The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
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List of the most influential people in Mathematics,
#8851
Moon Shin
#108780
Overall Influence
1923 - 1995 (72 years)
Moon Shin was a South Korean painter and sculptor whose childhood name was Moon Ahn-shin. His date of birth was reported late and is erroneously stated as 1923 in most publications. When an international exhibition was held in France in 1989 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, Moon was one of 24 artists who were invited. One of his pieces can be found in SOMA sculptor park celebrating the 1988 Summer Olympics Seoul.
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Oskar Schlömilch
1823 - 1901 (78 years)
Oskar Xavier Schlömilch was a German mathematician, born in Weimar, working in mathematical analysis. He took a doctorate at the University of Jena in 1842, and became a professor at Dresden Polytechnic in 1849.
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Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
1827 - 1875 (48 years)
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux was a French sculptor and painter during the Second Empire under Napoleon III. Life Born in Valenciennes, Nord, son of a mason, his early studies were under François Rude. Carpeaux entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1844 and won the Prix de Rome in 1854, and moving to Rome to find inspiration, he there studied the works of Michelangelo, Donatello and Verrocchio. Staying in Rome from 1854 to 1861, he obtained a taste for movement and spontaneity, which he joined with the great principles of baroque art. Carpeaux sought real life subjects in the streets and broke with t...
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Sankara Variar
1500 - 1560 (60 years)
Shankara Variyar was an astronomer-mathematician of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics. His family were employed as temple-assistants in the temple at near modern Ottapalam. Mathematical lineage He was taught mainly by Nilakantha Somayaji , the author of the Tantrasamgraha and Jyesthadeva , the author of Yuktibhāṣā. Other teachers of Shankara include Netranarayana, the patron of Nilakantha Somayaji and Chitrabhanu, the author of an astronomical treaties dated to 1530 and a small work with solutions and proofs for algebraic equations.
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Robert Baldwin Hayward
1829 - 1903 (74 years)
Robert Baldwin Hayward was an English educator and mathematician. Life Born on 7 March 1829, at Bocking, Essex, he was son of Robert Hayward by his wife Ann Baldwin; his father, from an old Quaker family, withdrew from the Quaker community on his marriage. Educated at University College, London, entered St John's College, Cambridge, in 1846, graduating as fourth wrangler in 1850. He was fellow from 30 March 1852 till 27 March 1860, and from 1852 till 1855 assistant tutor.
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Charles L. Reason
1818 - 1893 (75 years)
Charles Lewis Reason was an American mathematician, linguist, and educator. He was the first black college professor in the United States, teaching at New York Central College, McGrawville. Early life and education Charles Lewis Reason was born July 21, 1818, in New York City as one of three sons to Michel and Elizabeth Reason, free people of color .
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Giambattista Pianciani
1784 - 1862 (78 years)
Giambattista Pianciani was an Italian Jesuit scientist. Biography He entered the Society of Jesus on 2 June 1805; after having received the ordinary Jesuit training he was sent to various cities in the Papal States to teach mathematics and physics and finally was appointed professor in the Roman College, where he lectured and wrote on scientific subjects for twenty-four years. He was an active member of the Accademia d'Arcadia, his academical pseudonym being "Polite Megaride", of the Accademia de' Lincei, and of other scientific societies. His scientific labours were abruptly brought to an e...
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George Selwyn
1809 - 1878 (69 years)
George Augustus Selwyn was the first Anglican Bishop of New Zealand. He was Bishop of New Zealand from 1841 to 1869. His diocese was then subdivided and Selwyn was Metropolitan of New Zealand from 1858 to 1868. Returning to Britain, Selwyn served as Bishop of Lichfield from 1868 to 1878.
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Marcus Jordanus
1531 - 1595 (64 years)
Marcus Jordanus was a Danish cartographer and mathematician. Jordanus studied at the University of Copenhagen, where in 1550 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics. Among other things, he gave lectures on geodesy and dealt with the geography of Ptolemy. In 1552, he published a map with the printer Hans Vingaard in Copenhagen. This was one of the first printed maps of the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, and Abraham Ortelius referred to it in his Catalogus Cartographorum. The map is now lost, and no copies survive.
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Victor Eberhard
1861 - 1927 (66 years)
Victor Guido Feodor Eberhard was a blind German geometer, known for Eberhard's theorem partially characterizing the multisets of faces that can form convex polyhedra. Life Eberhard was born on 17 January 1861 in Pless, in the Prussian Province of Silesia , where his father Richard Eberhard was a jurist. he became blind in 1873.
