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.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential people
#27151
Ward Elliott
#27162
Overall Influence
1937 - 2022 (85 years)
Ward Elliott was an American political scientist who was the Burnet C. Wohlford Professor of American Political Institutions at Claremont McKenna College in California. Elliott had been a professor at CMC since 1968.
Go to Profile#27152
András Sárközy
#27163
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
András Sárközy is a Hungarian mathematician, working in analytic and combinatorial number theory, although his first works were in the fields of geometry and classical analysis. He has the largest number of papers co-authored with Paul Erdős ; he has an Erdős number of one. He proved the Furstenberg–Sárközy theorem that every sequence of natural numbers with positive upper density contains two members whose difference is a full square. He was elected a corresponding member , and a full member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He received the Széchenyi Prize . He is the father of the mathematician Gábor N.
Go to Profile#27153
Bradley Wiggins
#27164
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Sir Bradley Marc Wiggins, CBE is a British former professional road and track racing cyclist, who competed professionally between 2001 and 2016. He began his cycling career on the track, but later made the transition to road cycling. He won world titles in four disciplines , and Olympic gold in three . He is the only rider to have won both World and Olympic championships on both the track and the road as well as winning the Tour de France. He has worn the leader's jersey in each of the three Grand Tours of cycling and held the world record in team pursuit on multiple occasions. He won a gold ...
Go to Profile#27154
Vijay Kumar
#27165
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Vijay Kumar is an Indian roboticist and UPS foundation professor in the School of Engineering & Applied Science with secondary appointments in computer and information science and electrical and systems engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and became the new Dean of Penn Engineering on 1 July 2015.
Go to Profile#27155
B. S. Sahay
#27166
Overall Influence
Prof. B. S. Sahay is the Founder Director, Indian Institute of Management Jammu. He was the Founder Director of Indian Institute of Management Raipur, Management Development Institute , Gurgaon and Institute of Management Technology , Ghaziabad. Sahay completed his BTech from BIT Sindri and received his MTech and PhD from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.
Go to Profile#27156
Paul Tsongas
#27167
Overall Influence
1941 - 1997 (56 years)
Paul Efthemios Tsongas was an American politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1979 until 1985 and in the United States House of Representatives from 1975 until 1979. A member of the Democratic Party, he ran for president in 1992. He won eight contests during the presidential primaries, but lost the nomination to Bill Clinton, who later won the general election. Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, Tsongas graduated from Dartmouth College, Yale Law School and the Kennedy School of Government. After working for the Peace Corps and as an aide to Congressman F. Bradfo...
Go to Profile#27157
Amikam Aharoni
#27168
Overall Influence
1929 - 2002 (73 years)
Amikam Aharoni was an Israeli physicist who has made numerous contributions to the fields of magnetism. Education Born in Safed, Aharoni received a M.A. in physics from Hebrew University in 1953 and a Ph.D. in physics from the Weizmann Institute in 1957. His thesis was on magnetoresistive memory elements. His postdoc work with John Bardeen took him to the University of Illinois during 1958-1959. In 1971-1972, 1977–1978, and 1992 he was a senior research fellow in the Department of Metallurgy at the University of Oxford. In 1972 he was promoted to professor in the Department of Electronics at ...
Go to Profile#27158
John A. Lucy
#27169
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
John A. Lucy is an American linguist and psychologist. His work primarily concerns the relations between language and cognition, especially the hypothesis of linguistic relativity. He is the William Benton Professor in the Department of Comparative Human Development and the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago. Lucy has worked extensively with the Yucatec Maya language, specializing in the system of noun classification.
Go to Profile#27159
Marinus van IJzendoorn
#27170
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Marinus H. "Rien" van IJzendoorn is professor of human development and one of the co-leaders of Generation R at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. His work has focussed on the social, psychological, and neurobiological determinants of parenting and child development, with special emphasis on attachment, emotion regulation, differential susceptibility hypothesis, and child maltreatment.
Go to Profile#27160
Klaus von Beyme
#27171
Overall Influence
1934 - 2021 (87 years)
Klaus Gustav Heinrich von Beyme was a German political scientist who was professor of political science emeritus at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. Education Beyme was born on 3 July 1934 in Saarau, Germany. Following the German Abitur in Celle in 1954, from 1954 to 1956 Beyme initially began his studies towards a career as a publisher. Thereafter, from 1956 to 1961, he studied Political Science, History, History of Art and Sociology at the Universities of Heidelberg, Bonn, Munich, Paris and Moscow. The unusual choice of Moscow as a place of study was made, based on interest and on Beyme's personal history.
