Alexandre 

 Grothendieck (1928-2014) Germany, France

Grothendieck has done brilliant work in several areas of mathematics including number
theory, geometry, topology, and functional analysis, but especially in the fields of
algebraic geometry and category theory, both of which he revolutionized. He is
especially noted for his invention of the Theory of Schemes, and other methods to unify
different branches of mathematics. He applied algebraic geometry to number theory;
applied methods of topology to set theory; etc. Grothendieck is considered a master of
abstraction, rigor and presentation. He has produced many important and deep results
in homological algebra, most notably his etale cohomology. With these new methods,
Grothendieck and his outstanding student Pierre Deligne were able to prove the Weil
Conjectures. Grothendieck also developed the theory of sheafs, the theory of motives,
generalized the Riemann-Roch Theorem to revolutionize K-theory, developed
Grothendieck categories, crystalline cohomology, infinity-stacks and more. The guiding
principle behind much of Grothendieck's work has been Topos Theory, which he
invented to harness the methods of topology. These methods and results have
redirected several diverse branches of modern mathematics including number theory,
algebraic topology, and representation theory. Among Grothendieck's famous results
was his Fundamental Theorem in the Metric Theory of Tensor Products, which was
inspired by Littlewood's proof of the 4/3 Inequality.

Grothendieck's radical religious and political philosophies led him to retire from public
life while still in his prime, but he is widely regarded as the greatest mathematician of
the 20th century, and indeed one of the greatest geniuses ever.
Pierre de  Fermat (1601-1665) France
Pierre de Fermat was the most brilliant mathematician of his era and, along with
Descartes, one of the most influential. Although mathematics was just his hobby
(Fermat was a government lawyer), Fermat practically founded Number Theory, and
also played key roles in the discoveries of Analytic Geometry and Calculus. Lagrange
considered Fermat, rather than Newton or Leibniz, to be the inventor of calculus.
Fermat was first to study certain interesting curves, e.g. the "Witch of Agnesi". He was
also an excellent geometer (e.g. discovering a triangle's Fermat point), and (in
collaboration with Blaise Pascal) discovered probability theory. Fellow geniuses are the
best judges of genius, and Blaise Pascal had this to say of Fermat: "For my part, I
confess that [Fermat's researches about numbers] are far beyond me, and I am
competent only to admire them." E.T. Bell wrote "it can be argued that Fermat was at
least Newton's equal as a pure mathematician." Fermat's most famous discoveries in
number theory include the ubiquitously-used Fermat's Little Theorem (that (ap-a) is a
multiple of p whenever p is prime); the n = 4 case of his conjectured Fermat's Last
Theorem (he may have proved the n = 3 case as well); and Fermat's Christmas
Theorem (that any prime (4n+1) can be represented as the sum of two squares in
exactly one way) which may be considered the most difficult theorem of arithmetic
which had been proved up to that date. Fermat proved the Christmas Theorem with
difficulty using "infinite descent," but details are unrecorded, so the theorem is often
named the Fermat-Euler Prime Number Theorem, with the first published proof being by
Euler more than a century after Fermat's claim. Another famous conjecture by Fermat is
that every natural number is the sum of three triangle numbers, or more generally the
sum of k k-gonal numbers. As with his "Last Theorem" he claimed to have a proof but
didn't write it up. (This theorem was eventually proved by Lagrange for k=4, the very
young Gauss for k=3, and Cauchy for general k. Diophantus claimed the k=4 case but
any proof has been lost.) I think Fermat's conjectures were impressive even if unproven,
and that this great mathematician is often underrated. (Recall that his so-called "Last
Theorem" was actually just a private scribble.)

Fermat developed a system of analytic geometry which both preceded and surpassed
that of Descartes; he developed methods of differential and integral calculus which
Newton acknowledged as an inspiration. Although Kepler anticipated it, Fermat is
credited with Fermat's Theorem on Stationary Points (df(x)/dx = 0 at function extrema),
the key to many problems in applied analysis. Fermat was also the first European to find
the integration formula for the general polynomial; he used his calculus to find centers of
gravity, etc.

