Mathematicians
Just a few of the people who have contributed to our modern use of mathematics and the sciences. If you know of more to add, please let me know.
Please note, I built this page for an older site where I had forced all letters to lowercase, so the capitalization is inconsistent.
A-D || E-H || I-L || M-P|| Q-T || U-X || Y-Z
A
- Al-Khwarizmi
-
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (c 780 - c 850 CE) was a Muslim mathematician whose works
introduced our modern numerals (the Hindu Arabic numerals) to Europe, and the title of his book
kitab al-jabr wa al-muqabalah provided the source for the term algebra.
His name is the
source for the term algorithm.
[1]
- Apollonius
-
Apollonius of Perga (262 - 190 BCE), a mathematician who studied in Alexandria under pupils
of Euclid, wrote works that extended Euclid's work in geometry, particularly focusing on conic
sections.
[1]
- Archimedes
-
Archimedes (c 290 - c 211 BCE) studied at Alexandria ad then lived in Syracuse. He wrote
extensively on mathematics and developed formulas for the volume and surface area of a sphere,
and a way to calculate the circumference of a circle. He also developed the principal of
floating bodies and invented military devices that delayed the capture of the city by the Romans.
[1]
- Aristotle
-
Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE) wrote about many areas of human knowledge, including the field
of logic. He was a student of Plato and also a tutor to Alexander the Great.
[1]
B
- Bayes
-
Thomas Bayes (1702 - 1761 CE) was an English mathematician who studied probability and statistical
inference.
[1]
- Bernoulli
-
Jakob Bernoulli (1655 - 1705 CE) was a Swiss mathematician who studied concepts in what is now
the calculus of variations, particularly the catenary curve. His brother Johann Bernoulli
( 1667
to 1748 CE) also was a mathematician investigating these issues. Daniel Bernoulli
(1700 to 1782 CE, son of Johann) investigated mathematics and other areas. He developed Bernoulli's theorem in
fluid mechanics, which governs the design of airplane wings.
[1]
- Bolyai
-
Janos Bolyai (1802 - 1860 CE) was a Hungarian mathematician who developed a version of
non-Euclidian geometry.
[1]
- Boole
-
George Boole (1815 - 1865 CE) was an English mathematician who developed the symbolic analysis
of logic now known as Boolean algebra, which is used in the design of digital computers.
[1]
C
- Chebysheu
-
Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev (1821 - 1894 CE) was a Russian mathematician who studied probability,
among other areas of mathematics.
[1]
D
- de Morgan
-
Augustus De Morgan (1806 - 1871 CE) was an English mathematician who studied logic.
[1]
- Descartes
-
Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650 CE) was a French mathematician and philosopher who is noted
for the sentence "I think, therefore I am" and for developing the concept now known as
rectangular, or Cartesian coordinates.
[1]
E
- Eratosthenes
-
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276 - 194 BCE) was a Greek mathematician and astronomer who is the first person
known to have calculated the circumference of the Earth.
[1]
- Euclid
-
Euclid (c 300 BCE) was a Greek mathematician who lived in Alexandria and is noted for his treatise on
geometry, Elements, which is focused on developing a logical structure with proofs. Much of
the work is of the nature of a textbook based on work by earlier writers, but the completeness of the
work made it one of the most influential mathematical works of all time. The geometry of out everyday
world is still known as Euclidian geometry.
[1]
- Euler
-
Leonhard Euler (1707 - 1783 CE), a Swiss mathematician who worked much of his life in St.
Petersburg
and Berlin, advanced mathematical ideas in many areas, including analytic geometry, calculus,
trigonometry, the theory of complex numbers, and number theory. He also is responsible for much
mathematical notation that is now common, including Σ for summation, e for the
base of the natural logarithms, ƒ() for functions, π for
circumference of a circle of diameter 1, and i for √-1.
[1]
F
- Fermat
-
Pierre de Fermat (1601 - 1665 CE) was a French mathematician who developed number theory, worked on
ideas that later became known as calculus, and corresponded with Pascal on probability theory.
[1]
- Fourier
-
Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768 - 1830 CE) was a French mathematician who studied differential
equations of heat conduction, and developed the concept now known as Fourier series.
[1]
G
- Galois
-
Evariste Galois (1811 - 1832 CE) was a French mathematician who made crucial contributions to
group theory and applied this to the study of the solvability of polynomial equations.
