Aryabhata (476-550) (India)

● Indian mathematicians excelled for thousands of years, and eventually even

developed advanced techniques like Taylor series before Europeans did, but they
are denied credit because of Western ascendancy. Among the Hindu
mathematicians, Aryabhata (called Arjehir by Arabs) may be most famous.
● While Europe was in its early "Dark Age," Aryabhata advanced arithmetic,
algebra, elementary analysis, and especially plane and spherical trigonometry,
using the decimal system. Aryabhata is sometimes called the "Father of Algebra"
instead of al-Khowârizmi (who himself cites the work of Aryabhata). His most
famous accomplishment in mathematics was the Aryabhata Algorithm (connected
to continued fractions) for solving Diophantine equations.
● Aryabhata made several important discoveries in astronomy, e.g. the nature of
moonlight, and concept of sidereal year; his estimate of the Earth's circumference
was more accurate than any achieved in ancient Greece.
● He was among the very few ancient scholars who realized the Earth rotated
daily on an axis; claims that he also espoused heliocentric orbits are
controversial, but may be confirmed by the writings of al-Biruni. Aryabhata is
said to have introduced the constant e. He used π ≈ 3.1416; it is unclear
whether he discovered this independently or borrowed it from Liu Hui of
China. Although it was first discovered by Nicomachus three centuries earlier,
Aryabhata is famous for the identity
Σ (k3) = (Σ k)2

● Some of Aryabhata's achievements, e.g. an excellent approximation to the sine

function, are known only from the writings of Bhaskara I, who wrote: "Aryabhata
is the master who, after reaching the furthest shores and plumbing the inmost
 depths of the sea of ultimate knowledge of mathematics, kinematics and spherics,
handed over the three sciences to the learned world."
● In Ganita Aryabhata names the first 10 decimal places and gives algorithms for
obtaining square and cubic roots, using the decimal number system. Then he
treats geometric measurements—employing 62,832/20,000 (= 3.1416) for π—and
develops properties of similar right-angled triangles and of two intersecting
circles. Using the Pythagorean theorem, he obtained one of the two methods for
constructing his table of sines. He also realized that second-order sine difference
is proportional to sine.
● Mathematical series, quadratic equations, compound interest (involving a
quadratic equation), proportions (ratios), and the solution of various linear
equations are among the arithmetic and algebraic topics included. Aryabhata’s
general solution for linear indeterminate equations, which Bhaskara I called
kuttakara (“pulverizer”), consisted of breaking the problem down into new
problems with successively smaller coefficients—essentially the Euclidean
algorithm and related to the method of continued fractions.

Leonardo `Bigollo' Pisano (Fibonacci) (ca 1170-1245) Italy

● Leonardo (known today as Fibonacci) introduced the decimal system and other new
methods of arithmetic to Europe, and relayed the mathematics of the Hindus, Persians,
and Arabs. Others, especially Gherard of Cremona, had translated Islamic mathematics,
e.g. the works of al-Khowârizmi, into Latin, but Leonardo was the influential teacher.
 (Two centuries earlier, the mathematician-Pope, Gerbert of Aurillac, had tried
unsuccessfully to introduce the decimal system to Europe.)
● Leonardo also re-introduced older Greek ideas like Mersenne numbers and Diophantine
equations. His writings cover a very broad range including new theorems of geometry,
methods to construct and convert Egyptian fractions (which were still in wide use),
irrational numbers, the Chinese Remainder Theorem, theorems about Pythagorean
triplets, and the series 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, .... which is now linked with the name
Fibonacci.
● In addition to his great historic importance and fame (he was a favorite of Emperor
Frederick II), Leonardo `Fibonacci' is called "the greatest number theorist between
Diophantus and Fermat" and "the most talented mathematician of the Middle Ages."
● Leonardo is most famous for his book Liber Abaci, but his Liber Quadratorum provides
the best demonstration of his skill.
● He defined congruums and proved theorems about them, including a theorem establishing
the conditions for three square numbers to be in consecutive arithmetic series; this has
been called the finest work in number theory prior to Fermat (although a similar
statement was made about one of Bhaskara II's theorems).
● Although often overlooked, this work includes a proof of the n = 4 case of Fermat's Last
Theorem. (Leonardo's proof of FLT4 is widely ignored or considered incomplete. I'm
preparing a page to consider that question. Al-Farisi was another ancient mathematician
who noted FLT4, although attempting no proof.) Another of Leonardo's noteworthy
achievements was proving that the roots of a certain cubic equation could not have any of
the constructible forms Euclid had outlined in Book 10 of his Elements. He also wrote
on, but didn't prove, Wilson's Theorem.