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William Vernon Skiles
1879 - 1947 (68 years)
William Vernon Skiles was a professor of mathematics and dean at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He helped create what is now the Georgia Tech Research Institute. Education Skiles possessed a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Chicago, a Master of Arts degree from Harvard University and an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Georgia. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi, Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, and the Georgia Academy of Science.
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Eugen Bracht
1842 - 1921 (79 years)
Eugen Felix Prosper Bracht was a German landscape painter. Biography Bracht was born in Morges, Waadt of German parents. His family later moved to Darmstadt, Germany, where he became a pupil of Karl Ludwig Seeger at the Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe and later studied under Hans Gude in Düsseldorf. Dissatisfied with his work, he moved to Berlin in 1864 and became a merchant, but in 1876 he renewed his interest in painting and joined his former teacher Seeger in Karlsruhe.
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Johann Balthasar Lauterbach
1663 - 1694 (31 years)
Johann Balthasar Lauterbach was a German mathematician, architect and master builder at the Court in Braunschweig, from 1688 until his death. Life and work His father, Johann , was a shoemaker and guild master. His half-brother, from his father's second marriage, was the cartographer, . After grammar school, he studied theology at the University of Tübingen, then studied mathematics at the University of Jena.
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Giuseppe Moletti
1531 - 1588 (57 years)
Giuseppe Moletti was an Italian mathematician best known for his Dialogo intorno alla Meccanica . Though an obscure figure today, he was a renowned mathematician during his lifetime, and was even consulted by Pope Gregory XIII on his new calendar.
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Tiberiu Popoviciu
1906 - 1975 (69 years)
Tiberiu Popoviciu was a Romanian mathematician and the namesake of Popoviciu's inequality and Popoviciu's inequality on variances. The Tiberiu Popoviciu High School of Computer Science in Cluj-Napoca is named after him.
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William Metzler
1863 - 1943 (80 years)
William Henry Metzler was a Canadian mathematician. Career He was born in Odessa, Canada West on 18 September 1863. He studied mathematics at the University of Toronto under Henry Taber from 1886, graduating in 1888 and then continuing as a postgraduate. He gained his doctorate in 1892. In 1895 he was appointed professor of mathematics at Syracuse University, then became dean of the graduate school. From 1923–1933, he was dean and professor of mathematics at the New York State College of Teachers in Albany, New York.
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Gyula Bereznai
1921 - 1990 (69 years)
Gyula Bereznai was a Hungarian mathematician and former head of department at a Teacher Training College in Nyíregyháza. Biography He was born in Sátoraljaújhely on 1 May 1921. He completed his elementary school in Tornyospálca, the secondary school in Kisvárda. His studies at the University of Debrecen were interrupted by the war . After six years in prison, he received a degree in mathematics from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. After the Nyíregyháza Vocational School and the Kölcsey Grammar School, he was admitted to the mathematics department of the Bessenyei György Teacher Training College in 1962.
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Johann Georg Rosenhain
1816 - 1887 (71 years)
Johann Georg Rosenhain was a German mathematician who introduced theta characteristics. Rosenhain was born to a Jewish family, to Nathan Rosenhain and Röschen Joseph.
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Johannes Schilling
1828 - 1910 (82 years)
Johannes Schilling was a German sculptor. Life and work Johannes Schilling was the youngest of five children. A year after his birth, his family moved to Dresden, where he grew up. At the age of six, he was sent to a private school and, at fourteen, attended the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts where he was taught drawing by Karl Gottlieb Peschel. After graduating in 1845, he became one of the master pupils in the studio of sculptor Ernst Rietschel. In 1851 and 1852, he went to Berlin to continue his studies with Christian Daniel Rauch and Friedrich Drake.
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Georg Ferdinand Howaldt
1802 - 1883 (81 years)
Georg Ferdinand Howaldt was a German sculptor. Biography Howaldt was born in Braunschweig as the son of the silversmith David Ferdinand Howaldt. He learned silversmithing and went to Nuremberg, where he became friends with the sculptor Jacob Daniel Burgschmiet, who convinced him to change to modelling and sculpture. He became a teacher in modelling there and continued teaching modelling when he returned to Braunschweig in 1836. The success out of his cooperation with the famous sculptor Ernst Rietschel allowed him to start his own foundry casting sculptures for many known German sculptors of the nineteenth century.
