
1652 – 1719
French mathematician best known for Rolle's Theorem.
Also noted for popularising the nth root sign.
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Jacob Bernoulli
1654 – 1705
Swiss mathematician (also known as James or Jacques) best known for his work on probability theory and development of the calculus.
Developed the technique of Separation of Variables, and in 1696 solved what is now known as Bernoulli's (Differential) Equation.
Elder brother of Johann Bernoulli, with whom he famously quarrelled.
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Guillaume de l'Hôpital
1661 – 1704
Shortened version of his full name and title: Guillaume-François-Antoine Marquis de l'Hôpital, Marquis de Sainte-Mesme, Comte d'Entremont and Seigneur d'Ouques-la-Chaise.
French mathematician best known for L'Hôpital's Rule, although this was in fact discovered by Johann Bernoulli.
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Abraham de Moivre
1667 – 1754
French mathematician best known for De Moivre's Formula.
Also noted for his work on the normal distribution and probability theory.
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Johann Bernoulli
1667 – 1738
Swiss mathematician (also known as Jean or John) best known for his work on development of the calculus.
Taught Guillaume de l'Hôpital, who then went ahead and published his lecture notes without crediting him.
Pioneered the technique of Integration by Parts.
Younger brother of Jacob Bernoulli, with whom he did not always see eye to eye.
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Pierre Raymond de Montmort
1678 – 1719
French mathematician (also known as Pierre Rémond de Montmort) who worked in probability theory.
The first to introduce the combinatorial study of derangements.
Also known for naming Pascal's triangle after Blaise Pascal, calling it "Table de M. Pascal pour les combinaisons."
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Brook Taylor
1685 – 1731
English mathematician whose influence was somewhat limited.
Noted for Taylor's Theorem, but he was not the only one to have been exploring it.
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Nicolaus I Bernoulli
1687 – 1759
Swiss mathematician who worked on probability theory, geometry and differential equations.
Most of his important work can be found in his correspondence, particularly with Pierre Raymond de Montmort, in which he introduced the St. Petersburg Paradox.
He also corresponded with Leonhard Paul Euler and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz.
Nephew of Jacob Bernoulli and Johann Bernoulli.
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James Stirling
1692 – 1770
Scottish mathematician best known for Stirling's Formula.
One of the first to study what is now known as the Gamma function.
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Nicolaus II Bernoulli
1695 – 1726
Swiss mathematician who worked mostly on curves, differential equations and probability theory. He also contributed to fluid dynamics.
Studied as a lawyer, and became involved in the priority dispute between Newton and Leibniz, and also the one between Johann Bernoulli and Brook Taylor.
Posed the problem of Reciprocal Orthogonal Trajectories.
Son of Johann Bernoulli and the elder brother of Daniel Bernoulli and Johann II Bernoulli.
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Colin Maclaurin
1698 – 1746
Alternatively rendered M'Laurine.
Held the record for almost 300 years as the youngest professor in history.
Worked extensively on elliptic functions.
Best known nowadays for Maclaurin Series.
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Daniel Bernoulli
1700 – 1782
Dutch / Swiss mathematician who worked mostly on fluid dynamics, probability theory and statistics.
Son of Johann Bernoulli and the brother of Nicolaus II Bernoulli and Johann II Bernoulli.
Famously suffered from the jealousy and bad temper of his father Johann Bernoulli who, among other unpleasantnesses, tried to steal his Hydrodynamica and pass it off as his own, naming it Hydraulica.
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[edit] 1701 - 1800 C.E.
Thomas Bayes
1702 – 1761
The Rev. Thomas Bayes was a mathematician and Presbyterian minister.
Most famous for his formulation of what is now known as Bayes' Theorem.
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Leonhard Paul Euler
1707 – 1783
Swiss mathematician and physicist who pioneered much of the foundation of modern mathematics.
- Introduced much of the notation which is used today, including e and the modern notation for trigonometric functions.
- Proved Fermat's Little Theorem.
Johann II Bernoulli
1710 – 1790
Swiss mathematician (also known as Jean) who worked mostly on the theory of heat and light.
Son of Johann Bernoulli and the younger brother of Nicolaus II Bernoulli and Daniel Bernoulli.
Father of Johann III Bernoulli and Jakob II Bernoulli.
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Matthew Stewart
1717 – 1785
Scottish mathematician who made significant contributions to the fields of geometry and astronomy.
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Maria Gaëtana Agnesi
1718 – 1799
Italian mathematician, linguist and philosopher famed for writing the first book discussing both integral and differential calculus.
The curve in analytic geometry called the Witch of Agnesi is named for her.
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Étienne Bézout
1730 – 1783
French mathematician best known for his work in number theory and algebra.
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Alexandre-Théophile Vandermonde
1735 – 1796
French mathematician and musician mainly active in the fields of combinatorics.
Referred to by some as "the founder of the theory of determinants".
Best known nowadays for the Vandermonde Determinant and the Chu-Vandermonde Identity.
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Edward Waring
c. 1736 – 1798
English mathematician mainly active in the fields of number theory and analysis.
Most famous for posing what are now called:
- Waring's Problem;
- Waring's Prime Number Conjecture, otherwise known as the Goldbach Conjecture.
"Waring was one of the profoundest mathematicians of the eighteenth century; but the inelegance and obscurity of his writings prevented him from obtaining that reputation to which he was entitled." -- Thomas Thomson.
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Joseph Louis Lagrange
1736 – 1813
Born Giuseppe Lodovico Lagrangia.
He did the following:
- Author of Réflexions sur la résolution algébrique des equations (1770), a complete restudy of all the known methods of solving the cubic and quartic equations.
- Proposed a prime number as the universally adopted number base. Thus every systematic fraction would be reducible and represent the number in a unique way.