● Leonardo provided Europe with the decimal system, algebra and the 'lattice' method of
multiplication, all far superior to the methods then in use. He introduced notation like 3/5;
his clever extension of this for quantities like 5 yards, 2 feet, and 3 inches is more
efficient than today's notation. It seems hard to believe but before the decimal system,
mathematicians had no notation for zero. Referring to this system, Gauss was later to
exclaim "To what heights would science now be raised if Archimedes had made that
discovery!"

● In particular, in 1202, he wrote a hugely influential book called “Liber Abaci” ("Book of
Calculation"), in which he promoted the use of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system,
describing its many benefits for merchants and mathematicians alike over the clumsy
system of Roman numerals then in use in Europe. Despite its obvious advantages, uptake
of the system in Europe was slow (this was after all during the time of the Crusades
against Islam, a time in which anything Arabic was viewed with great suspicion), and
Arabic numerals were even banned in the city of Florence in 1299 on the pretext that they
were easier to falsify than Roman numerals. However, common sense eventually
 prevailed and the new system was adopted throughout Europe by the 15th century,
making the Roman system obsolete. The horizontal bar notation for fractions was also
first used in this work (although following the Arabic practice of placing the fraction to
the left of the integer).

William Rowan (Sir) Hamilton (1805-1865) Ireland

● Hamilton was a childhood prodigy. Home-schooled and self-taught, he started as a

student of languages and literature, was influenced by an arithmetic prodigy his own age,
read Euclid, Newton and Lagrange, found an error by Laplace, and made new discoveries
in optics; all this before the age of seventeen when he first attended school.
● At college he enjoyed unprecedented success in all fields, but his undergraduate days
were cut short abruptly by his appointment as Royal Astronomer of Ireland at the age of
22.
● He soon began publishing his revolutionary treatises on optics, in which he developed
Hamilton's Principle of Stationary Action. This Principle refined and corrected the earlier
principles of least action developed by Maupertuis, Fermat, and Euler; it (and related
principles) are key to much of modern physics.
● His early writing also predicted that some crystals would have an hitherto unknown
"conical" refraction mode; this was soon confirmed experimentally.
● Hamilton's Principle of Least Action, and its associated equations and concept of
configuration space, led to a revolution in mathematical physics.
● Since Maupertuis had named this Principle a century earlier, it is possible to
underestimate Hamilton's contribution. However Maupertuis, along with others credited
 with anticipating the idea (Fermat, Leibniz, Euler and Lagrange) failed to state the full
Principle correctly. Rather than minimizing action, physical systems sometimes achieve a
non-minimal but stationary action in configuration space. (Poisson and d' Alembert had
noticed exceptions to Euler-Lagrange least action, but failed to find Hamilton's solution.
Jacobi also deserves some credit for the Principle, but his work came after reading
Hamilton.) Because of this Principle, as well as his wave-particle duality (which would
be further developed by Planck and Einstein), Hamilton can be considered a major early
influence on quantum theory.
● Hamilton also made revolutionary contributions to dynamics, differential equations, the
theory of equations, numerical analysis, fluctuating functions, and graph theory (he
marketed a puzzle based on his Hamiltonian paths). He invented the ingenious
hodograph. He coined several mathematical terms including vector, scalar, associative,
and tensor. In addition to his brilliance and creativity, Hamilton was renowned for
thoroughness and produced voluminous writings on several subjects.
● Hamilton himself considered his greatest accomplishment to be the development of
quaternions, a non-Abelian field to handle 3-D rotations. While there is no 3-D analog to
the Gaussian complex-number plane (based on the equation i2 = -1 ), quaternions
derive from a 4-D analog based on i2 = j2 = k2 = ijk = -jik = -1. Although matrix and
tensor methods may seem more general, quaternions are still in wide engineering use
because of practical advantages, e.g. avoidance of "gimbal lock."
● Hamilton once wrote: "On earth there is nothing great but man; in man there is nothing
great but mind."
Apollonius of Perga (262-190 BC) Greek domain

