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]

Contents 1 B.C.E. 1.1 Thales 1.2 Pythagoras of Samos 1.3 Zeno of Elea 1.4 Oenopides of Chios 1.5 Socrates 1.6 Plato 1.7 Eudoxus of Cnidus 1.8 Aristotle 1.9 Aristaeus the Elder 1.10 Aristarchus of Samos 1.11 Euclid 1.12 Archimedes 1.13 Eratosthenes of Cyrene 1.14 Apollonius of Perga 1.15 Piṅgalá 2 0 - 500 C.E. 2.1 Heron of Alexandria 2.2 Nicomachus of Gerasa 2.3 Menelaus of Alexandria 2.4 Ptolemy 2.5 Diophantus of Alexandria 2.6 Iamblichus Chalcidensis 2.7 Pappus of Alexandria 2.8 Sun Tzu 2.9 Theon of Alexandria 2.10 Hypatia of Alexandria 3 501 - 1000 C.E. 3.1 Brahmagupta 3.2 Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi 3.3 Abū Bakr al-Karajī 3.4 Alhazen Ibn al-Haytham 4 1001 - 1500 C.E. 4.1 Chia Hsien 4.2 Omar Khayyám 4.3 Bhāskara II Āchārya 4.4 Leonardo Fibonacci 4.5 Yang Hui 4.6 Chu Shih-Chieh 4.7 Piero Della Francesca 4.8 Scipione del Ferro 4.9 Petrus Apianus 4.10 Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia 5 1501 - 1600 C.E. 5.1 Gerolamo Cardano 5.2 Robert Recorde 5.3 Lodovico Ferrari 5.4 Rafael Bombelli 5.5 Pietro Antonio Cataldi 5.6 John Napier 5.7 Henry Briggs 5.8 William Oughtred 5.9 Willebrord Snell 5.10 Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac 5.11 Thomas Hobbes 5.12 Marin Mersenne 5.13 Albert Girard 5.14 René Descartes 5.15 Pierre de Fermat 6 1601 - 1700 C.E. 6.1 Antoine Gombaud 6.2 John Wallis 6.3 Blaise Pascal 6.4 Giovanni Domenico Cassini 6.5 Georg Mohr 6.6 Isaac Newton 6.7 Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz 6.8 Giovanni Ceva 6.9 Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus 6.10 Michel Rolle 6.11 Jacob Bernoulli 6.12 Guillaume de l'Hôpital 6.13 Abraham de Moivre 6.14 Johann Bernoulli 6.15 Pierre Raymond de Montmort 6.16 Brook Taylor 6.17 Nicolaus I Bernoulli 6.18 James Stirling 6.19 Nicolaus II Bernoulli 6.20 Colin Maclaurin 6.21 Daniel Bernoulli 7 1701 - 1800 C.E. 7.1 Thomas Bayes 7.2 Leonhard Paul Euler 7.3 Johann II Bernoulli 7.4 Matthew Stewart 7.5 Maria Gaëtana Agnesi 7.6 Étienne Bézout 7.7 Alexandre-Théophile Vandermonde 7.8 Edward Waring 7.9 Joseph Louis Lagrange 7.10 John Wilson 7.11 Johann III Bernoulli 7.12 Gaspard Monge 7.13 Pierre-Simon de Laplace 7.14 Lorenzo Mascheroni 7.15 Adrien-Marie Legendre 7.16 Jakob II Bernoulli 7.17 Christian Kramp 7.18 Joseph Fourier 7.19 François Joseph Servois 7.20 Johann Georg von Soldner 7.21 Sophie Germain 7.22 Peter Barlow 7.23 Carl Friedrich Gauss 7.24 Siméon-Denis Poisson 7.25 Bernhard Placidus Johann Nepomuk Bolzano 7.26 Jacques Philippe Marie Binet 7.27 Jean-Victor Poncelet 7.28 Augustin Louis Cauchy 7.29 August Ferdinand Möbius 7.30 Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky 7.31 Gabriel Lamé 7.32 Jakob Steiner 7.33 Andreas Freiherr von Ettingshausen 8 1801 - 1850 C.E. 8.1 Niels Henrik Abel 8.2 Jacques Charles François Sturm 8.3 Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi 8.4 Viktor Yakovlevich Bunyakovsky 8.5 Johann Lejeune Dirichlet 8.6 William Rowan Hamilton 8.7 Augustus De Morgan 8.8 Johann Benedict Listing 8.9 Joseph Liouville 8.10 Benjamin Peirce 8.11 Ernst Eduard Kummer 8.12 Évariste Galois 8.13 Daniel da Silva 8.14 James Joseph Sylvester 8.15 Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass 8.16 George Boole 8.17 George Stokes 8.18 Florence Nightingale 8.19 Heinrich Eduard Heine 8.20 Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev 8.21 Arthur Cayley 8.22 Joseph Louis François Bertrand 8.23 Charles Hermite 8.24 Leopold Kronecker 8.25 Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann 8.26 Ivan Mikheevich Pervushin 8.27 Richard Dedekind 8.28 Charles Lutwidge Dodgson 8.29 Rudolf Lipschitz 8.30 Peter Ludwig Mejdell Sylow 8.31 Marie Ennemond Camille Jordan 8.32 Julius Petersen 8.33 Charles Sanders Peirce 8.34 Ernst Schröder 8.35 Édouard Lucas 8.36 Heinrich Martin Weber 8.37 Hermann Amandus Schwarz 8.38 Moritz Pasch 8.39 Paul Tannery 8.40 Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor 8.41 Sofia Kovalevskaya 9 1851 - 1900 C.E. 9.1 Henri Poincaré 9.2 Hans von Mangoldt 9.3 Charles Émile Picard 9.4 Florian