Name important mathematicians and physicists - Statistics

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Answer Stats
Hint Lifespan Origin Answer % Correct
"In a right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides." 570 BCE - 495 BCE Greek Pythagoras
96%
The "father of geometry". 300 BCE Greek Euclid
88%
"An object submerged in a fluid experiences an upward force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces." 287 BCE - 212 BCE Greek Archimedes
84%
Was first to discover laws of motion and gravity. 1643 - 1727 English Isaac Newton
84%
"Energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared." 1879 - 1955 German/American Albert Einstein
82%
One of the most important constants is named after him. 1707 - 1783 Swiss Leonhard Euler
82%
First to win two Nobel Prizes. 1867 - 1934 Polish/French Marie Curie
78%
The "Prince of Mathematicians". 1777 - 1855 German Carl Friedrich Gauss
76%
Discovered that black holes emit radiation. 1942 - 2018 British Stephen Hawking
76%
Received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with her husbandfor their discovery of induced radioactivity. 1897 - 1956 French Irène Joliot-Curie
73%
Proposed a model of the atom. 1885 - 1962 Danish Niels Bohr
73%
"Pionereed research on radioactivity alongside his wife." 1859 - 1906 French Pierre Curie
73%
Introduced the sequence of in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones. c. 1170 - c. 1250 Italian Fibonacci
71%
Discovered laws of planetary motion. 1571 - 1630 German Johannes Kepler
71%
The "father of the atomic bomb". 1904 - 1967 American J. Robert Oppenheimer
69%
"There are no three positive integers that can satisfy theequation x^n+y^n=z^n when n is greater than 2." 1601 - 1665 French Pierre de Fermat
69%
"It is impossible to simultaneously know the exact position and exact momentum of a particle. The more precisely one of these properties is known, the less precisely the other can be known." 1901 - 1976 German Werner Heisenberg
69%
Developed a coordinate system that laid the foundation foranalytical geometry. 1596 - 1650 French Rene Descartes
67%
Made a thought experiment involving a cat. 1887 - 1961 Austrian Erwin Schrödinger
65%
Developed present day notation for the differential and integralcalculus. 1646 - 1716 German Gottfried Leibniz
65%
The founder of electromagnetic theory. 1831 - 1879 Scottish James Maxwell
65%
Found special-case solution for the three body problem. 1736 - 1813 Italian/French Joseph-Louis Lagrange
65%
Formulated the heliocentric model of the solar system. 1473 - 1543 Polish Nicolaus Copernicus
65%
Put forward a hypothesis on zeta function that stays unproved til these days. 1826 - 1866 German Bernhard Riemann
63%
"An increase in the speed of a parcel of fluid occurs simultaneously with a decrease in either the pressure or the height above a datum." 1700 - 1782 Swiss Daniel Bernoulli
63%
The father of "modern science" and scientific method. 1564 - 1642 Italian Galileo Galilei
63%
Discovered a general method to determine evolutes of a curveas the envelope of its circles of curvature. 1654 - 1705 Swiss Jacob Bernoulli
63%
Summed series, and discovered addition theorems for trigonometric and hyperbolic functions using the differential equations they satisfy. 1667 - 1748 Swiss Johann Bernoulli
63%
Proved the equality of mixed second-order partial derivatives. 1687 - 1759 Swiss Nicolaus Bernoulli
63%
Contributed to development of AC electrical systems. 1856 - 1943 Serbian/American Nikola Tesla
63%
"An all-knowing intellect which, if it knows the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe at a given time, could predict the future and retrodict the past with absolute certainty." 1749 - 1827 French Pierre-Simon Laplace
63%
Invented international system of absolute temperature. 1824 - 1907 British (Scottish) (William Thomson) Lord Kelvin
63%
Formalized and proved key theorems of calculus. 1789 - 1857 French Augustin-Louis Cauchy
61%
One of the founders of probability theory. 1623 - 1662 French Blaise Pascal
61%
Developed a theorem to evaluate limits which result in 0/0 or infinity/infinity, by instead evaluating the limit of the fraction between the derivatives of the numerator and denominator. 1661 - 1704 French Guillaume l'Hôpital
61%
Creator of quantum theory. 1858 - 1947 German Max Planck
61%
Invented battery. 1745 - 1827 Italian Alessandro Volta
59%
In 1742 proposed (an inverted form of) the centigrade temperature scale, which was later renamed in his honor, and is the dominating temperature scale across the world. 1701 - 1744 Swedish Anders Celsius
59%
Developed theory of four elements which dominated until other discoveries made by other great scientists. 384 BCE - 322 BCE Greek Aristotle
59%
Formulated series that express functions as infinite sums oftheir derivates. 1685 - 1731 English Brook Taylor
59%