- Established some very general theorems on whether a number is prime from examining its digits.
- Tried in vain to prove Fermat's Last Theorem.
- One of the few exceptions of his time who was doubtful that a polynomial equation of degree greater than four was capable of a formal solution by means of radicals.
- Gave an insufficient proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra.
He also proved Wilson's Theorem.
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John Wilson
1741 – 1793
English mathematician remembered mainly for Wilson's Theorem, which was in fact published by Edward Waring and came originally from Ibn al-Haytham ("Alhazen"). It was in fact proved by Lagrange in 1793.
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Johann III Bernoulli
1744 – 1807
Swiss mathematician (also known as Jean) who worked on probability theory, recurring decimals and the theory of equations.
Son of Johann Bernoulli and the elder brother of Jakob II Bernoulli.
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Gaspard Monge
1746 – 1818
French mathematician who invented the field of descriptive geometry.
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Pierre-Simon de Laplace
1749 – 1827
French mathematician and astronomer whose work greatly influenced the development of the mathematics governing astronomy.
Pioneered the field of mathematical physics.
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Lorenzo Mascheroni
1750 – 1800
Professor of mathematics at Pavia.
Wrote Geometria del Compasso, published in 1797, in which he showed that any geometrical construction that can be made with compasses and straightedge can also be achieved by using only compasses. This had, however, already been demonstrated by Georg Mohr in 1672.
Published in his 1790 work Adnotationes ad Calculum Integrale Euleri a calculation to 32 places of the value of what is now known as the Euler-Mascheroni Constant. However, only the first 19 places were accurate. The rest were corrected in 1809 by Johann von Soldner.
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Adrien-Marie Legendre
1752 – 1833
- French mathematician, focusing in the fields of statistics, abstract algebra, number theory and analysis.
- Has a moon crater named after him.
- Gave an early proof of Fermat's Last Theorem for n = 5.
- Attempted a proof of the Law of Quadratic Reciprocity in 1785, but it was flawed. It was eventually proven by Gauss in 1798.
Jakob II Bernoulli
1759 – 1789
Swiss mathematician (also known as Jacob) who worked in geometry and mathematical physics.
Son of Johann Bernoulli and the younger brother of Johann III Bernoulli.
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Christian Kramp
1760 – 1826
French mathematician working mainly with factorials.
His main claim to fame is for being the one to introduce the Factorial sign: !
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Joseph Fourier
1768 – 1830
Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier was a French mathematician and physicist best known for the Fourier series and his application of this technique to the problem of heat conduction.
Also developed the technique of dimensional analysis, and discovered the greenhouse effect.
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François Joseph Servois
1768 – 1847
French mathematician and military officer.
Worked in the fields of projective geometry, functional analysis and complex analysis.
First introduced (in 1814) the concept of commutativity which till then had generally been taken for granted in all fields of mathematics.
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Johann Georg von Soldner
1776 – 1833
German mathematician, physicist and astronomer.
Calculated the Euler-Mascheroni constant to 24 places.
The first one to predict (100 years before Einstein) that light rays would be bent by the gravitational fields of stars.
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Sophie Germain
1776 – 1831
Marie-Sophie Germain was a French mathematician who contributed to differential geometry and number theory, and provided some insights into aspects of Fermat's Last Theorem.
She was completely self-taught (as women were not encouraged to do that sort of thing in those days) and contributed her early work under the pseudonym Monsieur LeBlanc.
Had Gauss and Lagrange as mentors, but apart from that, suffered throughout her career from prejudice against her gender.
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Peter Barlow
1776 – 1862
English mathematician and physicist, famous for his New mathematical tables, which would be known as Barlow's Tables and become a standard reference work.
Also (disappointingly) notable for his prediction in 1811 that no prime greater than 231 − 1 would ever be discovered.
Also noted for his work on magnetism and strength of materials.
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Carl Friedrich Gauss
1777 – 1855
Full name: Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss.
One of the most influential mathematicians of all time, contributing to many fields, including number theory, statistics, analysis and differential geometry.
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Siméon-Denis Poisson
1781 – 1840
French mathematician and physicist best known for his work in probability theory and differential equations.
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Bernhard Placidus Johann Nepomuk Bolzano
1781 – 1848
Bohemian mathematician, logician, theologian and philosopher.
- Proved the Bolzano-Weierstrass Theorem, independently of (and earlier than) Karl Weierstrass.
- Gave the first analytical proof of the Intermediate Value Theorem (which is also known as Bolzano's Theorem).
Jacques Philippe Marie Binet
1786 – 1856
French mathematician best known for his contribution to the Binet-Cauchy Identity.
Recognized as the first to define the rules for matrix multiplication.
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Jean-Victor Poncelet
1788 – 1867
French mathematician and engineer who revived the field of projective geometry.
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Augustin Louis Cauchy
1789 – 1857
- French Engineer and mathematician, from a suburb of Paris, which at the time was home to many leading mathematicians.
- Wrote seven books and more than 700 papers in various fields of mathematics.
- Made contributions in theory of determinants, eigenvalues, ordinary and partial differential equations, permutation groups, and the foundation of calculus.
- Famous for founding the theory of functions of a complex variable.
August Ferdinand Möbius
1790 – 1868
German mathematician and theoretical astronomer, active in geometry and number theory.
Best known for inventing the Möbius Strip, although this was actually invented independently by Johann Benedict Listing at around the same time.
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Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky
1792 – 1856
Full name in Russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Лобаче́вский
Known as "the Copernicus of geometry", for his development of a non-Euclidean geometry, i.e. one which does not use the parallel postulate.
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Gabriel Lamé
1795 – 1870
Full name: Père de Gabriel Léon Jean Baptiste Lamé. (Sometimes misrepresented as "Gabrielle Lamé", but that is a mistake.)
