Math novel

Pythagoras

570 BCE

Pythagoras was a Greek philosopher who is most notably known for developing the pythagorean theorem, which consists of the equation a^2+b^2 = c^2. Furthermore, many of his ideals inspired later famous philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. He also discovered the fact that the earth is in fact the shape of a sphere, which had not yet been known.

Euclid

325 BCE

Euclid was one of the greatest mathematicians of all time whose contributions are valued greatly today. Euclid discovered many theorems, specifically those applying to geometry. He created the foundation for geometry, which is now known as Euclidean geometry. He studied a geometry, number theory, spherical geometry and conic sections. He made the first developments in geometry on a flat plane and geometry on a three dimensional plane.

Archimedes

287 BCE

Archimedes was a greek mathematician, physicist, engineer and inventor who is most famous for inventing the science of mechanics and hydrostatics. He discovered a key concept in physics, the center of gravity. He also discovered theorems about levers and pulleys, as well as certain properties about spheres. Additionally, he was one of the first to consider the idea of infinity and what that means.

Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi

780

Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was a mathematician who created the foundation for mathematics. He developed the topic of algebra, as well as the linear and quadratic equations. All of his discoveries made a huge impact on the world and allowed for many future advancements.

Robert Recorde

1510

Robert Recorde was a mathematician and physicist who invented the equal sign. His reasoning for using two parallel lines as the symbol is because "there are no two things more equal" than two parallel lines. The equal sign was an essential discovery in mathematics and math would not be what it is today without the equal sign.

Galileo Galilei

Feb 15, 1564

Galileo Galilei was a philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. He has made numerous contributions to mathematics, and is recognized for his discoveries of laws about projectiles, parabolic trajectory and the study of motion. He also made many discoveries about space, specifically about certain planets and their characteristics.

Isaac Barrow

1630

Isaac Barrow was a theologian and mathematician who is most well known for his discovery of the fundamental theorem of calculus. This theorem links together cumulative change represented by integrals and the local rate of change represented by derivatives.

James Gregory

1638

James Gregory was a mathematician and an astronomer who helped discover the fundamental theorem of calculus, along with some other mathematicians. He also discovered the existence of infinite series for some trigonometric functions.

Isaac Newton

Dec 25, 1642

Isaac Newton was a physicist that theorized many physics concepts which ended in the development of the law of universal gravitation. He is also known for theorizing the three laws of motion and many groundbreaking physics theories. He has developed many formulas, such as Newtons first, second and third law, as well as the formula for gravitational force. His ideas helped develop the fundamental theorem of calculus. He is extremely well known, and is said to be one of the greatest of his time.

Gottfried Leibniz

Jul 1, 1646

Gottfried Leibniz was a mathematician, philosopher and logician. He has made a wide variety of discoveries, specifically about energy, force and time as well as calculus and its components. He developed the fundamental theorem of calculus, as well as the differentiation between integral and differential calculus.

Luigi Guido Grandi

Oct 1, 1671

Luigi Guido Grandi was an Italian monk, philosopher, engineer and mathematician. In mathematics, he worked on studying the infinite series 1 − 1 + 1 − 1 + ⋯, and its divergence. This means that it does not have a sum, in other words, it doesn't converge to a specific value. Due to his studies, this series is sometimes referred to as Grandi's series.

Leonhard Euler

Apr 15, 1707

Leonhard Euler, known more commonly as Euler, was a widely famous mathematician who has two numbers named after him. The first is Euler's number (e) which is equivalent to 2.71828. This number can be found in exponential functions, and is very important when studying calculus. Additionally, the number 0.57721 is called "Euler's constant", which is known as gamma. He derived the formula e^(pi)(x) = cos x + i sin x.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Apr 30, 1777

Carl Gauss was a mathematician and physicist who has made contributions in many different topics of mathematics such as number theory, geometry, probability theory and the theory of functions. He also developed the prime number theorem. Further, he developed a formula to add up the numbers from 1 to 100. He discovered that if you split the numbers into two groups, (1-50) and (51-100), he could add them vertically and then multiply that sum by 50, to obtain 5050. This formula is well known today.

August Ferdinand Mobius

Nov 17, 1790

August Ferdinand Mobius was a German mathematician. He primarily studied analytic geometry, and is well recognized for his discovery of the Mobius strip and the general Mobius structure. Mobius strips are bands or loops who's surface only has one side and one boundary curve.