Go to Profile#27161
Tom Pyszczynski
#27172
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Tom Pyszczynski is an American social psychologist. He is notable, together with Jeff Greenberg and Sheldon Solomon, for founding the field of Terror Management Theory . TMT is a theory that is based on the writings of Ernest Becker, along with other existential thinkers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Otto Rank, and Heidegger. At the heart of TMT is the notion that human beings have a unique capacity for self-awareness, which makes them realize that death is inevitable. This realization, which conflicts with people's instinctive need for self-preservation, gives rise to a potential for existential anxiety, or terror, that is greater than that in other animals.
Go to Profile#27162
Yair Lapid
#27173
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Yair Lapid is an Israeli politician of the centrist Yesh Atid party, and a former journalist. He has been the Leader of the Opposition since January 2023, having previously served in that role from 2020 to 2021. He served as the 14th Prime Minister of Israel from 1 July to 29 December 2022. He previously served as the Alternate Prime Minister of Israel and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2021 to 2022. Lapid is the chairman of Yesh Atid, and Minister of Finance from 2013 to 2014.
Go to Profile#27163
Maurizio Porfiri
#27174
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Maurizio Porfiri is an engineering professor, mostly noted for his work with robotic fish and aquatic research. His research revolves around modeling and control of complex systems, with applications from mechanics to behavior, public health, and robotics. He is an Institute Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering. He is also part of the core faculty of New York University's Center for Urban Science and Progress. In 2022, he was appointed the director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress.
Go to Profile#27164
Calie Pistorius
#27175
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Carl Wilhelm Irene Pistorius is a South African academic who is a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hull, Kingston upon Hull, United Kingdom. He announced, on 1 August 2016, that he would be stepping down from this role at the end of January 2017. His successor at Hull was Professor Susan Lea.
Go to Profile#27165
Samuel R. Delany
#27176
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Samuel R. "Chip" Delany is an American writer and literary critic. His work includes fiction , memoir, criticism, and essays on science fiction, literature, sexuality, and society. His fiction includes Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection ; Hogg, Nova, Dhalgren, the Return to Nevèrÿon series, and Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. His nonfiction includes Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, About Writing, and eight books of essays. He has won four Nebula awards and two Hugo Awards, and he was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2002.
Go to Profile#27166
Mark Kermode
#27177
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Mark Kermode is an English film critic, musician, radio presenter, television presenter and podcaster. He presents a weekly Scala Radio film music show and the BBC Four documentary series Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema, and is co-presenter of the BBC Radio 4 programme Screenshot with Ellen E. Jones, and the film-review podcast Kermode & Mayo's Take alongside long-time collaborator Simon Mayo. He has contributed to the BFI's film magazine Sight & Sound and between September 2013 and September 2023 he served as chief film critic for The Observer. Since January 2016 he has presented a monthly live show, MK3D, at the BFI South Bank.
Go to Profile#27167
Sarane Alexandrian
#27178
Overall Influence
1927 - 2009 (82 years)
Sarane Alexandrian was a French philosopher, essayist, and art critic. Early life Alexandrian was born to a French mother and Armenian father, Vartan Alexandrian, a stomatologist under the service of Faisal I. At the age of six, he was sent to Paris to stay with his maternal grandmother.
Go to Profile#27168
Kim Plofker
#27179
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Kim Leslie Plofker is an American historian of mathematics, specializing in Indian mathematics. Education and career Born in Chennai, India, Plofker received her bachelor's degree in mathematics from Haverford College. She received her Ph.D. in 1995 while studying with adviser David Pingree from Brown University, where she conducted research and later joined as a guest professor.
Go to Profile#27169
Joyce Lebra
#27180
Overall Influence
1925 - 2021 (96 years)
Joyce Lebra , also known as Joyce Chapman Lebra, was an American historian of Japan and India. Biography Lebra spent her childhood in Honolulu and received her B.A. and M.A. in Asian studies from the University of Minnesota. She received a Ph.D. in Japanese history from Harvard/Radcliffe, and was the first woman Ph.D. in Japanese history in the U.S.