The electric current through a conductor between two points isdirectly proportional to the voltage across the two points. 1789 - 1854 German Georg Ohm
59%
Solved one of the Millennium Prize problems. 1966 - Russian Grigori Perelman
59%
"A periodic signal is composed of a superposition of pure sine waves, with suitably chosen amplitudes and phases, whose frequencies are harmonics of the fundamental frequency of the signal." 1768 - 1830 French Joseph Fourier
59%
"If a triangle is inscribed in a circle and one of its sides is thediameter of the circle, then the angle opposite of that side is a right angle." 624 BCE - 546 BCE Greek Thales
59%
Provided the concept that describes fundamental models of computations. 1912 - 1954 British Alan Turing
57%
The "father of electrodynamics". 1775 - 1836 French Andre-Marie Ampere
57%
Known for his experiments with electricity. 1706 - 1790 American Benjamin Franklin
57%
Greatest experimental physicist. 1791 - 1867 English Michael Faraday
57%
23 unsolved problems. 1862 - 1943 German David Hilbert
55%
Created a version of the periodic table of elements. 1834 - 1907 Russian Dmitri Mendeleev
55%
"The most important woman in the history of mathematics." As one of the leading mathematicians of her time, she developed theories of rings, fields, and algebras. 1882 - 1935 German Emmy Noether
55%
For a triangle with side lengths a, b, and c, and semi-perimeter s (which is half of the perimeter), the area can be found by taking the square root of s multiplied by (s minus a), (s minus b), and (s minus c). c. 10 CE - c. 70 CE Greek Heron
55%
Discovered the particle that gives mass to other fundamentalparticles. 1929 - 2024 British Peter Higgs
55%
The Man Who Knew Infinity. 1887 - 1920 Indian Srinivasa Ramanujan
55%
Invented quaternions. 1805 - 1865 Irish William Rowan Hamilton
55%
Often considered the first computer programmer. 1815 - 1852 British Ada Lovelace
53%
The "father of nuclear physics". 1871 - 1937 New Zealander Ernest Rutherford
53%
True / False. 1815 - 1864 English George Boole
53%
Significantly improved the design and manufacture of thermometers; his were accurate and consistent enough that different observers, each with their own thermometers, could reliably compare temperature measurements with each other. 1686 - 1736 Polish/German Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit
51%
Calculated Earth's diameter using stick and the Sun. 276 BCE - 212 BCE Greek Eratosthenes
51%
Founded abstract algebra and group theory. 1811 - 1832 French Evariste Galois
51%
One of the founders of set theory. 1845 - 1918 German Georg Cantor
51%
Outlined the design for modern electronic computers. 1903 - 1957 Hungarian/American John von Neumann
51%
"In any consistent formal system that is capable of expressing basic arithmetic, there are true statements that cannot be proven within the system." 1906 - 1978 Austrian/American Kurt Gödel
51%
"Equal volumes of gases under the same conditions of temperature and pressure will contain equal numbers of molecules." 1776 - 1856 Italian Amadeo Avogadro
49%
"In a cyclic quadrilateral (a quadrilateral inscribed in a circle), the product of the lengths of the diagonals is equal to the sum of the products of the lengths of the opposite sides." c. 100 CE - c. 170 CE Greek Claudius Ptolemy
49%
Contributed to the study of elliptic integrals, reducing many intractable integrals to problems of finding arcs for hyperbolas. 1698 - 1746 Scottish Colin Maclaurin
49%
The first to split the atom. 1901 - 1954 Italian/American Enrico Fermi
49%
"Every three-dimensional topological manifold which is closed,connected, and has trivial fundamental group is homeomorphic to the three-dimensional sphere." 1854 - 1912 French Henri Poincare
49%
Discovered the law describing the relationship between pressure and volume of confined gas. 1627 - 1691 Irish Robert Boyle
49%
Established a mathematical basis for probability inference. 1702 - 1761 British Thomas Bayes
49%
"Two or more identical particles with half-integer spins cannot simultaneously occupy the same quantum state within a system that obeys the laws of quantum mechanics." 1900 - 1958 Austrian Wolfgang Pauli
49%
Introduced systematic equations of quadratic equations. c. 780 CE - c. 850 CE Persian al-Khwarizmi
47%
10^(-10) metres is named after him and he is one of the founders of the science of spectroscopy. 1814 - 1874 Swedish Anders Jonas Ångström
47%
He is best known as the eponymous discoverer of a law, the description of the electrostatic force of attraction and repulsion. 1736 - 1806 French Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
47%
"The observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer." 1803 - 1853 Austrian Christian Doppler
47%
Published the solution for the cubic equation. 1501 - 1576 Italian Gerolamo Cardano
45%
Invented the astrolabe and the hydrometer, and first well-recorded female mathematician. c. 360 CE - 415 CE Egyptian Hypatia
45%
Established that the various types of energy are the same. 1818 - 1889 English James Joule