French mathematician who investigated curvilinear coordinate systems.
Studied the series of curves now known as Lamé curves.
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Jakob Steiner
1796 – 1863
Swiss mathematician who worked extensively (and mainly) in geometry.
He made an important contribution to combinatorics with his Steiner system, a kind of block design.
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Andreas Freiherr von Ettingshausen
1796 – 1878
German mathematician and physicist.
The first to build an electromagnetic machine.
Invented the notation
for the binomial coefficient.
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[edit] 1801 - 1850 C.E.
Niels Henrik Abel
1802 – 1829
Norwegian mathematician who died tragically young.
Best known for proving the impossibility of solving the general quintic in radicals (Abel-Ruffini Theorem).
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Jacques Charles François Sturm
1803 – 1855
Charles Sturm was a mathematical physicist whose work was mainly in the fields of applied mathematics and physics.
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Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi
1804 – 1851
Prolific Prussian mathematician, now most famous for his work with the elliptic functions.
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Viktor Yakovlevich Bunyakovsky
1804 – 1889
Full name in Russian: Виктор Яковлевич Буняковский.
Best known for his contribution to the Cauchy-Bunyakovsky-Schwarz Inequality.
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Johann Lejeune Dirichlet
1805 – 1859
Full name: Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet.
German mathematician who worked mainly in the field of analysis.
Credited with the first formal definition of a function.
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William Rowan Hamilton
1805 – 1865
Irish mathematician and physicist famous (among other things) for:
- Creating the field of Hamiltonian mechanics;
- The discovery of quaternions;
- Development of aspects of graph theory.
Augustus De Morgan
1806 – 1871
British mathematician and logician best known for De Morgan's laws.
Also introduced and made rigorous the Principle of Mathematical Induction.
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Johann Benedict Listing
1808 – 1882
German mathematician and physicist who coined the term "topology" in a letter of 1836.
In 1858 he invented the Möbius strip at about the same time that August Ferdinand Möbius did.
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Joseph Liouville
1809 – 1882
Active in the fields of number theory, complex analysis, differential geometry, topology, mathematical physics and astronomy.
Proved the existence of transcendental numbers.
Contributed the Sturm-Liouville theory to the field of mathematical physics, in collaboration with Charles Sturm.
Pioneered the study of fractional calculus.
There are several theorems named after him, all in different areas of mathematics and physics.
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Benjamin Peirce
1809 – 1880
American mathematician and logician who has been called "The founding father of modern abstract algebra".
Like Boole, attempted to put logic on a sound mathematical footing.
He also contributed to many other areas of mathematics.
Proved that there is no odd perfect number with fewer than four prime factors.
Introduced the terms idempotent and nilpotent in 1870, in his work Linear Associative Algebra.
Father of Charles Sanders Peirce.
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Ernst Eduard Kummer
1810 – 1893
German mathematician mostly active in the field of applied mathematics.
Also worked in abstract algebra and field theory.
Related by marriage to Dirichlet.
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Évariste Galois
1811 – 1832
French mathematician famous for dying at the age of 20 as the result of a duel.
Despite his total collected works amounting to a mere 60 pages or so, he had a significant influence in the development of the field of group theory.
His innovative approach to the problem of the insolubility of the quintic led to the field known now as Galois theory.
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Daniel da Silva
1814 – 1878
Portuguese mathematician who was also a marine officer.
Credited with the Inclusion-Exclusion Principle, which he published in 1854.
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James Joseph Sylvester
1814 – 1897
English mathematician who contributed to matrix theory, invariant theory, number theory, partition theory and combinatorics.
Contributed notably to the growth of mathematics in the USA.
Tutor of Florence Nightingale.
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Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass
1815 – 1897
German mathematician whose main work concerned the rigorous foundations of calculus.
Known as "the father of modern analysis".
- Pioneered the ε − δ definition of continuity.
- Was able thereby to formulate proofs of the Bolzano-Weierstrass Theorem (which had been proved earlier, independently of Weierstrass, by Bernhard Bolzano), the Intermediate Value Theorem and the Heine-Borel Theorem.
- Made significant advancements in the field of calculus of variations.
George Boole
1815 – 1864
Irish mathematician famous for his work in the mathematization of logic, and the invention of Boolean algebra.
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George Stokes
1819 – 1903
Full name and title: Sir George Gabriel Stokes.
Mathematician and physicist who made important contributions to fluid dynamics, optics and mathematical physics.
Known for the Navier-Stokes Equations and Stokes' theorem. He was not the pioneer of the latter; it was named after him for his habit of setting its proof as an examination question.
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Florence Nightingale
1820 – 1910
One of the most famous people in British history, she reformed the system of care in military field hospitals.
However, she was also a gifted mathematician, and contributed significantly to the field of statistics.
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Heinrich Eduard Heine
1821 – 1881
German mathematician who worked mainly in analysis.
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Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev
1821 – 1894
Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev (Russian: Пафну́тий Льво́вич Чебышёв) was a Russian mathematician.
His name can also be written as Chebychev, Chebyshov, Tchebycheff or Tschebyscheff.
His work was mainly in the fields of probability, statistics and number theory.
He is best known for proving Bertrand's Postulate in 1850. It has since been known as the Bertrand-Chebyshev Theorem.
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Arthur Cayley
1821 – 1895
English mathematician most famous for his work in group theory and graph theory.
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Joseph Louis François Bertrand
1822 – 1900
French mathematician working in the fields of number theory, differential geometry, probability theory, economics and thermodynamics.
He conjectured Bertrand's Postulate, in 1845, that there is at least one prime between n and 2n − 2 for every n > 3. This was proved in 1850 by Chebyshev, and hence it is also known as the Bertrand-Chebyshev Theorem.
Also wrote plenty on the history of mathematics.
