Famous Mathematicians

Was a Greek philosopher and mathematician. He is best known for proving Pythagoras’ Theorem, but made many other mathematical and scientific discoveries.

• Thales of Miletus (c. 624 – 546 BCE)

• Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 276 – 195 BCE)

• Pythagoras of Samos (c. 570 – 495 BCE)

• Heron of Alexandria (c. 10 – 70 CE)

Was an Italian mathematician. He is best known for the number sequence named after him: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, …

• Leonardo Pisano, Fibonacci (1175 – 1250)

• Leonhard Euler (1707 – 1783)

• Johann Lambert (1728 – 1777)

• François Viète (1540 – 1603)

Was arguably the greatest mathematician in history. According to legend, he corrected a mistake in his father‘s accounting at the age of 3, and found a way to quickly add up all integers from 1 to 100 at the age of 8.

• François Viète (1540 – 1603)

• Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777 – 1855)

• Fibonacci (1175 – 1250)

• Diophantus

was a French mathematician and philosopher, and one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution. He is credited with the first use of superscripts for powers or exponents, and the cartesian coordinate system is named after him.

• René Descartes (1596 – 1650)

• Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777 – 1855)

• Augustin-Louis Cauchy (1789 – 1857)

• Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736 – 1813)

Was an English physicist, mathematician, and astronomer, and one of the most influential scientists of all time. Was one of the inventors of calculus, built the first reflecting telescope, calculated the speed of sound, studied the motion of fluids, and developed a theory of colour based on how prisms split sunlight into a rainbow-coloured spectrum.

• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 – 1716)

• Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736 – 1813)

• Joseph Fourier (1768 – 1830)

• Sir Isaac Newton (1642 – 1726)

Euclid is called, The Father of Geometry.

He wrote a book, The Elements, which was the most comprehensive book on Geometry for about 2000 years.

2000 years is the same as 2 millennia.

True or False?

• True

• False

He was pioneering mathematician and physicist, famous for developing the ‘Fourier Series’.

• Joseph Fourier

• Pierre de Fermat

• Henri Poincare

• George Cantor

He is known for his invention of the mechanical calculator.

• Blaise Pascal

• Benjamin Bannaker

• Isaac Newton

• Rene Descartes

Development of infinitesimal calculus (differentiation and integration), laid ground work for almost all of classical mechanics, generalized binomial theorem, infinite power series

• Albert Einstein

• Isaac Newton

• Jacob Bermoulli

• Abraham de Moivre

Who is known as the "Father of Geometry"?

• Pythagoras

• Archimedes

• Euclid

• Galileo