● Apollonius Pergaeus, called "The Great Geometer," is sometimes considered the

second greatest of ancient Greek mathematicians. (Euclid, Eudoxus and Archytas
are other candidates for this honor.)
● His writings on conic sections have been studied until modern times; he
developed methods for normals and curvature. (He is often credited with
 inventing the names for parabola, hyperbola and ellipse; but these shapes were
previously described by Menaechmus, and their names may also predate
Apollonius.)
● Although astronomers eventually concluded it was not physically correct,
Apollonius developed the "epicycle and deferent" model of planetary orbits, and
proved important theorems in this area.
● He deliberately emphasized the beauty of pure, rather than applied, mathematics,
saying his theorems were "worthy of acceptance for the sake of the
demonstrations themselves." The following generalization of the Pythagorean
Theorem, where M is the midpoint of BC, is called Apollonius' Theorem: AB 2
+ AC 2 = 2(AM 2 + BM 2).
● Many of his works have survived only in a fragmentary form, and the proofs were
completely lost. Most famous was the Problem of Apollonius, which is to find a
circle tangent to three objects, with the objects being points, lines, or circles, in
any combination. Constructing the eight circles each tangent to three other circles
is especially challenging, but just finding the two circles containing two given
points and tangent to a given line is a serious challenge. Vieta was renowned for
discovering methods for all ten cases of this Problem. Other great mathematicians
who have enjoyed reconstructing Apollonius' lost theorems include Fermat,
Pascal, Newton, Euler, Poncelet and Gauss.
● In evaluating the genius of the ancient Greeks, it is well to remember that their
achievements were made without the convenience of modern notation. It is clear from his
writing that Apollonius almost developed the analytic geometry of Descartes, but failed
due to the lack of such elementary concepts as negative numbers. Leibniz wrote "He who
understands Archimedes and Apollonius will admire less the achievements of the
foremost men of later times."

Charles Hermite (1822-1901) France

● Hermite studied the works of Lagrange and Gauss from an early age and soon
developed an alternate proof of Abel's famous quintic impossibility result.
● He attended the same college as Galois and also had trouble passing their
examinations, but soon became highly respected by Europe's best mathematicians
for his significant advances in analytic number theory, elliptic functions, and
quadratic forms.
● Along with Cayley and Sylvester, he founded the important theory of invariants.
Hermite's theory of transformation allowed him to connect analysis, algebra and
number theory in novel ways.
● He was a kindly modest man and an inspirational teacher. Among his students
was Poincaré, who said of Hermite, "He never evokes a concrete image, yet you
soon perceive that the more abstract entities are to him like living creatures....
Methods always seemed to be born in his mind in some mysterious way."
● Hermite's other famous students included Darboux, Borel, and Hadamard who
wrote of "how magnificent Hermite's teaching was, overflowing with enthusiasm
for science, which seemed to come to life in his voice and whose beauty he never
failed to communicate to us, since he felt it so much himself to the very depth of
his being."
● Although he and Abel had proved that the general quintic lacked algebraic
solutions, Hermite introduced an elliptic analog to the circular trigonometric
functions and used these to provide a general solution for the quintic equation.
● He developed the concept of complex conjugate which is now ubiquitous in
mathematical physics and matrix theory. He was first to prove that the Stirling
and Euler generalizations of the factorial function are equivalent. He was first to
note remarkable facts about Heegner numbers, e.g.
 eπ√163 = 262537412640768743.9999999999992...
● (Without computers he was able to calculate this number, including the twelve 9's to the
right of the decimal point.) Very many elegant concepts and theorems are named after
Hermite. Hermite's most famous result may be his intricate proof that e (along with a
broad class of related numbers) is transcendental. (Extending the proof to π was left to
Lindemann, a matter of regret for historians, some of whom who regard Hermite as the
greatest mathematician of his era.)

