Top 10 Most Famous Mathematicians | The Greatest Mathematicians Of All Time

Mathematics is not just a subject, but it’s one of the essential parts of the world, used almost everywhere, such as engineering, science, and technology. It’s not overwhelming to say that scientists and engineers can’t do anything without the use of mathematics.

Mathematics is useful in analyzing data, pattern recognition, and evidence seeking. Mathematics is also helpful to understand complex pieces of information. There is much great mathematics, which gives the world many theories and conceptual breakthroughs, which are the base of modern mathematics.

This article focuses on the top 10 most famous mathematicians and their profound contribution to mathematics.

10. René Descartes

Born – March 31, 1596

Died – February 11, 1650

René Descartes comes on Number (10) from our list of top 10 most famous mathematicians and greatest mathematicians of all time.

René Descartes is regarded as a French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher. His analytical geometry was a tremendous conceptual breakthrough, linking the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra.

René Descartes could solve previously unsolvable problems in geometry by converting them into simpler problems in algebra. He represented the horizontal direction as X and the vertical direction as Y, and this concept is now indispensable in mathematics and other sciences.

To tell you the truth, it was really you who got me out of my idleness and made me remember things I once learned and had nearly forgotten: when my mind wandered from serious [mathematical] matters, you put me back on the right path.

René Descartes

9. Aryabhata

Born – 476 CE

Died – 550 CE

Aryabhata comes on Number (9) from our list of top 10 most famous mathematicians and greatest mathematicians of all time.

Aryabhata is one of the genius and first Indian mathematician in the world, and he made many discoveries in the field of mathematics, such as:

• Algebraic Identities
• Trigonometrical Functions
• The Value of pi
• Place Value System, etc.

His discovery of the closest approximate value of ‘pi’ eased the complications of mathematics. Above all, he founded the place value system and zero, which are one of his major contributions in the history of mathematics. He was the center of many discoveries of trigonometric functions, which are very useful today.

Aryabhata wrote many books, and most of them are lost, but his major work is in “Aryabhatiya.” He divides his book into two different sections of mathematics and astronomy. The mathematical section of the book covers arithmetic, algebra, plane trigonometry, and spherical trigonometry. It also contains continued fractions, quadratic equations, sums-of-power series, and a table of sines.

8. Archimedes

Born – c. 287 BCE

Died – c. 212 BCE (Aged – 75 Years)

Archimedes comes on Number (8) from our list of top 10 most famous mathematicians and greatest mathematicians of all time.

Archimedes is one of the most recognized mathematicians and inventors of ancient Greece. He was also one of the first mathematicians to apply mathematics to physical phenomena, founding hydrostatics, and statics, including explaining the principle of the lever.

Archimedes discovered the relation between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He is known for his formulation of a hydrostatic principle (also known as Archimedes’ principle) and a device for raising water, which is even today by developing countries, known as the Archimedes screw.

Archimedes calculated modern calculus and analysis by applying concepts of infinitesimals and the method of exhaustion to derive and rigorously prove a range of geometrical theorems, which including the area of a circle; the surface area and volume of a sphere; the area of an ellipse; the area under a parabola; the volume of a segment of a paraboloid of revolution; the volume of a segment of a hyperboloid of revolution; and the area of a spiral.

Archimedes deriving an accurate approximation of pi; defining and investigating the spiral that now bears his name; and creating a system using exponentiation for expressing huge numbers. He was also credited with designing innovative machines, like his screw pump, compound pulleys, and defensive war machines to protect his native Syracuse from invasion.

Those who claim to discover everything but produce no proofs of the same may be confuted as having actually pretended to discover the impossible.

Archimedes

7. Bernhard Riemann

Born – 17 September 1826

Died – 20 July 1866

Bernhard Riemann comes on Number (7) from our list of top 10 most famous mathematicians and greatest mathematicians of all time.

Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann was a German mathematician considered as one of the greatest mathematicians in history.

Bernhard Riemann majorly contributed to real number analysis, number theory, and differential geometry. He is widely known for the first rigorous formulation of the integral, the Riemann integral, and his work on the Fourier series.

He laid the foundations of the mathematics of general relativity. He also majorly contributed to complex analysis, including Riemann surfaces’ introduction, breaking new ground in the natural, geometric treatment of complex analysis.

In the year 1859, Riemann publishes his paper on the prime-counting function, containing the original statement of the Riemann hypothesis, which give me recognition and proved one of the most important papers in analytic number theory. He is also known as a pioneer contributor in analytic number theory.

If only I had the Theorems! Then I should find the proofs easily enough.

Bernhard Riemann

6. Carl Friedrich Gauss

Born – 30 April 1777

Died – 23 February 1855

Carl Friedrich Gauss comes on Number (6) from our list of top 10 most famous mathematicians and greatest mathematicians of all time.

Carl Friedrich Gauss or Johann Friedrich Carl Gauss was a German mathematician; his contribution to number theory, geometry, probability theory, geodesy, planetary astronomy, the theory of functions, and potential theory (including electromagnetism) make him one of the greatest mathematicians in the history.

Carl Friedrich Gauss was among the few mathematicians who were calculating prodigy, and he retained the ability to elaborate calculations in his head most of his life.