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Sir William Fergusson, 1st Baronet
1808 - 1877 (69 years)
Sir William Fergusson, 1st Baronet FRCS FRS FRSE was a Scottish surgeon. Biography William Fergusson son of James Fergusson of Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire, was born at Prestonpans, East Lothian on 20 March 1808, and was educated first at Lochmaben and afterwards at the high school and University of Edinburgh. At the age of fifteen he was placed by his own desire in a lawyer's office, but the work proved uncongenial, and at seventeen he exchanged law for medicine, in accordance with his father's original wishes. He became an assiduous pupil of Dr. Robert Knox the anatomist, who was much pleased w...
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John Martin
1789 - 1854 (65 years)
John Martin was an English painter, engraver, and illustrator. He was celebrated for his typically vast and dramatic paintings of religious subjects and fantastic compositions, populated with minute figures placed in imposing landscapes. Martin's paintings, and the prints made from them, enjoyed great success with the general public, with Thomas Lawrence referring to him as "the most popular painter of his day". He was also lambasted by John Ruskin and other critics.
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Johannes Finsterbusch
1855 - Present (170 years)
Johannes F. Finsterbusch was a German mathematician, known for his work on projective geometry. Finsterbusch studied from 1873 to 1880 at Dresden and Leipzig. From 1882 to 1900 he taught as a schoolmaster at the Realschule in Werdau. From 1900 he taught as a professor at the Gymnasium in Zwickau. He was an Invited Speaker of the ICM in 1904 at Heidelberg, in 1908 at Rome, and in 1912 at Cambridge UK.
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Ahmad al-Buni
1200 - 1225 (25 years)
Sharaf al-Din or Shihab al-Din or Muḥyi al-Din Abu al-Abbas Aḥmad ibn Ali ibn Yusuf al-Qurashi al-Sufi, better known as Ahmad al-Buni , was a mathematician and philosopher and a well known Sufi. Very little is known about him. His writings deal with the esoteric value of letters and topics relating to mathematics, sihr and spirituality. Born in Buna , al-Buni lived in Egypt and learned from many eminent Sufi masters of his time.
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William Parkinson Wilson
1826 - 1874 (48 years)
William Parkinson Wilson was an astronomer and professor of mathematics who was born in England but spent most of his career in Australia. Life and career William Parkinson Wilson was born in Peterborough, Northamptonshire to John Wilson, a silversmith, and his wife Elizabeth . He attended Cathedral Grammar School in Peterborough and in 1843 won a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge where he earned his BA in 1847. In 1849 he became First Professor of Mathematics at Queen's College, Belfast . During his six years there he worked tirelessly to establish a Queens College astronomical observatory.
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Barry Pennington
1923 - 1968 (45 years)
William Barry Pennington was a British mathematician best known for his work on Ramanujan's tau function. Pennington was born in Bawtry, Yorkshire. He was educated at Loughborough Grammar School, and Jesus College, Cambridge. During World War II he served as a Radar Officer in the RNVR, before returning to Cambridge to complete his doctorate under Albert Edward Ingham. After completing his doctorate, he spent two years at Harvard University, returning to a Research Fellowship at Jesus in 1952. He was appointed Reader in mathematics at Westfield College, University of London in 1953. In 1...
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Martin Krause
1851 - 1920 (69 years)
Martin Krause was a German mathematician, specializing in analysis. Biography Martin Krause, the son of a landowner, studied from 1870 to 1874 at the University of Königsberg, where he was taught by Friedrich Julius Richelot and Franz Ernst Neumann, and also in Heidelberg and Berlin. In 1873 Krause received his doctorate from Heidelberg University. His doctoral thesis Zur Transformation der Modulargleichungen der elliptischen Functionen was supervised by Leo Königsberger. In 1875 Krause habilitated at Heidelberg University with thesis Über die Discriminante der Modulargleichungen der elliptischen Functionen.
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Nikolai Andreevich Lebedev
1919 - 1982 (63 years)
Nikolai Andreevich Lebedev was a Soviet mathematician who worked on complex function theory and geometric function theory. Jointly with Isaak Milin, he proved the Lebedev–Milin inequalities that were used in the proof of the Bieberbach conjecture.