● Hermite was a major figure in the development of the theory of algebraic forms, the
arithmetical theory of quadratic forms, and the theories of elliptic and Abelian functions.
He first studied the representation of integers in what are now called Hermitian forms.
His famous solution of the general quintic equation appeared in Sur la résolution de
l’équation du cinquième degré (1858; “On the Solution of the Equation of the Fifth
Degree”). Many late 19th-century mathematicians first gained recognition for their work
largely through the encouragement and publicity supplied by Hermite.

Pierre-Simon (Marquis de) Laplace (1749-1827) France

● Laplace was the preeminent mathematical astronomer, and is often called the
"French Newton." His masterpiece was Mécanique Céleste which redeveloped
and improved Newton's work on planetary motions using calculus.
 ● While Newton had shown that the two-body gravitation problem led to orbits
which were ellipses (or other conic sections), Laplace was more interested in the
much more difficult problems involving three or more bodies. (Would Jupiter's
pull on Saturn eventually propel Saturn into a closer orbit, or was Saturn's orbit
stable for eternity?) Laplace's equations had the optimistic outcome that the solar
system was stable.
● Laplace advanced the nebular hypothesis of solar system origin, and was first to
conceive of black holes. (He also conceived of multiple galaxies, but this was
Lambert's idea first.) He explained the so-called secular acceleration of the Moon.
(Today we know Laplace's theories do not fully explain the Moon's path, nor
guarantee orbit stability.) His other accomplishments in physics include theories
about the speed of sound and surface tension.
● He worked closely with Lavoisier, helping to discover the elemental composition
of water, and the natures of combustion, respiration and heat itself. Laplace may
have been first to note that the laws of mechanics are the same with time's arrow
reversed.
● He was noted for his strong belief in determinism, famously replying to
Napoleon's question about God with: "I have no need of that hypothesis."

● Laplace viewed mathematics as just a tool for developing his physical theories.
Nevertheless, he made many important mathematical discoveries and inventions
(although the Laplace Transform itself was already known to Lagrange). He was the
premier expert at differential and difference equations, and definite integrals. He
developed spherical harmonics, potential theory, and the theory of determinants;
anticipated Fourier's series; and advanced Euler's technique of generating functions. In
the fields of probability and statistics he made key advances: he proved the Law of Least
Squares, and introduced the controversial ("Bayesian") rule of succession. In the theory
of equations, he was first to prove that any polynomial of even degree must have a real
quadratic factor.

● Others might place Laplace higher on the List, but he proved no fundamental theorems of
pure mathematics (though his partial differential equation for fluid dynamics is one of the
most famous in physics), founded no major branch of pure mathematics, and wasn't
particularly concerned with rigorous proof. (He is famous for skipping difficult proof
steps with the phrase "It is easy to see".) Nevertheless he was surely one of the greatest
applied mathematicians ever.

Carl Ludwig Siegel (1896-1981) Germany

● Carl Siegel became famous when his doctoral dissertation established a key result
in Diophantine approximations. He continued with contributions to several
branches of analytic and algebraic number theory, including arithmetic geometry
and quadratic forms. He also did seminal work with Riemann's zeta function,
Dedekind's zeta functions, transcendental number theory, discontinuous groups,
the 3-body problem in celestial mechanics, and symplectic geometry.
● In complex analysis he developed Siegel modular forms, which have wide
application in math and physics. He may share credit with Alexander Gelfond for
the solution to Hilbert's 7th Problem. Siegel admired the "simplicity and honesty"
of masters like Gauss, Lagrange and Hardy and lamented the modern "trend for
senseless abstraction." He and Israel Gelfand were the first two winners of the
Wolf Prize in Mathematics. Atle Selberg called him a "devastatingly impressive"
mathematician who did things that "seemed impossible." André Weil declared
that Siegel was the greatest mathematician of the first half of the 20th century.