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Charles Hermite
1822 – 1901
French mathematician who did research mainly in the fields of number theory and analysis.
The first to prove that e is transcendental.
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Leopold Kronecker
1823 – 1891
German mathematician most notable for his view that all of mathematics ought to be based on integers.
Also a proponent of the mathematical philosophy of finitism, a forerunner of intuitionism and constructivism.
His influence on the mathematical establishment was considerable.
His views put him in direct opposition most notably to Georg Cantor, who was exploring the mathematics of the transfinite.
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Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann
1826 – 1866
Most famous for the Riemann Hypothesis, which is (at time of writing, early 21st century) one of the most highly sought-after results in mathematics.
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Ivan Mikheevich Pervushin
1827 – 1900
Full name in Russian: Иван Михеевич Первушин.
Russian priest, who worked in number theory in his spare time.
Most famous for demonstrating the primality of the Mersenne number M61, which then became known as Pervushin's number.
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Richard Dedekind
1831 – 1916
Julius Wilhelm Richard Dedekind was a German mathematician who worked in the fields of abstract algebra, and algebraic number theory.
Most noted for his work on the foundations of the real numbers.
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Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
1832 – 1898
Better known as "Lewis Carroll", Charles Dodgson was a logician, and also an Anglican priest and author.
He is best known nowadays for his Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, not (on the surface) works of mathematics.
His actual mathematical works were idiosyncratic, often focused on making mathematical concepts (in particular, logical syllogisms) accessible to children.
One of the first to treat logical elements with symbols, thus contributing to the birth of symbolic logic.
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Rudolf Lipschitz
1832 – 1903
Full name: Rudolf Otto Sigismund Lipschitz.
German mathematician who worked in many areas, including analysis, number theory and differential geometry.
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Peter Ludwig Mejdell Sylow
1832 – 1918
Ludwig Sylow was a Norwegian mathematician who established some important facts on the topic of subgroups of prime order.
His name is pronounced something like "Soolof".
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Marie Ennemond Camille Jordan
1838 – 1922
Camille Jordan was a French mathematician who founded much of the field of group theory.
Also wrote the influential textbook Cours d'Analyse.
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Julius Petersen
1839 – 1910
Full name: Julius Peter Christian Petersen.
Danish mathematician who worked on many areas of mathematics and wrote several textbooks.
Perhaps best known for the Petersen graph.
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Charles Sanders Peirce
1839 – 1914
American chemist who contributed to the fields of logic and mathematical philosophy, in particular the theory of the use of signs.
Laid some of the groundwork for the mathematical discipline of category theory.
Perceived in 1886 that the functions of logic can be carried out by electronic circuitry.
Son of Benjamin Peirce.
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Ernst Schröder
1841 – 1902
Ernst Schröder (or Schroeder) was a German mathematician active mainly in the field of algebraic logic.
He is best known for his contribution to what is now known as the Cantor-Bernstein-Schroeder Theorem.
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Édouard Lucas
1842 – 1891
Full name: François Édouard Anatole Lucas.
French mathematician best known for his study of the Fibonacci numbers. As a result of his researches, discovered what are now known as the Lucas numbers.
In 1876, proved that the Mersenne number M127 is prime, and discovered that M67 is actually composite.
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Heinrich Martin Weber
1842 – 1913
German mathematician who worked in algebra, number theory, analysis and applications of analysis to mathematical physics.
Formulated the ring axioms.
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Hermann Amandus Schwarz
1843 – 1921
Full name: Karl Hermann Amandus Schwarz.
German mathematician known for his work in the field of complex analysis.
Often misspelt "Schwartz".
Student of Weierstrass.
Best known for his contribution to the Cauchy-Bunyakovsky-Schwarz Inequality.
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Moritz Pasch
1843 – 1930
German mathematician who specialized in the foundations of geometry.
His work served as the inspiration for work by Giuseppe Peano and David Hilbert in their work to re-axiomise the field of geometry.
Best known for his formulation of what is now known as Pasch's Axiom.
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Paul Tannery
1843 – 1904
French mathematician and historian best known for his work on the history of Greek mathematics.
Edited the works of Diophantus, Fermat and Descartes.
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Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor
1845 – 1918
Georg Cantor is the creator of set theory.
He established the importance of correspondence between sets and helped to define the concepts of infinity and well-ordered sets.
He is also famous for stating and proving Cantor's Theorem.
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Sofia Kovalevskaya
1850 – 1891
Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (Russian: Со́фья Васи́льевна Ковале́вская) was the first major Russian female mathematician.
Made contributions to analysis, differential equations and mechanics.
Her name has several alternative transliterations, including Sophie Kowalevski (or occasionally Kowalevsky), which she used on her published work. After moving to Sweden, she called herself Sonya Kovalevskaya.
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[edit] 1851 - 1900 C.E.
Henri Poincaré
1854 – 1912
Full name: Jules Henri Poincaré.
French mathematician and philosopher.
Often referred to as "The last universalist", as he was the last one able to master the whole of mathematics at the time. (Since then the field has grown too large.)
Introduced the field of special relativity.
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Hans von Mangoldt
1854 – 1925
Full name: Hans Carl Friedrich von Mangoldt.
German mathematician who contributed towards the solution of the Prime Number Theorem.
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Charles Émile Picard
1856 – 1941
French mathematician who made significant advances in the fields of:
Son-in-law of Charles Hermite.
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Florian Cajori
1859 – 1930
Swiss-born American mathematician who specialized in (and in fact pioneered) the field of mathematics history.
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Alfred North Whitehead
1861 – 1947
English mathematician who also studied philosophy.
Best known for his co-authorship with Bertrand Russell of Principia Mathematica, published from 1910.