Fermat's contemporaneous rival René Descartes is more famous than Fermat, and
Descartes' writings were more influential. Whatever one thinks of Descartes as
a philosopher, however, it seems clear that Fermat was the better mathematician.
Fermat and Descartes did work in physics and independently discovered the
(trigonometric) law of refraction, but Fermat gave the correct explanation, and used it
remarkably to anticipate the Principle of Least Action later enunciated by Maupertuis
(though Maupertuis himself, like Descartes, had an incorrect explanation of refraction).
Fermat and Descartes independently discovered analytic geometry, but it was Fermat
who extended it to more than two dimensions, and followed up by developing
elementary calculus.
Évariste  Galois (1811-1832) France
Galois, who died before the age of twenty-one, not only never became a professor, but
was barely allowed to study as an undergraduate. His output of papers, mostly
published posthumously, is much smaller than most of the others on this list, yet it is
considered among the most awesome works in mathematics. He applied group theory
to the theory of equations, revolutionizing both fields. (Galois coined the mathematical
term group.) While Abel was the first to prove that some polynomial equations had no
algebraic solutions, Galois established the necessary and sufficient condition for
algebraic solutions to exist. His principal treatise was a letter he wrote the night before
his fatal duel, of which Hermann Weyl wrote: "This letter, if judged by the novelty and
profundity of ideas it contains, is perhaps the most substantial piece of writing in the
whole literature of mankind."

Galois' ideas were very far-reaching; for example he is credited as first to prove that
trisecting a general angle with Plato's rules is impossible. Galois is sometimes cited
(instead of Archimedes, Gauss or Ramanujan) as "the greatest mathematical genius
ever." But he was too far ahead of his time -- the top mathematicians of his day rejected
his theory as "incomprehensible." Galois was persecuted for his Republican politics,
imprisoned, and forced to fight a duel, where he was left to bleed out without medical
attention. His last words (spoken to his brother) were "Ne pleure pas, Alfred! J'ai besoin
de tout mon courage pour mourir à vingt ans!" This tormented life, with its pointless
early end, is one of the great tragedies of mathematical history. Although Galois' group
theory is considered one of the greatest developments of 19th century mathematics,
Galois' writings were largely ignored until the revolutionary work of Klein and Lie.
John von Neumann (1903-1957) Hungary, U.S.A.
John von Neumann (born Neumann Janos Lajos) was an amazing childhood prodigy
who could do very complicated mental arithmetic and much more at an early age. One
of his teachers burst into tears at their first meeting, astonished that such a genius
existed. As an adult he was noted for hedonism and reckless driving but also became
one of the most prolific thinkers in history, making major contributions in many branches
of both pure and applied mathematics. He was an essential pioneer of both quantum
physics and computer science.

Von Neumann pioneered the use of models in set theory, thus improving the axiomatic
basis of mathematics. He proved a generalized spectral theorem sometimes called the
most important result in operator theory. He developed von Neumann Algebras. He was
first to state and prove the Minimax Theorem and thus invented game theory; this work
also advanced operations research; and led von Neumann to propose the Doctrine of
Mutual Assured Destruction which was a basis for Cold War strategy. He developed
cellular automata (first invented by Stanislaw Ulam), famously constructing a self-
reproducing automaton. He worked in mathematical foundations: he formulated the
Axiom of Regularity and invented elegant definitions for the counting numbers (0 =
{}, n+1 = n ∪ {n}), or ordinal numbers more generally ("each ordinal is the well-ordered
set of all smaller ordinals"). He also worked in analysis, matrix theory, measure theory,
numerical analysis, ergodic theory (discovering Birkhoff's Ergodic Theorem before
Birkhoff did), group representations, continuous geometry, statistics and topology. Von
Neumann discovered an ingenious area-conservation paradox related to the famous
Banach-Tarski volume-conservation paradox. He inspired some of Gödel's famous work
(and independently proved Gödel's Second Theorem). He is credited with (partial)
solution to Hilbert's 5th Problem using the Haar Theorem; this also relates to quantum
physics. George Pólya once said "Johnny was the only student I was ever afraid of. If in
the course of a lecture I stated an unsolved problem, the chances were he'd come to
me as soon as the lecture was over, with the complete solution in a few scribbles on a
slip of paper." Michael Atiyah has said he calls only three people geniuses: Wolfgang
Mozart, Srinivasa Ramanujan, and Johnny von Neumann.