● During his time at the psychiatric institute, Siegel came in contact with Edmund
Georg Hermann Landau, a professor of University of Göttingen, working in the
fields of number theory and complex analysis. Siegel had later said that he could
withstand his experience at the institute only because of Landau.
● In 1929, he published an important paper concerning linear equations. Known as
‘Siegel’s lemma’, it is pure existence theorem, referring to the bounds on the
solutions of the said equations obtained by the construction of auxiliary functions.
● Also in the same year, he proved ‘Bourget's hypothesis’. Carl Ludwig Siegel is
best known for his contributions to the ‘Thue–Siegel–Roth theorem’ in
 Diophantine approximation. Originally established by Roth, it stated that “a given
algebraic number (alpha) may not have too many rational number
approximations, that are very good”.
● In 1921, working closely on the theorem, Siegel refined the meaning of ‘very
good’. In 1978, Carl Ludwig Siegel received the first Wolf Prize in Mathematics
jointly with Israel Gelfand of Soviet Russia. Siegel was awarded this prestigious
prize “for his contributions to the theory of numbers, theory of several complex
variables, and celestial mechanics”.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) Germany

● Kepler was interested in astronomy from an early age, studied to become a

Lutheran minister, became a professor of mathematics instead, then Tycho
Brahe's understudy, and, on Brahe's death, was appointed Imperial Mathematician
at the age of twenty-nine.
● His observations of the planets with Brahe, along with his study of Apollonius'
1800-year old work, led to Kepler's three Laws of Planetary Motion, which in turn
led directly to Newton's Laws of Motion. Beyond his discovery of these Laws
(one of the most important achievements in all of science), Kepler is also
sometimes called the "Founder of Modern Optics."
● He furthered the theory of the camera obscura, telescopes built from two convex
lenses, and atmospheric refraction.
● The question of human vision had been considered by many great scientists
including Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, Galen, Alkindus, Alhazen, and Leonardo da
 Vinci, but it was Kepler who was first to explain the operation of the human eye
correctly and to note that retinal images will be upside-down.
● Kepler developed a rudimentary notion of universal gravitation, and used it to
produce the best explanation for tides before Newton; however he seems not to
have noticed that his empirical laws implied inverse-square gravitation. Kepler
noticed Olbers' Paradox before Olbers' time and used it to conclude that the
Universe is finite.
● Kepler ranks #75 on Michael Hart's famous list of the Most Influential Persons in
History. This rank, much lower than that of Copernicus, Galileo or Newton,
seems to me to underestimate Kepler's importance, since it was Kepler's Laws,
rather than just heliocentrism, which were essential to the early development of
mathematical physics.

● "I give myself up to divine ecstasy ... My book is written. It will be read either by my
contemporaries or by posterity — I care not which. It may well wait a hundred years for a
reader, as God has waited 6,000 years for someone to understand His work."
● Kepler also once wrote "Mathematics is the archetype of the beautiful."
● Besides the trigonometric results needed to discover his Laws, Kepler made other
contributions to mathematics. He generalized Alhazen's Billiard Problem, developing the
notion of curvature. He was first to notice that the set of Platonic regular solids was
incomplete if concave solids are admitted, and first to prove that there were only 13
Archimedean solids.
● He proved theorems of solid geometry later discovered on the famous palimpsest of
Archimedes. He rediscovered the Fibonacci series, applied it to botany, and noted that the
ratio of Fibonacci numbers converges to the Golden Mean. He was a key early pioneer in
calculus, and embraced the concept of continuity (which others avoided due to Zeno's
paradoxes); his work was a direct inspiration for Cavalieri and others.
● He developed the theory of logarithms and improved on Napier's tables. He developed
mensuration methods and anticipated Fermat's theorem on stationary points. Kepler once
had an opportunity to buy wine, which merchants measured using a shortcut; with the
famous Kepler's Wine Barrel Problem, he used his rudimentary calculus to deduce which
barrel shape would be the best bargain.
● Kepler reasoned that the structure of snowflakes was evidence for the then-novel atomic
theory of matter. He noted that the obvious packing of cannonballs gave maximum
density (this became known as Kepler's Conjecture; optimality was proved among regular
packings by Gauss, but it wasn't until 1998 that the possibility of denser irregular
packings was disproven).
● In addition to his physics and mathematics, Kepler wrote a science fiction novel, and was
an astrologer and mystic. He had ideas similar to Pythagoras about numbers ruling the
cosmos (writing that the purpose of studying the world "should be to discover the rational
order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in
 the language of mathematics"). Kepler's mystic beliefs even led to his own mother being
imprisoned for witchcraft.
● Johannes Kepler (along with Galileo, Fermat, Huygens, Wallis, Vieta and Descartes) is
among the giants on whose shoulders Newton was proud to stand. Some historians place
him ahead of Galileo and Copernicus as the single most important contributor to the early
Scientific Revolution. Chasles includes Kepler on a list of the six responsible for
conceiving and perfecting infinitesimal calculus (the other five are Archimedes,
Cavalieri, Fermat, Leibniz and Newton). (www.keplersdiscovery.com is a wonderful
website devoted to Johannes Kepler's discoveries.)