In the year 1801, Carl Friedrich Gauss publishes two major textbooks, which give him worldwide recognition. Foremost was his publication of the first systematic textbook on algebraic number theory. Disquisitiones Arithmeticaez, which contains the first account of modular arithmetic, gives a thorough account of the solutions of quadratic polynomials in two variables in integers and the theory of factorization.

The second publication was his rediscovery of the asteroid Ceres; today, it’s known as the least squares method. Carl Friedrich Gauss also wrote on cartography, the theory of map projections. For his study of angle-preserving maps, he was awarded the “Danish Academy of Sciences” in 1823.

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

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5. Srinivasa Ramanujan

Born – December 22, 1887

Died – April 26, 1920

Srinivasa Ramanujan comes on Number (5) from our list of top 10 most famous mathematicians and greatest mathematicians of all time.

Srinivasa Ramanujan is one of the most influential Indian mathematicians in the recent history of mathematics. He was a college dropout, the self-taught mathematician who spent his young age on the floor of a temple surrounded by Hindu deities.

He contributed to the analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptic functions, continued fractions, and infinite series. He also contributed to the theory of numbers include pioneering discoveries of the properties of the partition function.

Ramanujan died at 32 from a misdiagnosed illness, leaving behind three enigmatic notebooks. There is also a movie available, based on Srinivasa Ramanujan’s life named “The Man Who Knew Infinity,” this is a must-watch movie.

An equation means nothing to me unless it expresses a thought of God.

Srinivasa Ramanujan

4. Isaac Newton

Born – December 25, 1642

Died – March 20, 1726 (Aged – 84 Years)

Isaac Newton comes on Number (4) from our list of top 10 most famous mathematicians and greatest mathematicians of all time.

You may recall the name of Sir Isaac Newton from your school science book. He is a Physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and Newton is not only one of the great mathematicians but also one of the most influential men in humankind’s history.

Isaac Newton is famous for his formulation of the laws of motion and universal gravitation. Newton formulates a new theory of light, discovered and quantified gravitation, and gives a new mathematics approach: infinitesimal calculus. Calculus gives new direction to the mathematician and engineers in the field of motion and dynamic.

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.

Isaac Newton

3. Leonhard Euler

Born – April 15, 1707

Death – September 18, 1783

Leonard Euler comes on Number (3) from our list of top 10 most famous mathematicians and greatest mathematicians of all time.

Leonhard Euler was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, university teacher, writer, music theorist, and astronomer. He is one of the founders of pure mathematics of all time.

Leonard Euler covered almost all aspects of mathematics, including geometry, calculus, trigonometry, algebra, number theory, and optics, astronomy, cartography, mechanics, weights and measures, and even the theory of music.

Along with making decisive and formative contributions to geometry, calculus, mechanics, and number theory, he also developed methods for solving problems in observational astronomy. He demonstrated useful applications of mathematics in technology and public affairs.

Most useful notation even today – including e, i, f(x), ∑, and the use of a, b, and c as constants and x, y and z as unknowns – was either created, popularized, or standardized by him. Along with these and other symbols such as π and the trigonometric functions help to internationalize mathematics and encourage collaboration on problems.

One of the very useful equation e^iπ = −1 known as Euler’s Identity, which combines arithmetic, calculus, trigonometry, and complex analysis into what has been called the most remarkable formula in mathematics and filled with cosmic beauty. Another such discovery, often known simply as Euler’s Formula, is e^ix = −1 = cos x + i sin x.

Logic is the foundation of the certainty of all the knowledge we acquire.

Leonhard Euler

2. Euclid

Born – Around 325 BCE

Died – Around 265 BCE

Euclid comes on Number (2) from our list of top 10 most famous mathematicians and greatest mathematicians of all time.

Euclid is known as a “founder of geometry” or “father of geometry” because much of western mathematics is a series of footnotes to Euclid, either developing his ideas or challenging them.

Euclid, the great Greek mathematician, wrote and published around 13 books, codifying and summarizing the state of mathematics, principally geometry and number theory, as known at the time, which are known today as the elements.

The books are written in a very systematic way, starting with simple, self-evident ideas and clearly building upon them to demonstrate more and more theorems and ideas. Those ideas and theorems are used today as such in one form or another.

Euclid’s life is a mystery, and we don’t have much more information about his life. Around 300 BCE, he ran his own school in Alexandria, Egypt. He also wrote a dozen of books, but all of them are lost over a period of time.

The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.

Euclid

1. Pythagoras

Born – c. 570 BCE

Died – c. 495 BCE

Pythagoras comes on Number (1) from our list of top 10 most famous mathematicians and greatest mathematicians of all time.

Pythagoras was born on the Greek – Samos Island in the Aegean Sea. Pythagoras is known for discovering the Pythagorean theorem, also known as Pythagoras’s theorem of geometry. It is widely believed that Babylonians and Indians previously utilized this theorem, but Pythagoras or his students were the first to construct its proof.

Pythagoras also believed that numbers had personalities like perfect or incomplete, masculine or feminine, beautiful or ugly. Pythagoras studied properties of numbers that would be familiar to mathematicians today, like even and odd numbers. Pythagoras is recognized as the first true mathematician and one of the most recognized names in mathematics history.

Pythagoras made many discoveries in mathematics and science, and his most famous discovery is Pythagoras’s theorem.

Silence is better than unmeaning words.

Pythagoras

These are some of the most influential and greatest mathematicians in the history of the world, which give a new path to the world in the field of mathematics, science, and technology.