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Frank Nelson Cole
1861 – 1926
American mathematician famous for finding the factors of the Mersenne number M67. (It had already been demonstrated by Édouard Lucas in 1876 that it is not prime, but till this time the factors had not been found.) Cole's demonstration of this in 1903 took the form of a now famous lecture in which he performed the necessary arithmetic on a blackboard without saying a single word.
The American Mathematical Society's Cole Prize was named in his honor.
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David Hilbert
1862 – 1943
One of the most influential mathematicians in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Most famous for the Hilbert 23, a list he delivered in 1900 of 23 problems which were at the time still unsolved.
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Leonard James Rogers
1862 – 1933
English mathematician famous for the Rogers-Ramanujan Identities and for proving a special case of Hölder's inequality.
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Lars Edvard Phragmén
1863 – 1937
Contributed towards the field of complex function theory.
Also contributed towards the field of insurance mathematics.
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Hermann Minkowski
1864 – 1909
Created and developed the field of geometry of numbers.
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Jacques Salomon Hadamard
1865 – 1963
French mathematician who contributed in the fields of:
Most famous for proving the Prime Number Theorem in 1896, independently of Charles de la Vallée Poussin.
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Charles de la Vallée Poussin
1866 – 1962
Full name: Charles-Jean Étienne Gustave Nicolas, Baron de la Vallée Poussin.
Belgian mathematician famous for proving the Prime Number Theorem, independently of Jacques Hadamard in 1896.
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Derrick Norman Lehmer
1867 – 1938
Derrick Norman Lehmer was an American mathematician active mainly in the field of number theory.
The father of Derrick Henry ("Dick") Lehmer.
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Felix Hausdorff
1868 – 1942
German mathematician fundamental in the development of modern topology.
Also active in set theory, measure theory and function theory.
The first to formulate what is now known as the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis.
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Dmitri Fyodorovich Egorov
1869 – 1931
Dmitri Fyodorovich Egorov (Russian: Дмитрий Фёдорович Егоров) was a Russian mathematician is noted for his contributions to differential geometry and analysis.
His religious views caused him to fall foul of the Soviet regime and he died as a result of a hunger strike he embarked upon while in prison for being a "religious sectarian".
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Ernst Leonard Lindelöf
1870 – 1946
Finnish topologist who also worked on differential equations and the gamma function.
Wrote a series of highly-regarded textbooks and published extensively on the history of Finnish mathematics.
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Émile Borel
1871 – 1956
Full name: Félix Édouard Justin Émile Borel.
French mathematician working mainly in measure theory and its applications to probability theory.
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Ernst Zermelo
1871 – 1953
Ernst Friedrich Ferdinand Zermelo German mathematician best known for his work on the foundations of mathematics.
Laid the groundwork (later to be enhanced by Abraham Fraenkel) for what are now known as the Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms of axiomatic set theory.
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Bertrand Russell
1872 – 1970
Full name: Bertrand Arthur William Russell, the 3rd Earl Russell.
British philosopher, mathematician and logician.
Best known for his co-authorship with Alfred North Whitehead of Principia Mathematica, published from 1910.
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Constantin Carathéodory
1873 – 1950
Otherwise known as Constantine Karatheodori (in Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Καραθεοδωρή).
Greek mathematician who contributed to the theory of functions of a real variable, the calculus of variations and measure theory.
Also worked on rationalisation of the theory of thermodynamics.
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René-Louis Baire
1874 – 1932
French mathematician who worked mainly on the theory of continuity and irrational numbers.
Most famous for the Baire Category Theorem.
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R.E. Powers
Chronology approximate
American mathematician who discovered the 10th and 11th Mersenne primes 289 − 1 (in 1911) and 2107 − 1 in 1914.
In 1916, he determined that 2241 − 1 is composite.
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Issai Schur
1875 – 1941
Jewish mathematician of Russian descent working mainly in group theory and combinatorics.
Worked most of his life in Germany, then emigrated to Palestine in 1939 as a result of political persecution, and died a pauper.
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Henri Léon Lebesgue
1875 – 1941
French mathematician famous mainly for his work on the theory of integral calculus.
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Francesco Paolo Cantelli
1875 – 1966
Italian mathematician best known for his work in probability theory, and for the Borel-Cantelli Lemma.
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Godfrey Harold Hardy
1877 – 1947
English mathematician noted for his work in number theory and analysis.
Also famous for his discovery and mentorship of Srinivasa Ramanujan.
Non-mathematicians remember him mainly for his book A Mathematician's Apology.
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Robert Daniel Carmichael
1879 – 1967
American mathematician who contributed mainly to the fields of differential equations and number theory.
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Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer
1881 – 1966
Known to his friends as "Bertus".
Dutch mathematician working in topology, set theory, measure theory and complex analysis.
Founded the mathematical philosophy of intuitionism.
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Maurice Kraitchik
1882 – 1957
Belgian mathematician and writer who wrote on number theory and recreational mathematics.
Proved in 1922 that the Mersenne number M257 is composite, contrary to the claims of Marin Mersenne.
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Henry Maurice Sheffer
1882 – 1964
American logician famous for proving in 1913 that Boolean algebra can be defined by using just the logical NAND operator. (This had previously been noted by Peirce in 1880 but not published till 1933.)
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Wacław Sierpiński
1882 – 1969
Wacław Franciszek Sierpiński was a Polish mathematician who made considerable contributions to the fields of set theory, number theory and topology, among others.
Most famous for the Sierpiński triangle.
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Eric Temple Bell
1883 – 1960
Scottish mathematician now more famous for his popular work on the history of mathematics Men of Mathematics.
Did research in number theory and analysis, and (less than successfully) worked on putting umbral calculus on a sound logical footing.
Also noted (in certain circles) for writing science fiction (under the pseudonym John Taine) and poetry.
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James Henry Weaver
1883 – 1942
American mathematician who co-authored books with Robert Daniel Carmichael.