[1]
- Gauss
-
Carl Friedrich gauss (1777 - 1855 CE) was a German mathematician and astronomer who studied errors
of measurement (so the normal curve is sometimes called the Gaussian error curve); developed a
way to construct a 17-sided regular polygon with geometric construction; developed a law that
says the electric flux over a closed surface is proportional to the charge inside the surface (this
law is now included as one of Maxwell's equations); and studied the theory of complex numbers.
[1]
- Gödel
-
Kurt Gödel (1906 - 1978 CE) was an Austrian born U.S. mathematician who developed
Gödel's
incompleteness theorem.
[1]
H
- Researching
I
- Researching
J
- Researching
K
- Kepler
-
Johannes Kepler (1571 - 1630 CE) was a German astronomer who used observational data to express
the motion of the planets according to three mathematical laws: (1) planets move along orbits
shaped like ellipses, with the sun at one focus; (2) a radius vector connecting the sun to the
planets sweeps out equal areas in equal times (this means that a planet travels fastest when
closest to the sun); (3) the square of the orbital period is proportional to the cube of the mean
distance from the planet to the sun.
[1]
- Kovaleskaya
-
Sofya Kovaleskaya (1850 - 1891 CE) was a mathematician who worked in Germany and
Sweden and made
important contributions in differential equations.
[1]
L
- Lagrange
-
Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736 - 1813 CE) was an Italian-French mathematician who developed ideas in
celestial mechanics, calculus of variations and number theory.
[1]
- Laplace
-
Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749 - 1827 CE) was a French astronomer and mathematician who investigated the
motion of the planets of the solar system.
[1]
- Leibniz
-
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 - 1716 CE) was a German mathematician, philosopher, and political
advisor, who was one of the developers of calculus (independently of his rival Newton).
[1]
- Lobachevsky
-
Nikolay Lobachevsky (1792 - 1856 CE) was a Russian mathematician who developed a version of
non-Euclidian geometry.
[1]
M
- Maclaurin
-
Colin MacLaurin (1698 - 1746 CE) was a Scottish mathematician who extended the field of calculus.
[1]
N
- Napier
-
John Napier (1550 - 1617 CE) was a Scottish mathematician who developed the concept of logarithms.
[1]
- Newton
-
Sir Isaac Newton (1643 - 1727 CE) was an English mathematician and scientist who developed the
theory of gravitation and laws of motion, designed a reflecting telescope using a parapoloid
mirror, used a prism to split white light into component colors, and was one of the
inventors of
calculus (independently of his rival Leibniz).
[1]
- Noether
-
Emmy Noether (1882 - 1935 CE) was a German mathematician who contributed to abstract algebra.
[1]
O
- Researching
P
- Pascal
-
Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662 CE) was a French mathematician who developed the modern theory of
probability, invented a calculating machine using wheels to represent numbers, studied fluid
pressure, and wrote about religion.
[1]
- Plato
-
Plato (428 - 348 BCE), one of the greatest of ancient Greek philosophers, established the
Academy at Athens with these words over the entrance: "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter
here." The five regular polyhedra are sometimes called Platonic Solids.
[1]
- Poisson
-
Simeon-Denis Poisson (1781 - 1840 CE) was a French mathematician who made contributions to
celestial mechanics, probability theory, and the theory of electricity and magnetism.
[1]
- Pythagoras
-
Pythagoras (c 580 - c 500 BCE) was a Greek philosopher and mathematicians who founded a
brotherhood that developed religious and mathematical ideas.
[1]
Q
- Researching
R
- Riemann
-
Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (1826 - 1866 CE) was a German mathematician who developed a
version of non-Euclidian geometry in which there are no parallel lines. This concept
was used by Einstein in the development of relativity theory. He also made many other
contributions in number theory and analysis.
[1]
S
- Researching
T
- Taylor
-
Brook Taylor (1685 - 1731 CE) was a British mathematician who contributed to advanced in calculus.
[1]
U
- Researching
V
- Researching
W
- Wiles
-
In the late 20th century, Andrew Wiles wrote a proof confirming Fermat's last theorem. A
theorem which had been unsolved for over 400 hundred years. [2]
X
- Researching
Y
- Researching
Z
- Researching
References
- #1
-
Dictionary of Mathematics Terms 2nd Ed
Douglas Downing
Barron's Educational Series
© 1987, 1995.
IBSN: 0-8120-3097-4
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