Von Neumann did very important work in fields other than pure mathematics. By
treating the universe as a very high-dimensional phase space, he constructed an
elegant mathematical basis (now called von Neumann algebras) for the principles of
quantum physics. He advanced philosophical questions about time and logic in modern
physics. He played key roles in the design of conventional, nuclear and thermonuclear
bombs; he also advanced the theory of hydrodynamics. He applied game theory and
Brouwer's Fixed-Point Theorem to economics, becoming a major figure in that field. His
contributions to computer science are many: in addition to co-inventing the stored-
program computer, he was first to use pseudo-random number generation, finite
element analysis, the merge-sort algorithm, a "biased coin" algorithm, and (though Ulam
first conceived the approach) Monte Carlo simulation. By implementing wide-number
software he joined several other great mathematicians (Archimedes, Apollonius, Liu
Hui, Hipparchus, Madhava, and (by proxy), Ramanujan) in producing the best
approximation to π of his time. Von Neumann is At the time of his death, von Neumann
was working on a theory of the human brain.
Srinivasa  Ramanujan Iyengar (1887-1920) India
Like Abel, Ramanujan was a self-taught prodigy who lived in a country distant from his
mathematical peers, and suffered from poverty: childhood dysentery and vitamin
deficiencies probably led to his early death. Yet he produced 4000 theorems or
conjectures in number theory, algebra, and combinatorics. While some of these were
old theorems or just curiosities, many were brilliant new theorems with very difficult
proofs. For example, he found a beautiful identity connecting Poisson summation to the
Möbius function. He also found a brilliant generalization of Lagrange's Four Square
Theorem; and a simpler proof of Chebyshev's Theorem that there is always a prime
between any n and 2n; and much more. Ramanujan might be almost unknown today,
except that his letter caught the eye of Godfrey Hardy, who saw remarkable, almost
inexplicable formulae which "must be true, because if they were not true, no one would
have had the imagination to invent them." Ramanujan's specialties included infinite
series, elliptic functions, continued fractions, partition enumeration, definite integrals,
modular equations, the divisor function, gamma functions, "mock theta" functions,
hypergeometric series, and "highly composite" numbers. Ramanujan's "Master
Theorem" has wide application in analysis, and has been applied to the evaluation of
Feynman diagrams. Much of his best work was done in collaboration with Hardy, for
example a proof that almost all numbers n have about log log n prime factors (a result
which developed into probabilistic number theory). Much of his methodology, including
unusual ideas about divergent series, was his own invention. Ramanujan's innate ability
for algebraic manipulations probably surpassed even that of Euler or Jacobi. "Squaring
the circle" is impossible, but Ramanujan find a construction that was wrong by less than
1 part in millions. Presented with a difficult new puzzle by Henry Dudeney, Ramanujan
immediately wrote down a difficult continued fraction that showed all of the infinitely
many solutions.

As a very young man, Ramanujan developed a novel method to sum divergent series,
leading to absurd-looking results like 1+2+3+4+... = -1/12. Although this particular sum
was discovered by Euler in his investigation of the ζ function, Ramanujan's approach
was novel and has found much application, e.g. in string theory. (Before writing Hardy,
Ramanujan had sent a letter to another British mathematician who, presumably
unfamiliar with Euler's result, rejected the letter with its "absurd" sum. It is very fortunate
that Ramanujan persisted and wrote to Hardy.)

Ramanujan's most famous work was with the partition enumeration function p(n), Hardy
guessing that some of these discoveries would have been delayed at least a century
without Ramanujan. Together, Hardy and Ramanujan developed an analytic
approximation to p(), although Hardy was initially awed by Ramanujan's intuitive
certainty about the existence of such a formula, and even the form it would have.
(Rademacher and Selberg later discovered an exact expression to replace the Hardy-
Ramanujan approximation; when Ramanujan's notebooks were studied it was found he
had anticipated their technique, but had deferred to his friend and mentor.)