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George David Birkhoff
1884 – 1944
American mathematician best known for what is now known as the Ergodic Theorem.
The father of Garrett Birkhoff.
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Dénes Kőnig
1884 – 1944
Dénes Kőnig was a Hungarian mathematician who was a pioneer of graph theory.
The son of Gyula Kőnig.
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Thoralf Albert Skolem
1887 – 1963
Norwegian mathematician who worked mainly in the fields of mathematical logic and set theory.
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George Pólya
1887 – 1985
George Pólya (Hungarian name: Pólya György) was a Hungarian mathematician best known nowadays for the books he wrote.
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Zygmunt Janiszewski
1888 – 1920
Polish mathematician whose work was mainly in topology.
Co-founded the journal Fundamenta Mathematicae but died of influenza before its first issue.
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Paul Isaac Bernays
1888 – 1977
Swiss mathematician who worked mainly in mathematical logic and axiomatic set theory.
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Abraham Fraenkel
1891 – 1965
Abraham Halevi (Adolf) Fraenkel (in Hebrew: אברהם הלוי (אדולף) פרנקל) was a German-born Israeli Hungarian mathematician best known for his work on axiomatic set theory.
He improved Ernst Zermelo's axiomatic system, and out of that work came the Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms.
He also wrote on topics in the history of mathematics.
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Stefan Banach
1892 – 1945
Polish mathematician who founded the modern field of functional analysis.
Most famous for his collaborative paper with Alfred Tarski in 1924, in which the Banach-Tarski Paradox was raised. This demonstrated that a contra-intuitive truth could be deduced from the ZFC axioms of set theory, specifically, by assuming the truth of the Axiom of Choice. Impassioned controversy rages to this day.
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Kazimierz Kuratowski
1896 – 1980
Sometimes Westernised as Casimir.
Polish mathematician whose work was mainly in topology and metric spaces.
Pioneered, with Alfred Tarski and Wacław Sierpiński, the theory of Polish spaces.
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Heinz Prüfer
1896 – 1934
Ernst Paul Heinz Prüfer was a German mathematician who worked on abelian groups, algebraic numbers, knot theory and Sturm-Liouville theory.
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Lincoln La Paz
1897 – 1985
American mathematician and pioneer in the field of meteorics.
During World War II, served as research mathematician at the New Mexico Proving Grounds.
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Vojtěch Jarník
1897 – 1970
Czech mathematician who worked mainly in number theory and analysis.
Also produced some results in lattice theory and graph theory.
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Helmut Hasse
1898 – 1979
German mathematician who worked mainly in algebraic number theory and class field theory.
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Øystein Ore
1899 – 1968
Norwegian mathematician whose work was mainly in graph theory, although also known for his work in ring theory and Galois theory.
One of the early founders of lattice theory.
Also known for writing and editing several books, including a few on various aspects of the history of mathematics.
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[edit] 1901 - 2000 C.E.
Otto Schreier
1901 – 1929
Austrian mathematician who made great advances in group theory before dying unfortunately young of sepsis.
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Alfred Tarski
1902 – 1983
Name at birth: Alfred Teitelbaum.
Polish mathematician who worked in several fields of mathematics, in particular logic.
Most famous for the Banach-Tarski Paradox (with Stefan Banach) in 1924.
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Frank Plumpton Ramsey
1903 – 1930
British mathematican most famous for founding the field of what is now called Ramsey Theory.
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Andrey Kolmogorov
1903 – 1987
Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov (Russian: Андрей Николаевич Колмогоров) was a Russian mathematician active in various fields, including probability theory, topology and intuitionistic logic.
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Alonzo Church
1903 – 1995
American mathematician who pioneered in the field of computability theory and the foundations of computer science.
Best known for his lambda calculus, Church's Theorem and Church's Thesis.
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John von Neumann
1903 – 1957
Born Neumann János Lajos in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Made major contributions to a vast range of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, continuous geometry, economics, game theory, computer science, numerical analysis and statistics, to name but a few.
He is generally regarded as one of the foremost mathematicians in modern history.
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Philip Hall
1904 – 1982
English mathematician active in the field of group theory.
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Derrick Henry Lehmer
1905 – 1991
Derrick Henry ("Dick") Lehmer was an American mathematician active mainly in the field of number theory.
Most famous for designing the Lucas-Lehmer Test for determining the primality of Mersenne numbers.
The son of Derrick Norman Lehmer, and married to Emma Lehmer, née Trotskaia.
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Edward Maitland Wright
1906 – 2005
Sir Edward Maitland Wright was an English mathematician best known for co-authoring the 1938 work An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers, with G. H. Hardy.
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Kurt Gödel
1906 – 1978
Austrian mathematician who emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1940.
Famous for his first and second incompleteness theorems.
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Max August Zorn
1906 – 1993
German-born American mathematician who worked in algebra, set theory and numerical analysis.
Best known for Zorn's Lemma, also known as the Kuratowski-Zorn Lemma, which he discovered in 1935, independently of Kazimierz Kuratowski who had discovered it in 1922.
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Andrey Nikolayevich Tychonoff
1906 – 1993
Russian mathematician (Russian: Андрей Николаевич Тихонов) best known for his work in topology.
His name is also frequently transliterated Tikhonov.
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Emma Markovna Lehmer
1906 – 2007
Emma Markovna Lehmer (née Trotskaia) was a Russian-born mathematician active mainly in the field of number theory.
The wife of Derrick Henry ("Dick") Lehmer, with whom she was a frequent collaborator.
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Hassler Whitney
1907 – 1989
American mathematician who worked mainly in topology.
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Lars Valerian Ahlfors
1907 – 1996
Finnish mathematician noted for his work in analysis.
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Herbert Seifert
1907 – 1996
Full name: Karl Johannes Herbert Seifert. Sometimes reported as Herbert Karl Johannes Seifert.
