Question

Question: If you were to make a list of your "personal" top three influential mathematicians in history, who would be on your list?

Answer 1

The book titled _Wonders of Numbers: Adventures in Mathematics, Mind, and
Meaning_ contains a list of the 10 most influential mathematicians in history:
1. Newton
2. Gauss
3. Euclid
4. Euler
5. Hilbert
6. Poincare
7. Riemann
8. Galois
9. Descartes
10. Pascal
Runners-up: Cardano, Godel, Cantor, Napier.

Answer 2

Newton meh i'd take him off lol

Answer 3

@Outkast3r09 --> who would be on your list?

Answer 4

I think Lagrange should be up there

Answer 5

If i remember right newton was considered a physicist right ? lol

Answer 6

he did discover/invent calculus =)) no de moivre?

Answer 7

He was one of the founders

Answer 8

My top 3 would be..in no particular order...john wallis (for the inf symbol), euler and pythagoras (i thiink he was the first to use pi)...because of them we have so many confusing symbols lol =)) not hating

Answer 9

gah i read about it a long time ago but there was like a argument over infinitesimals

Answer 10

1. Gauss
2. Euclid
3. Euler
If it is not influential, I bet I would add John Nash :D

Answer 11

suprised no one has said weirstrauss

Answer 12

Mathematician Biography Index at the following link:

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/BiogIndex.html

Answer 13

no archimedes?

Answer 14

what about al-Khwarizmi who basically invented the way we do arithmetic.

Answer 15

Hypatia

Answer 16

hated it

Answer 17

My list:

1. Leonhard Euler (1 to 3) My favorite!
4. Isaac Newton
5. Wilhelm Leibniz
6. Gauss
7. Euclid
8. Descartes
9. Riemann
10. Andrew Wiles

Answer 18

We do have women mathematicians...... :)

Answer 19

God, since he created the integers
Moses, he invented division
...
and maybe that kid on the corner that yells at me as a drive by; he influences me alot

Answer 20

list is missing ramanujan and also early arab and hindu mathematicians who invented among other things, zero, negative numbers, trig, even variables. list seems heavy on late mathematicians and light on early ones

Answer 21

moses?

Answer 22

caveman thag was pretty early

Answer 23

moses divided the red sea :)

Answer 24

Hypatia (First woman mathematician in history)
taught at the University of Alexandria

Answer 25

i knew there was a punch line there some where

Answer 26

or as we used to say
jesus saves
moses invests

Answer 27

*gasp* isnt that antisemitic these days?

Answer 28

i think they both were semites

Answer 29

.... good point :)

Answer 30

Pilate wasnt tho

Answer 31

Hypatia was Pagan (in case anyone wonders)

Answer 32

horses with wings arent real

Answer 33

Precal I saw that movie, I liked it. @sat: it's not that bad ;)

Answer 34

considering it's almost a true story.

Answer 35

Pagans worship many gods. God of war, love, etc..... Greek mythology
Yes Agora is the movie and yes, it did show Hypatia and some of her teachings.

Answer 36

@precal --> for your consideration (see info at link)

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Indexes/Women.html

Answer 37

1)Newton
2)leibniz
3)euclid
4)pythagorus

Answer 38

@Shayaan_Mustafa --> I made a grave omission on my list by not including my main guy Euclid.

Answer 39

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Isaac Newton, Letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675
English mathematician & physicist (1642 - 1727)"
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In a mathematics history class, the professor insisted that Archimedes, Gausss, and Newton were THE three most important mathematicians of history.

I tend to select as important those mathematicians whose creations I enjoy though I know that they built upon the works of other mathematicians. To my thinking, every mathematician who ever wrote anything mathematical furthered the development of the discipline and should bear the descriptor of "important." Even Argand's one contribution still stands and bears his name though he was not a bona fide mathematician.

1. Archimedes
2. Pythagoras
3. Euclid
4. Mandelbrot