In a letter from his deathbed, Ramanujan introduced his mysterious "mock theta
functions", gave examples, and developed their properties. Much later these forms
began to appear in disparate areas: combinatorics, the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem,
and even knot theory and the theory of black holes. It was only recently, more than 80
years after Ramanujan's letter, that his conjectures about these functions were proven;
solutions mathematicians had sought unsuccessfully were found among his examples.
Mathematicians are baffled that Ramanujan could make these conjectures, which they
confirmed only with difficulty using techniques not available in Ramanujan's day.

Many of Ramanujan's results are so inspirational that there is a periodical dedicated to

them. The theories of strings and crystals have benefited from Ramanujan's work.
(Today some professors achieve fame just by finding a new proof for one of
Ramanujan's many results.) Unlike Abel, who insisted on rigorous proofs, Ramanujan
often omitted proofs. (Ramanujan may have had unrecorded proofs, poverty leading
him to use chalk and erasable slate rather than paper.) Unlike Abel, much of whose
work depended on the complex numbers, most of Ramanujan's work focused on real
numbers. Despite these limitations, some consider Ramanujan to be the greatest
mathematical genius ever; but he ranks as low as #17 since many lesser
mathematicians were much more influential.

Because of its fast convergence, an odd-looking formula of Ramanujan is sometimes

used to calculate π:
      992 / π = √8 ∑k=0,∞ ((4k)! (1103+26390 k) / (k!4 3964k))
René  Descartes (1596-1650) France
Descartes' early career was that of soldier-adventurer and he finished as tutor to royalty,
but in between he achieved fame as the preeminent intellectual of his day. He is
considered the inventor of both analytic geometry and symbolic algebraic notation and
is therefore called the "Father of Modern Mathematics." His use of equations to partially
solve the geometric Problem of Pappus revolutionized mathematics. Because of his
famous philosophical writings ("Cogito ergo sum") he is considered, along with Aristotle,
to be one of the most influential thinkers in history. He ranks #49 on Michael Hart's
famous list of the Most Influential Persons in History. His famous mathematical
theorems include the Rule of Signs (for determining the signs of polynomial roots), the
elegant formula relating the radii of Soddy kissing circles, his theorem on total angular
defect (an early form of the Gauss-Bonnet result so key to much mathematics), and an
improved solution to the Delian problem (cube-doubling). While studying lens refraction,
he invented the Ovals of Descartes. He improved mathematical notation (e.g. the use of
superscripts to denote exponents). He also discovered Euler's Polyhedral
Theorem, F+V = E+2. Descartes was very influential in physics and biology as well, e.g.
developing laws of motion which included a "vortex" theory of gravitation; but most of
his scientific work outside mathematics was eventually found to be incorrect.

Descartes has an extremely high reputation and would be ranked even higher by many
list makers, but whatever his historical importance his mathematical skill was not in the
top rank. Some of his work was borrowed from others, e.g. from Thomas Harriot. He
had only insulting things to say about Pascal and Fermat, each of whom was much
more brilliant at mathematics than Descartes. (Some even suspect that Descartes
arranged the destruction of Pascal's lost Essay on Conics.) And Descartes made
numerous errors in his development of physics, perhaps even delaying science, with
Huygens writing "in all of [Descartes'] physics, I find almost nothing to which I can
subscribe as being correct." Even the historical importance of his mathematics may be
somewhat exaggerated since others, e.g. Fermat, Wallis and Cavalieri, were making
similar discoveries independently.
Karl Wilhelm Theodor  Weierstrass (1815-1897) Germany
Weierstrass devised new definitions for the primitives of calculus, developed the
concept of uniform convergence, and was then able to prove several fundamental but
hitherto unproven theorems. Starting strictly from the integers, he also applied his
axiomatic methods to a definition of irrational numbers. He developed important new
insights in other fields including the calculus of variations, elliptic functions, and
trigonometry. Weierstrass shocked his colleagues when he demonstrated a continuous
function which is differentiable nowhere. (Both this and the Bolzano-Weierstrass
Theorem were rediscoveries of forgotten results by the under-published Bolzano.) He
found simpler proofs of many existing theorems, including Gauss' Fundamental
Theorem of Algebra and the fundamental Hermite-Lindemann Transcendence
Theorem. Steiner's proof of the Isoperimetric Theorem contained a flaw, so Weierstrass
became the first to supply a fully rigorous proof of that famous and ancient result. Peter
Dirichlet was a champion of rigor, but Weierstrass discovered a flaw in the argument for
Dirichlet's Principle of of variational calculus.