German mathematician who worked mainly in topology and knot theory.
Collaborated extensively with William Threlfall.
One of the few who managed to weather the 2nd World War without upsetting either the Nazis or the Allies.
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Harold Davenport
1907 – 1969
English mathematician who worked mainly in number theory.
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Lev Semenovich Pontryagin
1908 – 1988
Lev Semenovich Pontryagin (Russian: Лев Семёнович Понтрягин) made major discoveries, mainly in the field of geometric topology.
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Stephen Cole Kleene
1909 – 1994
One of the great pioneers in the field of recursion theory.
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Bernhard Neumann
1909 – 2002
Full name: Bernhard Hermann Neumann.
German-born mathematician who was one of the leaders in the field of group theory.
Husband of Hanna Neumann and father of Peter M. Neumann.
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Garrett Birkhoff
1911 – 1996
American mathematician mainly working in mathematical physics and abstract algebra.
Also wrote plenty of text books: his Lattice Theory (1940) is much cited.
The son of George David Birkhoff.
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Ernst Witt
1911 – 1991
German mathematician working mainly in the field of quadratic forms and algebraic function fields.
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Raphael Mitchel Robinson
1911 – 1995
American mathematician who worked on mathematical logic, set theory, geometry, number theory and combinatorics.
One of the early computer pioneers, he implemented a program for the Lucas-Lehmer Test and in 1952 determined or confirmed the primality of all the Mersenne numbers up to M2304. In the process, he discovered the Mersenne primes M521,M607,M1279,M2203 and M2281.
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Alan Mathison Turing
1912 – 1954
English mathematician who is often considered to be the "father of modern computer science".
Famous for his conception of the Turing machine and the Turing test.
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Paul Erdős
1913 – 1996
In Hungarian: Erdős Pál. Hungarian mathematician known for the vast quantity of work he did (approximately 1500 papers).
Spent his entire life travelling the world looking for interesting mathematical problems to solve.
Perhaps most famous for his widespread collaborations (about 500 collaborators), from which the concept of the Erdős Number emerged.
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Israel Gelfand
1913 – 2009
Israel Moiseevich Gelfand or Israïl Moyseyovich Gel'fand was a Soviet and Russian mathematician who contributed considerably to many branches of mathematics, including group theory, representation theory and linear algebra.
Did much good work in the field of education.
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Andrzej Mostowski
1913 – 1975
Polish mathematician
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Hanna Neumann
1914 – 1971
Full maiden name: Johanna von Caemmerer.
German-born mathematician active in the field of group theory.
Wife of Bernhard Neumann and mother of Peter M. Neumann.
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Ivan Morton Niven
1915 – 1999
Canadian-American mathematician, most noted for solving most of Waring's Problem.
Also notable for Niven Numbers and Niven's Constant.
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Bryant Tuckerman
1915 – 2002
American mathematician who discovered, on March 4th, 1971, the 24th Mersenne prime: 219937 − 1.
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Graham Higman
1917 – 2008
English mathematician active in the field of group theory.
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Elizabeth Scott
1917 – 1988
Elizabeth Leonard ("Betty") Scott was an American mathematician active in the field of group theory, more renowned for her work in astronomy.
Also involved (with Jerzy Neyman) in the science of rainmaking by cloud seeding.
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Raymond Smullyan
b. 1919
Raymond Merrill Smullyan (known as "Ray") is an American mathematician and logician, noted for the accessibility of his books on logic.
He is also a concert pianist and magician.
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Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin
1919 – 1984
Name in Russian: Владимир Абрамович Рохлин.
Noted for his work in topology.
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Kenneth Eugene Iverson
1920 – 2004
Canadian computer scientist best known for his invention of the computer language APL.
Also known for the notation known as Iverson's convention.
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Robert C. Prim
b. 1921
Robert Clay Prim is an American mathematician working mainly in the field of computer science.
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John Warner Backus
1924 – 2007
American computer scientist, significantly involved in the development of several computer languages, including ALGOL and FORTRAN.
The metalanguage Backus-Naur Form (BNF) was named after him (who invented it) and Peter Naur (who refined it).
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Gabriel Andrew Dirac
1925 – 1984
Swiss mathematician who mainly worked in graph theory.
Stepson of Paul Dirac and nephew of Eugene Wigner.
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John C. Shepherdson
b. 1926
Professor emeritus at the University of Bristol, England.
Co-designer (with Howard Sturgis) of the Unlimited Register Machine, a refinement of the Turing machine.
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Joseph Kruskal
b. 1928
Joseph Bernard Kruskal, Jr. is an American mathematician working in the fields of statistics, computer science and graph theory, among others.
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Wolfgang Haken
b. 1928
German mathematician mainly involved in topology where the bulk of his work has been on 3-dimensional manifolds.
In 1976, along with Kenneth Appel, proved the Four Color Theorem with the help of a computer.
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Donald Bruce Gillies
1928 – 1975
Canadian mathematician and computer scientist.
In 1963, discovered the 21st, 22nd and 23rd Mersenne primes with the aid of the ILLIAC II computer. The largest of these (
) was reported in the Guinness Book of Records and immortalised on all mail sent from the postroom of the University of Illinois.
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Peter Naur
b. 1928
Danish astronomer, computer scientist and empirical philosopher who was significantly involved in the development of ALGOL.
The metalanguage Backus-Naur Form was named after John Backus (who invented it) and him (who refined it), but would rather it were called Backus Normal Form.
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Donald G. Higman
1928 – 2006
American mathematician noted for his discovery of the Higman-Sims Group, with Charles C. Sims.
His work contributed towards the discovery of several of the sporadic simple groups.
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Hans Ivar Riesel
b. 1929
Swedish mathematician who found the 18th Mersenne prime 23217 − 1 in 1957.