Samuel Morse

Apr 27, 1791

Samuel Morse was an American inventor who is most well known for co-developing Morse code, which is a method used to communicate with others via signal durations, without using words. One of the most common uses of Morse code is when using "SOS", which is used as an emergency signal.

Bernhard Riemann

Sep 17, 1826

Bernhard Riemann was a German mathematician who made contributions in differential geometry, number theory and complex analysis. His contributions in studying and analyzing geometry aided Einstein in discovering the theory of relativity.

James Maxwell

Jun 13, 1831

James Maxwell was a scientist who is well known for linking electricity, magnetism and light for the first time. This was called the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, and was revolutionary. He discovered electromagnetic waves and that they moved at the speed of light, which was a fairly new concept. He also made some contributions in vector calculus as well.

Georg Cantor

Mar 3, 1845

Georg Cantor was a mathematician who is most well known for his derivation of set theory, which is the study of collections of objects, in common terms. He is also known for discovering infinite sets of numbers, and proved that there are exactly as many positive fractions as there are natural numbers.

David Hilbert

Jan 23, 1862

David Hilbert was a mathematician who is known for developing Hilbert's basis theorem, and made key discoveries in calculus, algebra and foundations of geometry. He worked on the invariant theory, which in turn helped to prove the renowned finiteness theorem. He also developed the technique called Hilbert's space, which deals with vector algebra and calculus in other dimensions.

Albert Einstein

Mar 14, 1879

Albert Einstein was a German physicist who made many contributions to mathematics and physics. He is known for developing the theory of relativity, which explains the phenomenons of space and time. He is also known for deriving the equation E=MC^2, and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. He helped to develop the theory of quantum mechanics and atomic energy. He is one of the most famous physicists in our world, with great reason.

Werner Heisenberg

Dec 5, 1901

Werner Heisenberg was a German physicist who developed the atomic theory, and was one of the first to make discoveries about quantum mechanics. Further, he won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1932 for "the creation of quantum mechanics".

Paul Dirac

Aug 8, 1902

Paul Dirac was a physicist who is very well known and appreciated for his early discoveries in the fields of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. His contributions helped create the foundation for modern day physics.

John Langshaw Austin

Mar 26, 1911

J. L. Austin was a British philosopher who is recognized for developing the theory of speech acts. He wrote a book called "How to Do Things with Words", which talks about the importance of focusing on what people mean, instead of what words mean. He was a very influential figure of his time.

Irving John Good

Dec 9, 1916

I. J. Good was a British mathematician who has studied and published many books about probability theory. Probability theory is the study of random phenomena, and the chances of that thing occurring depending on if something else occurred before that.

Richard Feynman

May 11, 1918

Richard Feynman was a physicist who is well known due to his discoveries of quantum electrodynamics. "Quantum electrodynamics describes how light interacts with matter and how charged particles interact with each other." He also made early discoveries in the field of quantum mechanics and in particle physics.

Sidney Morgenbesser

Sep 22, 1921

Sidney Morgenbesser was a philosopher and a professor who worked at Columbia University. He obtained his PhD in 1956 at the University of Pennsylvania.

Gerd Gigerenzer

Sep 3, 1947

Gerd Gigerenzer is a german psychologist and professor who has studied the rationale behind decision making. He has also done many studies on why people think the way they do and what goes into a decision making process. He got his PhD from the University of Munich in 1977.

Murray Gell-Mann

Sep 15, 1959

Murray Gell-Mann was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discoveries about the classification of elementary particles and how they interact with eachother. He made many discoveries about tiny particles, and all the hidden patters

Konrad Polthier

Sep 30, 1961

Konrad Polthier is a German mathematician and professor who studies differential geometry and the visualization of these shapes, especially on computers. He is known for analysing the two holed torus, which is a unique geometrical shape. He is one of the directors at Berlin Mathematical School.

Paolo Giordano

Dec 19, 1982

Paolo Giordano is a writer who is most well recognized for his novel "The Solitude of Prime Numbers". This novel talks about how prime numbers are lonely, since they are only divisible by 1 and itself. It also goes into further detail about certain patters that come up, as well as goes into more depth studying these numbers.