Weierstrass demonstrated extreme brilliance as a youth, but during his college years he
detoured into drinking and dueling and ended up as a degreeless secondary school
teacher. During this time he studied Abel's papers, developed results in elliptic and
Abelian functions, proved the Laurent expansion theorem before Laurent did, and
independently proved the Fundamental Theorem of Functions of a Complex Variable.
He was interested in power series and felt that others had overlooked the importance of
Abel's Theorem. Eventually one of his papers was published in a journal; he was
immediately given an honorary doctorate and was soon regarded as one of the best and
most inspirational mathematicians in the world. His insistence on absolutely rigorous
proofs equaled or exceeded even that of Cauchy, Abel and Dirichlet. His students
included Kovalevskaya, Frobenius, Mittag-Leffler, and several other famous
mathematicians. Bell called him "probably the greatest mathematical teacher of all
time." In 1873 Hermite called Weierstrass "the Master of all of us." Today he is often
called the "Father of Modern Analysis."

Weierstrass once wrote: "A mathematician who is not also something of a poet will
never be a complete mathematician."
Hermann Klaus Hugo (Peter)  Weyl (1885-1955) Germany, U.S.A.
Weyl studied under Hilbert and became one of the premier mathematicians and thinkers
of the 20th century. Along with Hilbert and Poincaré he was a great "universal"
mathematician; his discovery of gauge invariance and notion of Riemann surfaces form
the basis of modern physics; he was also a creative thinker in philosophy. Weyl excelled
at many fields of mathematics including integral equations, harmonic analysis, analytic
number theory, Diophantine approximations, axiomatic theory, and mathematical
philosophy; but he is most respected for his revolutionary advances in geometric
function theory (e.g., differentiable manifolds), the theory of compact groups (incl.
representation theory), and theoretical physics (e.g., Weyl tensor, gauge field theory
and invariance). His theorems include key lemmas and foundational results in several
fields; Atiyah commented that whenever he explored a new topic he found that Weyl
had preceded him. Although he was a master of algebra, he revealed his philosophic
preference by writing "In these days the angel of topology and the devil of abstract
algebra fight for the soul of every individual discipline of mathematics." For a while,
Weyl was a disciple of Brouwer's Intuitionism and helped advance that doctrine, but he
eventually found it too restrictive. Weyl was also a very influential figure in all three
major fields of 20th-century physics: relativity, unified field theory and quantum
mechanics. He and Einstein were great admirers of each other. Because of his
contributions to Schrödinger, many think the latter's famous result should be named the
Schrödinger-Weyl Wave Equation.

Vladimir Vizgin wrote "To this day, Weyl's [unified field] theory astounds all in the depth
of its ideas, its mathematical simplicity, and the elegance of its realization." The Nobel
prize-winner Julian Schwinger, himself considered an inscrutable genius, was so
impressed by Weyl's book connecting quantum physics to group theory that he likened
Weyl to a "god" because "the ways of gods are mysterious, inscrutable, and beyond the
comprehension of ordinary mortals." Weyl once wrote: "My work always tried to unite
the Truth with the Beautiful, but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose
the Beautiful."
Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet (1805-1859) Germany
Dirichlet was preeminent in algebraic and analytic number theory, but did advanced
work in several other fields as well: He discovered the modern definition of function, the
Voronoi diagram of geometry, and important concepts in differential equations,
topology, and statistics. His proofs were noted both for great ingenuity and
unprecedented rigor. As an example of his careful rigor, he found a fundamental flaw in
Steiner's Isoperimetric Theorem proof which no one else had noticed. In addition to his
own discoveries, Dirichlet played a key role in interpreting the work of Gauss, and was
an influential teacher, mentoring famous mathematicians like Bernhard Riemann (who
considered Dirichlet second only to Gauss among living mathematicians), Leopold
Kronecker and Gotthold Eisenstein.