He held the record for the highest known prime from 1957 to 1961, when Alexander Hurwitz found the next two.
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Edsger W. Dijkstra
1930 – 2002
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra was a hugely influential Dutch pioneer of computer science.
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Donald J. Newman
1930 – 2007
American mathematician active in the fields of Complex Analysis, Number Theory and Approximation Theory.
Best known for his elementary proof of the Prime Number Theorem.
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Richard Montague
1930 – 1971
Richard Merett Montague was an American mathematician and logician.
Proved that ZFC must contain infintely many axioms.
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Kenneth Appel
b. 1932
Kenneth Ira Appel is an American mathematician who in 1976, along with Wolfgang Haken, proved the Four Color Theorem with the help of a computer.
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Chen Jingrun
1933 – 1996
Simplified Chinese: 陈景润; traditional Chinese: 陳景潤; pinyin: Chén Jǐngrùn; Wade-Giles: Ch'en Chingjun. Chen is his family name.
Chinese mathematician who made significant inroads into Goldbach's Conjecture by proving what is now referred to as Chen's Theorem.
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Azriel Levy
b. 1934
Israeli mathematician and logician.
Professor emeritus at the University of Jerusalem.
Worked on several results investigating the Axiom of Choice.
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Hillel Furstenberg
b. 1935
Hillel (Harry) Furstenberg (Hebrew: הלל (הארי) פורסטנברג) is an Israeli mathematician famous for his proof, using techniques from topology, on the infinitude of primes.
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Ronald Lewis Graham
b. 1935
American mathematician famous for his work in the field of Ramsey theory.
Notable for introducing Graham's number, the largest number ever yet encountered in mathematics.
Popularized the concept of the Erdős number.
Husband of Fan Chung Graham, friend and colleague of Paul Erdős.
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Nicolas Bourbaki
established 1935
Nicolas Bourbaki is the name given to a group of (mainly) French mathematicians whose aim was to present an account of the entirety of modern mathematics, with an emphasis on rigour and generality.
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Howard E. Sturgis
1936 – 1990
American mathematician and computer scientist.
Co-designer (with John Shepherdson) of the Unlimited Register Machine, a refinement of the Turing machine.
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Alexander Hurwitz
b. 1937
American mathematician who found the 19th and 20th Mersenne primes 24253 − 1 and 24423 − 1 in 1961.
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Charles Coffin Sims
b. 1938
American mathematician active in the field of group theory.
With Donald G. Higman, discovered the Higman-Sims Group.
Developed software leading up to the discovery of the Lyons Group (also known as Lyons-Sims Group) and O'Nan Group (also known as O'Nan-Sims Group).
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Donald Ervin Knuth
b. 1938
Pronounced "K-Nooth".
Hugely influential American computer scientist famous for his multi-volume The Art of Computer Programming, still famously a work in progress.
The "father of analysis of algorithms".
Pioneered research and design of the representation of mathematics via computer.[2] Author of Computers and Typesetting, another multi-volume work.
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Peter Michael Neumann
b. 1940
British mathematician working mainly in the field of group theory.
Famous for solving Alhazen's Problem in 1997.
Son of Bernhard Neumann and Hanna Neumann.
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Gyula O. H. Katona
b. 1941
Hungarian mathematician best known for his work in the field of combinatorial set theory.
Proved the Erdős-Ko-Rado Theorem.
Father of Gyula Y. Katona, who works in similar fields.
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Edmund Frederick Robertson
b. 1943
Scots mathematician currently a Professor of Mathematics at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
He is one of the owners of the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive along with John J. O'Connor.
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Douglas Richard Hofstadter
b. 1945
American mathematician and philosopher most noted for the books he has written.
In particular, famous for being the author of Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid.
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John J. O'Connor
b. 1945
English-born mathematician who has worked in the fields of topology and computational algebra.
He is one of the owners of the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive along with Edmund F. Robertson.
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Ian Stewart
b. 1945
Ian Nicholas Stewart is an English mathematician who has made considerable contributions to the field of catastrophe theory.
He is more famous, however, as a popular writer and publicist of mathematics.
As one of the contributors to the Science of Discworld series, he was created an honorary Wizard of Unseen University.
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Keith Devlin
b. 1947
English author and publicist of mathematics.
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Fan Chung
b. 1949
Fan Rong K Chung Graham (金芳蓉, pinyin: Jīn Fāngróng) is a Taiwanese-American mathematician noted for her work in the areas of spectral graph theory, extremal graph theory and random graphs.
Generalized the Erdős-Rényi model.
Wife of Ronald Graham, friend and colleague of Paul Erdős.
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Andrew John Wiles
b. 1953
English mathematician famous for proving Fermat's Last Theorem, which he completed in 1994.
"I think I'll stop there."
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Oren Patashnik
b. 1954
American computer scientist best known for co-authoring Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science with Ronald L. Graham and Donald E. Knuth.
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Gordon Spence
b. 1959
British IT manager and computer hobbyist who found the Mersenne prime
.
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Landon Curt Noll
b. 1960
American mathematician best noted for finding the two Mersenne primes
and
while still at high school (the first together with Laura Nickel, now Ariel Glenn).
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Grigori Perelman
b. 1966
Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman (Russian: Григорий Яковлевич Перельман), is a Russian mathematician famous for solving Thurston's Geometrization Conjecture, and hence completing the proof of the Poincaré Conjecture.
Also known as "Grisha".
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Joel Armengaud
b. 1967
Frenchman who found the Mersenne prime
.
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[edit] References
- ↑ Eric Temple Bell, Men of Mathematics, 1937, Victor Gollancz, London.
- ↑ It is impossible accurately to assess the impact of TeX on the ability to communicate mathematics via computer. This website would not have been possible without it.