Go to Profile#27170
Yehudith Birk
#27181
Overall Influence
1926 - 2013 (87 years)
Yehudith Birk was a Polish-born Israeli biochemist, awarded the 1998 Israel Prize for agricultural research. Biography Yehudith Gershtanski was born in Grajewo, Poland to Frida and Yitzhak Gershtanski , both ardent Zionist activists. Frida was an accountant and Baruch was a businessman. The family immigrated to the British Mandate for Palestine in 1935, settling in Tel Aviv. Gershtanski attended the school for workers’ children on Lasalle Street in Tel Aviv. She studied for a master's degree in biochemistry and microbiology at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, completing her degree in December 1950.
Go to Profile#27171
Luke Walton
#27182
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Luke Theodore Walton is an American professional basketball coach and former player who is an assistant coach for the Cleveland Cavaliers of the National Basketball Association . He played 10 seasons in the NBA as a forward, winning two NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers. He also won a title as an assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors before serving as the head coach of the Lakers from 2016 through 2019. Additionally, Walton served as the head coach of the Sacramento Kings from 2019 to 2021.
Go to Profile#27172
Natasha Bertrand
#27183
Overall Influence
1992 - Present (34 years)
Natasha Bertrand is an American journalist who is a Pentagon correspondent for CNN covering national security. Early life and career Bertrand attended Vassar College and the London School of Economics, where she double-majored in political science and philosophy and graduated in 2014.
Go to Profile#27173
Robert Wade
#27184
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Robert Hunter Wade is a political economy and development scholar. He has been Professor of Global Political Economy at the Department of International Development, London School of Economics since 1999.
Go to Profile#27174
Laurie S. Fulton
#27185
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Laurie Susan Fulton is an American attorney, diplomat and the former United States Ambassador to Denmark. She was sworn in on July 15, 2009, and presented her credentials to the Queen of Denmark on August 3, 2009. She resigned effective February 15, 2013. In March 2013, she returned to Williams & Connolly LLP until July 2014.
Go to Profile#27175
Allan Friedman
#27186
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Allan Howard Friedman is the Guy L. Odom Professor of Neurological Surgery at Duke University Medical Center, specializing in tumor and vascular neurosurgery. He has been on the Duke faculty since 1981.
Go to Profile#27176
Enda Kenny
#27187
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Enda Kenny is an Irish former Fine Gael politician who served as Taoiseach from 2011 to 2017, Leader of Fine Gael from 2002 to 2017, Minister for Defence from May to July 2014 and 2016 to 2017, Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2011, Minister for Tourism and Trade from 1994 to 1997 and Minister of State at the Department of Labour and Department of Education with responsibility for Youth Affairs from 1986 to 1987. He served as Teachta Dála for Mayo West from 1975 to 1997 and for Mayo from 1997 to 2020.
Go to Profile#27177
Jim Parsons
#27188
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
James Joseph Parsons is an American actor. From 2007 to 2019, he played Sheldon Cooper in the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory. He has received various awards, including four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series Musical or Comedy. In 2018, Forbes estimated his annual salary to be $26.5 million and named him the world's highest-paid television actor.
Go to Profile#27178
Charlie Kaufman
#27189
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Charles Stuart Kaufman is an American screenwriter, film director, and novelist. He wrote the films Being John Malkovich , Adaptation , and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind . He both wrote and directed the films Synecdoche, New York , Anomalisa , and I'm Thinking of Ending Things . In 2020, Kaufman made his literary debut with the release of his first novel, Antkind.
Go to Profile#27179
Åke Sellström
#27190
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Åke Sellström is a Swedish academic and expert in arms, especially in chemical weapons. He has been active at the Swedish Defence Research Agency . Biography Sellström received his Ph.D. in 1975 at University of Gothenburg.
Go to Profile#27180
Lam Lay Yong
#27191
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Lam Lay Yong is a retired Professor of Mathematics. Academic career From 1988 to 1996 she was Professor at the Department of Mathematics, National University of Singapore . She graduated from the University of Malaya in 1957 and pursued graduate study in Cambridge University, obtaining her Ph.D. degree from University of Singapore in 1966, and becoming a lecturer at the University of Singapore. She was promoted to full professor in 1988, taught in NUS for 35 years, and retired in 1996.
Go to Profile#27181
Golan Levin
#27192
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Golan Levin is an American new media artist, composer, performer and engineer interested in developing artifacts and events which explore supple new modes of reactive expression. Biography Levin received a self-designed Bachelor's degree in Art and Design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994, and a Master's degree in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Lab in 2000, as a student in John Maeda's Aesthetics and Computation Group . Between degrees, Levin worked as an interface designer at Paul Allen's Interval Research Corporation, where he was introduced to the field of interactive new media art by Michael Naimark, Brenda Laurel, and Scott Snibbe, among others.