Cajori 9.5 Alfred North Whitehead 9.6 Frank Nelson Cole 9.7 David Hilbert 9.8 Leonard James Rogers 9.9 Lars Edvard Phragmén 9.10 Hermann Minkowski 9.11 Jacques Salomon Hadamard 9.12 Charles de la Vallée Poussin 9.13 Derrick Norman Lehmer 9.14 Felix Hausdorff 9.15 Dmitri Fyodorovich Egorov 9.16 Ernst Leonard Lindelöf 9.17 Émile Borel 9.18 Ernst Zermelo 9.19 Bertrand Russell 9.20 Constantin Carathéodory 9.21 René-Louis Baire 9.22 R.E. Powers 9.23 Issai Schur 9.24 Henri Léon Lebesgue 9.25 Francesco Paolo Cantelli 9.26 Godfrey Harold Hardy 9.27 Robert Daniel Carmichael 9.28 Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer 9.29 Maurice Kraitchik 9.30 Henry Maurice Sheffer 9.31 Wacław Sierpiński 9.32 Eric Temple Bell 9.33 James Henry Weaver 9.34 George David Birkhoff 9.35 Dénes Kőnig 9.36 Thoralf Albert Skolem 9.37 George Pólya 9.38 Zygmunt Janiszewski 9.39 Paul Isaac Bernays 9.40 Abraham Fraenkel 9.41 Stefan Banach 9.42 Kazimierz Kuratowski 9.43 Heinz Prüfer 9.44 Lincoln La Paz 9.45 Vojtěch Jarník 9.46 Helmut Hasse 9.47 Øystein Ore 10 1901 - 2000 C.E. 10.1 Otto Schreier 10.2 Alfred Tarski 10.3 Frank Plumpton Ramsey 10.4 Andrey Kolmogorov 10.5 Alonzo Church 10.6 John von Neumann 10.7 Philip Hall 10.8 Derrick Henry Lehmer 10.9 Edward Maitland Wright 10.10 Kurt Gödel 10.11 Max August Zorn 10.12 Andrey Nikolayevich Tychonoff 10.13 Emma Markovna Lehmer 10.14 Hassler Whitney 10.15 Lars Valerian Ahlfors 10.16 Herbert Seifert 10.17 Harold Davenport 10.18 Lev Semenovich Pontryagin 10.19 Stephen Cole Kleene 10.20 Bernhard Neumann 10.21 Garrett Birkhoff 10.22 Ernst Witt 10.23 Raphael Mitchel Robinson 10.24 Alan Mathison Turing 10.25 Paul Erdős 10.26 Israel Gelfand 10.27 Andrzej Mostowski 10.28 Hanna Neumann 10.29 Ivan Morton Niven 10.30 Bryant Tuckerman 10.31 Graham Higman 10.32 Elizabeth Scott 10.33 Raymond Smullyan 10.34 Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin 10.35 Kenneth Eugene Iverson 10.36 Robert C. Prim 10.37 John Warner Backus 10.38 Gabriel Andrew Dirac 10.39 John C. Shepherdson 10.40 Joseph Kruskal 10.41 Wolfgang Haken 10.42 Donald Bruce Gillies 10.43 Peter Naur 10.44 Donald G. Higman 10.45 Hans Ivar Riesel 10.46 Edsger W. Dijkstra 10.47 Donald J. Newman 10.48 Richard Montague 10.49 Kenneth Appel 10.50 Chen Jingrun 10.51 Azriel Levy 10.52 Hillel Furstenberg 10.53 Ronald Lewis Graham 10.54 Nicolas Bourbaki 10.55 Howard E. Sturgis 10.56 Alexander Hurwitz 10.57 Charles Coffin Sims 10.58 Donald Ervin Knuth 10.59 Peter Michael Neumann 10.60 Gyula O. H. Katona 10.61 Edmund Frederick Robertson 10.62 Douglas Richard Hofstadter 10.63 John J. O'Connor 10.64 Ian Stewart 10.65 Keith Devlin 10.66 Fan Chung 10.67 Andrew John Wiles 10.68 Oren Patashnik 10.69 Gordon Spence 10.70 Landon Curt Noll 10.71 Grigori Perelman 10.72 Joel Armengaud 11 References

[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 24^o,

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.

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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.

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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.

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[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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 2^p − 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.

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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.

• His work formed the basis for work by many others, including Gauss and Abel.

• 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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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:

• Complex Analysis
• Differential Equations
• Algebraic Topology

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:

• Number Theory
• Complex Function Theory
• Differential Geometry
• Partial Differential Equations

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

1. ↑ Eric Temple Bell, Men of Mathematics, 1937, Victor Gollancz, London.
2. ↑ 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.