Diophantus of Alexandria (ca 250) Greece, Egypt

● Diophantus was one of the most influential mathematicians of antiquity; he wrote

several books on arithmetic and algebra, and explored number theory further than
anyone earlier.
● He advanced a rudimentary arithmetic and algebraic notation, allowed rational-
number solutions to his problems rather than just integers, and was aware of
results like the Brahmagupta-Fibonacci Identity; for these reasons he is often
called the "Father of Algebra."
● His work, however, may seem quite limited to a modern eye: his methods were
not generalized, he knew nothing of negative numbers, and, though he often dealt
with quadratic equations, never seems to have commented on their second
solution. His notation, clumsy as it was, was used for many centuries. (The
shorthand x3 for "x cubed" was not invented until Descartes.)
● Very little is known about Diophantus (he might even have come from Babylonia,
whose algebraic ideas he borrowed). Many of his works have been lost, including
proofs for lemmas cited in the surviving work, some of which are so difficult it
 would almost stagger the imagination to believe Diophantus really had proofs.
Among these are Fermat's conjecture (Lagrange's theorem) that every integer is
the sum of four squares, and the following: "Given any positive rationals a, b with
a>b, there exist positive rationals c, d such that a3-b3 = c3+d3." (This latter
"lemma" was investigated by Vieta and Fermat and finally solved, with some
difficulty, in the 19th century. It seems unlikely that Diophantus actually had
proofs for such "lemmas.")
● Diophantus applied himself to some quite complex algebraic problems,
particularly what has since become known as Diophantine Analysis, which deals
with finding integer solutions to kinds of problems that lead to equations in
several unknowns. Diophantine equations can be defined as polynomial equations
with integer coefficients to which only integer solutions are sought.
● For example, he would explore problems such as: two integers such that the sum
of their squares is a square (x2 + y2 = z2, examples being x = 3 and y = 4 giving z
= 5, or x = 5 and y =12 giving z = 13); or two integers such that the sum of their
cubes is a square (x3 + y3 = z2, a trivial example being x = 1 and y = 2, giving z =
3); or three integers such that their squares are in arithmetic progression (x2 + z2
= 2y2, an example being x = 1, z = 7 and y = 5). His general approach was to
determine if a problem has infinitely many, or a finite number of solutions, or
none at all.
● Diophantus’ major work (and the most prominent work on algebra in all Greek
mathematics) was his “Arithmetica”, a collection of problems giving numerical solutions
of both determinate and indeterminate equations. Of the original thirteen books of the
“Arithmetica”, only six have survived, although some Diophantine problems from
“Arithmetica” have also been found in later Arabic sources. His problems exercised the
minds of many of the world's best mathematicians for much of the next two millennia,
with some particularly celebrated solutions provided by Brahmagupta, Pierre de Fermat,
Joseph Louis Lagrange and Leonhard Euler, among others. In recognition of their depth,
David Hilbert proposed the solvability of all Diophantine problems as the tenth of his
celebrated problems in 1900, a definitive solution to which only emerged with the work
of Robinson and Matiyasevich in the mid-20th Century.

References:

https://www.storyofmathematics.com/medieval_fibonacci.html
https://fabpedigree.com/james/mathmen.htm?
fbclid=IwAR2txzg8MyRVMMk7WaXN08KDjqNisEq7NMLGvNEdor_UoRAyLFh
R1g0nI54#Fibonacci
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aryabhata-I
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Apollonius-of-Perga
https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/carl-ludwig-siegel-540.php