Go to Profile#27182
Hans Samelson
#27193
Overall Influence
1916 - 2005 (89 years)
Hans Samelson was a German-American mathematician who worked in differential geometry, topology and the theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras—important in describing the symmetry of analytical structures.
Go to Profile#27183
Paulina Rubio
#27194
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Paulina Susana Rubio Dosamantes is a Mexican singer, songwriter and television personality. Referred to as "The Golden Girl" and "Queen of Latin Pop", she first achieved recognition as a member of the successful pop group Timbiriche from 1982 through 1991. After leaving Timbiriche, she embarked on a solo career. Rubio has sold over 15 million records, making her one of the best-selling Latin music artists of all time.
Go to Profile#27184
Richard Locksley
#27195
Overall Influence
Richard Locksley is a medical doctor, professor and researcher of infectious diseases, who pioneered approaches to study immunology. He is a professor of medicine and microbiology and immunology at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, where he also serves as the director of the Sandler Asthma Basic Research Center. He is also an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. In 2018, he was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences for his work on immunology.
Go to Profile#27185
Fernand Gobet
#27196
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Fernand Gobet is a cognitive scientist and a cognitive psychologist, currently Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the London School of Economics. His research interests focus on the study of cognition, especially in the areas of cognitive architectures, perception, intuition, problem solving, learning and decision making. He has developed the CHREST cognitive architecture, an acronym for Chunk Hierarchy and REtrieval STructures, which is a complete architecture for the processes of learning and perception used by humans. He is a chess International Master, and played numerous times for the Swiss national team.
Go to Profile#27186
Donald Hill Perkins
#27197
Overall Influence
1925 - 2022 (97 years)
Donald Hill Perkins was a British physicist and an emeritus professor at the University of Oxford. He achieved great success in the field of particle physics and was also known for his books. Perkins was born in 1925 and educated at Imperial College London. In 1945 he received his B.Sc. and 1948, a Ph.D. From 1949 he worked at Bristol University and in 1955/56 at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley. In 1956 he received the post of reader in Bristol University. In 1963/64 he conducted research at CERN. In 1965 he became Oxford professor of elementary particle physics. There, under the leadership of Denys Wilkinson, he built, along with Ken W.
Go to Profile#27187
Oscar Hijuelos
#27198
Overall Influence
1951 - 2013 (62 years)
Oscar Jerome Hijuelos was an American novelist. Of Cuban descent, during a year-long convalescence from a childhood illness spent in a Connecticut hospital he lost his knowledge of Spanish, his parents' native language. He was educated in New York City, and wrote short stories and advertising copy.
Go to Profile#27188
Robert Litterman
#27199
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Robert Bruce Litterman is chairman of the Risk Committee and a founding partner of Kepos Capital in New York. Prior to Kepos Capital, Litterman spent 23 years at Goldman Sachs, where he was head of the Quantitative Resources Group in Goldman Sachs Asset Management for 11 years, starting in 1998. Prior to that position, Litterman headed the firm-wide risk department from 1994 to 1998, and prior to that he was the co-head of the model development group in the research department of Goldman Sachs' Fixed Income Division. Litterman received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in ...
Go to Profile#27189
Lars Clausen
#27200
Overall Influence
1935 - 2010 (75 years)
Lars Michael Clausen was a German sociologist and professor at the University of Kiel. Life and work During World War II, the family lived on the Darß . 1944 his father Jürgen Clausen, a movie producer, was killed in action; his mother Rosemarie Clausen, a famous photographer, fled with her three children 1945 to Hamburg, where Lars Clausen attended the Christianeum. 1955, he took up Business, Economics, Sociology, and History at the universities of Berlin , Cologne, and Hamburg. 1960, he took his first degree in business in Hamburg . He got both his doctorate and post-doctoral degree at the University of Münster in sociology, having done field work in Zambian industries, 1964—65.
Go to Profile#27190
Russell W. Belk
#27201
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Russell W. Belk is an American business academic, currently a Distinguished Research Professor and the Kraft Foods Canada Chair in Marketing at Schulich School of Business, York University. Professor Belk is a leading authority on consumption, consumer culture, consumer behaviour, materialism, collecting, gift-giving, sharing and the digital self. In 2017, he was elected to the Royal Order of Canada, one of the highest honours that can be bestowed on researchers in Canada.