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Abul Kalam Azad
1933 - 1971 (38 years)
Abul Kalam Azad was a Bangladesh mathematician. He was a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society of London, the Applied Mathematical Society of the United Kingdom and the American Meteorological Society. During the Bangladesh Liberation war on 15 December 1971, a group of local accomplices of the Pakistan Army abducted him from his home.
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Henry Priestley
1883 - 1932 (49 years)
Henry James Priestley was the first Professor of Mathematics at the University of Queensland. Education Henry James Priestley was born in Crouch Hill, London. He was educated at Mill Hill School and Jesus College, University of Cambridge, where he gained his B.A. with honours first class . He was fifth wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos of 1905. In 1909 he received his M.A. from Cambridge.
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David Guest
1911 - 1938 (27 years)
David Guest was a British mathematician and philosopher who volunteered to fight for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and was killed in Spain in 1938. He was the uncle of American-British musician, actor and director Christopher Guest.
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Serenus of Antinoöpolis
300 - 360 (60 years)
Serenus of Antinoöpolis was a Greek mathematician from the Late Antique Thebaid in Roman Egypt. Life and work Serenus came either from Antinoeia or from Antinoöpolis, a city in Egypt founded by Hadrian on top of an older settlement. Two sources confirm that he was born in Antinoöpolis. It was once believed that he was born in Antissa, but this has been shown to have been based on an error.
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Victor Jamet
1853 - 1919 (66 years)
Émile Victor Jamet was a French mathematician. Education and career After study at ENS, Jamet became on 19 September 1876 a lecturer in mathematics at the lycée de Saint-Brieuc. On 21 September 1877 he became a professor of mathematics at the lycée de Nice. On 24 October 1878 he became a lecturer, with the title of substitute teacher, having the duties of a professor of mathematics at the lycée de Toulouse. On 6 September 1879 he became a professor of mathematics at the lycée de Pau. On 10 September 1881 he became a professor of mathematics at the lycée de Nantes. On 30 August 1889 he became ...
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Robert Forsyth Scott
1849 - 1933 (84 years)
Sir Robert Forsyth Scott was a mathematician, barrister and Master of St John's College, Cambridge Life Scott was born in Leith, near Edinburgh, the eldest son of Reverend George Scott, a Minister in the church at Dairsie and Mary Forsyth, daughter of the Edinburgh advocate Robert Forsyth.
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Anton Hanak
1875 - 1934 (59 years)
Anton Hanak was an Austrian sculptor and art Professor. His works tend to have a visionary-symbolic character, related to Expressionism. Biography He studied with Edmund von Hellmer at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, and was associated with the Vienna Secession. He was also a member of the Vienna Werkstätte, as well as having been a founding member of the . In 1913, he became a teacher at the Kunstgewerbeschule and, after 1932, a Professor at the Academy. His students included Karl Duldig, Fritz Wotruba, Oskar Icha, Ena Rottenberg, , , , and Pepi Weixlgärtner-Neutra.
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Joseph-François Marie
1738 - 1801 (63 years)
Joseph-François Marie was a French mathematician. He was an abbot and professor of mathematics at the Collège Mazarin. Works
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James Thomson
1788 - 1850 (62 years)
James Thomson was a British engraver, known for his portraits. He completed his apprenticeship in engraving and then established himself independently, following the dot and stipple style. His engravings and paintings featured both leading figures of his day and those of previous periods.
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John Hoskin
1921 - 1990 (69 years)
John Hoskin was a British sculptor from Cheltenham. He began drawing when he returned from Germany after serving in the Second World War. Terry Frost, a painter from the St. Ives school encouraged him to become a sculptor. John while working as an architect's draftsman but longing to become an artist, knew of the group working in St.Ives and decided to hitch-hike there one day. By a remarkable co-incidence, he was picked up and given a lift by Terry. By the time they arrived, John knew being a sculptor was his destiny. It was he that said "as if up until that journey my life had been playing ...
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Charles J. Mendelsohn
1880 - 1939 (59 years)
Charles Jastrow Mendelsohn was an American cryptographer and classicist. He was the only child of Rabbi Samuel Mendelsohn and Esther Jastrow. He was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. Education He graduated from the Episcopal Academy, Philadelphia in 1896. He was a Harrison Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1900 and a PhD in 1904. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He joined the faculty of College of the City of New York as a tutor in Greek in 1905, becoming an instructor in 1907. He was a professor of ancient languages in 1917.