As an impoverished lad Dirichlet spent his money on math textbooks; Gauss'

masterwork became his life-long companion. Fermat and Euler had proved the
impossibility of xk + yk = zk for k = 4 and k = 3; Dirichlet became famous by proving
impossibility for k = 5 at the age of 20. Later he proved the case k = 14 and, later still,
may have helped Kummer extend Dirichlet's quadratic fields, leading to proofs of more
cases. More important than his work with Fermat's Last Theorem was his Unit Theorem,
considered one of the most important theorems of algebraic number theory. The Unit
Theorem is unusually difficult to prove; it is said that Dirichlet discovered the proof while
listening to music in the Sistine Chapel. A key step in the proof uses Dirichlet's
Pigeonhole Principle, a trivial idea but which Dirichlet applied with great ingenuity.

Dirichlet did seminal work in analysis and is considered the founder of analytic number
theory. He invented a method of L-series to prove the important theorem (Gauss'
conjecture) that any arithmetic series (without a common factor) has an infinity of
primes. It was Dirichlet who proved the fundamental Theorem of Fourier series: that
periodic analytic functions can always be represented as a simple trigonometric series.
Although he never proved it rigorously, he is especially noted for the Dirichlet's
Principle which posits the existence of certain solutions in the calculus of variations, and
which Riemann found to be particularly fruitful. Other fundamental results Dirichlet
contributed to analysis and number theory include a theorem about Diophantine
approximations and his Class Number Formula.
Georg Cantor (1845-1918) Russia, Germany
Cantor did brilliant and important work early in his career, for example he greatly
advanced the Fourier-series uniqueness question which had intrigued Riemann. In his
explorations of that problem he was led to questions of set enumeration, and his
greatest invention: set theory. Cantor created modern Set Theory almost single-
handedly, defining cardinal numbers, well-ordering, ordinal numbers, and discovering
the Theory of Transfinite Numbers. He defined equality between cardinal numbers
based on the existence of a bijection, and was the first to demonstrate that the real
numbers have a higher cardinal number than the integers. (He proved this with a
famous diagonalization argument, a special case of his elegant Cantor's Theorem.) (He
also showed that the rationals have the same cardinality as the integers; and that the
reals have the same cardinality as the points of N-space and as the power-set of the
integers.) Although there are infinitely many distinct transfinite numbers, Cantor
conjectured that C, the cardinality of the reals, was the second smallest transfinite
number. This Continuum Hypothesis was included in Hilbert's famous List of Problems,
and was partly resolved many years later: Cantor's Continuum Hypothesis is an
"Undecidable Statement" of Set Theory.

Cantor's revolutionary set theory attracted vehement opposition from Poincaré ("grave
disease"), Kronecker (Cantor was a "charlatan" and "corrupter of youth"), Wittgenstein
("laughable nonsense"), and even theologians. David Hilbert had kinder words for it:
"The finest product of mathematical genius and one of the supreme achievements of
purely intellectual human activity" and addressed the critics with "no one shall expel us
from the paradise that Cantor has created." Cantor's own attitude was expressed with
"The essence of mathematics lies in its freedom." Cantor's set theory laid the theoretical
basis for the measure theory developed by Borel and Lebesgue. Cantor's invention of
modern set theory is now considered one of the most important and creative
achievements in modern mathematics.

Cantor demonstrated much breadth (he even involved himself in the Shakespeare
authorship controversy!). In addition to his set theory and key discoveries in the theory
of trigonometric series, he made advances in number theory, and gave the modern
definition of irrational numbers. His Cantor set was the early inspiration for fractals.
Cantor was also an excellent violinist. He once wrote "In mathematics the art of
proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it."