Go to Profile#27191
Stanisław Gądecki
#27202
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Stanisław Gądecki is the archbishop of Poznan, Poland. He is a Polish Roman Catholic Bishop, doctor of Theological Sciences, and archbishop of Poznań since 2002. and serves as president of the Polish Episcopal Conference from 2014 and Deputy President of the Council of the Bishops' Conferences of Europe from 2016.
Go to Profile#27192
Michael Balfour
#27203
Overall Influence
1908 - 1995 (87 years)
Michael Leonard Graham Balfour was an English historian and civil servant. He was born in Oxford, the son of Sir Graham Balfour. He was educated at Rugby School and Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated with a first in history. He first visited Germany in 1930, where he became a friend of Helmuth James von Moltke. During the Second World War Balfour worked at the Ministry of Information and the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office . In 1944 he joined the Psychological Warfare Division of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force and after the war he became ...
Go to Profile#27193
Ernst Josef Fittkau
#27204
Overall Influence
1927 - 2012 (85 years)
Ernst Josef Fittkau was a German entomologist and herpetologist. Career In entomology he specialized in the Diptera, especially the family Chironomidae. In herpetology he specialized in crocodiles. He collected natural history specimens on every continent except Antarctica, beginning with South America in 1960. He was Director of the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology in Munich from 1976 to 1992.
Go to Profile#27194
Tony Banks
#27205
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Anthony George Banks is an English musician, songwriter, singer and film composer primarily known as the keyboardist and founding member of the rock band Genesis. Banks is also a prolific solo artist, releasing six solo studio albums that range through progressive rock, pop, and classical music.
Go to Profile#27195
Emily Chang
#27206
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Emily Hsiu-Ching Chang is an American journalist, executive producer, and author. Chang was the anchor and executive producer of Bloomberg Technology, a daily TV show focused on global technology, and Studio 1.0, where she regularly speaks to top executives, investors, and entrepreneurs. Chang is the author of Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley, which alleges sexism and gender inequality in the tech industry.
Go to Profile#27196
Alice Randall
#27207
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Alice Randall is an American author, songwriter, producer, and lecturer. She is best known for her contributions to country music, in addition to her novel and New York Times bestseller The Wind Done Gone, which is a reinterpretation and parody of the 1936 novel Gone with the Wind.
Go to Profile#27197
Victor Brombert
#27208
Overall Influence
1923 - Present (103 years)
Victor Henri Brombert is an American scholar of nineteenth and twentieth century literature, the Henry Putnam University Professor at Princeton University. Early life Brombert was born in Berlin in 1923 into a well-to-do Russian-Jewish family that had fled Russia at the outbreak of the Revolution and settled in Leipzig. When Hitler came to power in Germany, the family left for Paris, and Brombert received his secondary education at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly. As the German army advanced on Paris in 1940, the family fled to the unoccupied zone under the control of the Vichy government and a ye...
Go to Profile#27198
Herman Van Rompuy
#27209
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Herman Achille, Count Van Rompuy is a Belgian politician, who served as the prime minister of Belgium from 2008 to 2009, and then as the first permanent president of the European Council from 2009 to 2014.
Go to Profile#27199
Asbjørn Hróbjartsson
#27210
Overall Influence
Asbjørn Hróbjartsson is a Danish medical researcher. He is Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine and Clinical Research Methodology at the University of Southern Denmark, as well as head of research at Odense University Hospital's Center for Evidence-Based Medicine. He is the former editor-in-chief of the Danish journal Bibliotek for Læger. He is also affiliated with the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen. He received his Ph.D. in June 2001 from the University of Copenhagen, with a thesis entitled Are placebo interventions associated with clinically important effects? He is best-known for a 2001 article he co-authored with Peter C.
Go to Profile#27200
Andrew J. Hanson
#27211
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Andrew J. Hanson is an American theoretical physicist and computer scientist. Hanson is best known in theoretical physics as the co-discoverer of the Eguchi–Hanson metric, the first Gravitational instanton. This Einstein metric is asymptotically locally Euclidean and self-dual, closely parallel to the Yang-Mills instanton. He is also known as the co-author of Constrained Hamiltonian Systems and of Gravitation, Gauge Theories, and Differential Geometry, which attempted to bridge the gap between theoretical physicists and mathematicians at a time when concepts relevant to the two disciplines were rapidly unifying.
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