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Howard Wright Alexander
1911 - 1985 (74 years)
Howard Wright Alexander was a Canadian-American mathematician. Alexander emigrated from Canada to the United States in 1937. He received his Ph.D. in 1939 from Princeton University. As a Quaker, he was a conscientious objector during World War II and did alternative national service. At Earlham College he became an associate professor of mathematics in 1952 and retired there in 1976 as professor emeritus. He was an Invited Speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1950 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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William Percival Evans
1864 - 1959 (95 years)
William Percival Evans was a New Zealand chemist who specialised in the study of local brown coals. Biography Born in Melbourne, Australia to an English vicar, Evans moved to New Zealand with his family and they settled at Wakefield, south of Nelson. He was educated at Nelson College from 1876 to 1880, and then studied chemistry and mathematics at Canterbury University College, from where he graduated MA with first class honours in 1885. He completed a PhD in chemistry at the University of Giessen in Germany.
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Petrus de Dacia
1300 - 1400 (100 years)
Petrus de Dacia, also called Philomena and Peder Nattergal , was a Danish scholar who lived in the 13th century. He worked mainly in Paris and Italy, writing in Latin. He published a calendar of new moon dates for the years 1292-1367. In 1292, he published a book on mathematics that contained a new method for the calculation of cubic roots. He also described a mechanical instrument to predict solar and lunar eclipses as seen from Paris.
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Joseph Alphonso Pierce
1902 - 1969 (67 years)
Joseph Alphonso Pierce, Sr. was an American mathematician and statistician. He was one of the first African-Americans to earn a PhD in mathematics in the United States. He was an educator who had a long career as teacher, administrator, and researcher.
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Thomas Hill
1818 - 1891 (73 years)
Thomas Hill was an American Unitarian clergyman, mathematician, scientist, philosopher, and educator. Biography Taught to read at an early age, Hill read voraciously and was well regarded for his capacious and accurate memory. His father taught him botany, and he took a delight in nature and devised scientific instruments, one that calculated eclipses and was subsequently awarded the Scott Medal by the Franklin Institute.
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John Alexander Third
1865 - 1948 (83 years)
John Alexander Third was a Scottish mathematician. Life and work Third, son of a stonemason, was educated at Robert Gordon's College before entering in 1885 in the University of Aberdeen where he graduated D.Sc in 1889, after spending some time studying in Jena, Germany. He was appointed rector of Campbeltown Grammar School and, five years later, in 1895, headmaster of Spier's School.
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Giovanni di Casali
1320 - 1375 (55 years)
Giovanni di Casali was a friar in the Franciscan Order, a natural philosopher and a theologian, author of works on theology and science, and a papal legate. He was born in Casale Monferrato around 1320 and entered the Franciscan order in the Genoese province. He was lecturer in the Franciscan stadium at Assisi from 1335 to 1340. He subsequently was lector at Cambridge ca. 1340 to 1341, where he encountered the mathematical physics developed by the Oxford Calculators. He was also an inquisitor in Florence, and a lector in Bologna from 1346 to ca. 1352. In 1375 Pope Gregory XI appointed him ...
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Robert William Chapman
1866 - 1942 (76 years)
Sir Robert William Chapman MIEAust was an Australian mathematician and engineer. History Chapman was born in Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire, England, eldest son of Charles Chapman , a currier from Melbourne, Australia, and his wife Matilda, née Harrison . His parents returned to Melbourne in 1876, where he was educated at Wesley College and the University of Melbourne, graduating MA and BCE with first class honours in Physics and Mathematics.
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Karl von der Mühll
1841 - 1912 (71 years)
Karl von der Mühll was a Swiss mathematician and physicist. He was born into the Von der Mühll family, of the Basel patriciate , to Karl Georg and Emilie Merian, of the Merian family, a granddaughter of Peter Merian.
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Christian Wurstisen
1544 - 1588 (44 years)
Christian Wurstisen was a mathematician, theologian, historian from Basel. His name is also given as Wursteisen, Wurzticius, Ursticius, Urstisius, or Urstis. Life In 1565, he became professor of mathematics at the Basel University, and in 1585 professor of theology. The next year, the city magistrate appointed him to the academy as a town historian, a position he held until his death. He was buried in Münster.
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Walter Drowley Filmer
1865 - 1944 (79 years)
Walter Drowley Filmer was an early pioneer of X-rays in Australia, a wireless engineer, for a time ran the British Royal Train, and a world class entomologist that discovered several new species in his homeland. Filmer was a naturalist and established a private collection at his residence that thousands of people visited.
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