45%
Introduced atomic theory into chemistry. 1766 - 1844 British John Dalton
45%
One of the founders of statistical mechanics. 1844 - 1906 Austrian Ludwig Boltzmann
45%
Discovered X-rays. 1845 - 1923 German Wilhelm Röntgen
45%
One of the earliest hypotheses about atoms. 460 BCE - 370 BCE Greek Democritus
43%
Found galaxies other than the Milky Way. 1889 - 1953 American Edwin Hubble
43%
Known for his pioneering work in the theory of elliptic functionsand for proving the insolubility of the general quintic equation by radicals. 1802 - 1829 Norwegian Niels Henrik Abel
43%
"If a line intersects the sides of a triangle (or their extensions), the product of the ratios of the segments it divides each side into is equal to -1." 70 CE - c. 140 CE Greek Menelaus
41%
Developed alternative notation for nth roots and formulated a theorem used in proof of the mean value theorem. 1651 - 1719 French Michael Rolle
41%
Formulated a fully relativistic quantum theory. 1902 - 1984 British Paul Dirac
41%
He led the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany, and later of rocket and space technology in the US. 1912 - 1977 German Wernher von Braun
41%
Noted for his discovery of the role oxygen plays in combustion, opposing the prior phlogiston theory of combustion. 1743 - 1794 French Antoine Lavoisier
39%
The "father of the hydrogen bomb". 1908 - 2003 Hungarian/American Edward Teller
39%
Proved the existence of electromagnetic waves. 1857 - 1894 German Heinrich Hertz
39%
The "father of Russian science". 1711 - 1765 Russian Mikhail Lomonosov
39%
Graphically described black holes through relativity theory. 1931 - British Roger Penrose
39%
Known for his work on conic sections. c. 262 BCE - c. 190 BCE Greek Apollonius
37%
Co-author of Principia Mathematica. 1872 - 1970 British Bertrand Russell
37%
The "father of algebra". c. 201 CE - c. 285 CE Greek Diophantus
37%
The greater part of his life was concerned with waves and the transformations imposed on them during their passage through various media. 1819 - 1903 Irish George Gabriel Stokes
37%
He contributed to studies on dwarf galaxies, exploding stars, and the "iron peak" elements. He notably helped redefine Pluto as a dwarf planet. 1958 - American Neil deGrasse Tyson
37%
"If more than n rabbits must be put into n hutches, then at least in one hutch there will be more than one (so, at least 2) rabbits." 1805 - 1859 German Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet
37%
Graphically represented interaction of light and matter. 1918 - 1988 American Richard Feynmann
37%
Developed the first successful theory of the maximum efficiency of heat engines. 1796 - 1832 French Sadi Carnot
37%
Developed the ... normal form and the ... matrix. 1838 - 1922 French Camille Jordan
35%
Made fundamental contributions to elliptic functions, dynamics, differential equations, determinants and number theory. 1804 - 1851 German Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi
35%
Received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1935 for his discovery of the neutron. 1891 - 1974 British James Chadwick
35%
The "father of modern analysis". 1815 - 1897 German Karl Weierstrass
35%
Instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics, and supervised the work of a number of notable physicists. 1882 - 1970 German/British Max Born
35%
Discovered the solution for the cubic equation. 1500 - 1557 Italian Nicolo Tartaglia
35%
Independently developed non-Euclidean geometry. 1792 - 1856 Russian Nikolai Lobachevsky
35%
Invented modern microscope. 1635 - 1703 English Robert Hooke
35%
Known for his work in probability theory. 1781 - 1840 French Siméon Denis Poisson
35%
Provided basic analytical tools for mathematical physics. 1752 - 1833 French Adrien-Marie Legendre
33%
"Every square matrix is a root of its own characteristic polynomial." 1821 - 1895 English Arthur Cayley
33%
Clarified connections between electricity, light, and magnetism. 1853 - 1928 Dutch Hendrik Lorentz
33%
Considered one of the central founding fathers of the science of thermodynamics. 1822 - 1888 German Rudolf Clausius
33%
He was awarded India's second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, in 1954 by the Government of India. 1894 - 1974 Indian Satyendra Nath Bose
33%
Known for his work in group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and the associations between geometry and group theory. 1849 - 1925 German Felix Klein
31%
The principal or co-discoverer of ten elements: plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium and element 106, then called unnilhexium. 1912 - 1999 American Glenn T. Seaborg
31%
Shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of radioactivity. 1852 - 1908 French Henri Becquerel
31%
Measured Earth's density. 1731 - 1810 British Henry Cavendish
31%
A formula for obtaining solutions to the wave equation is named after him. 1717 - 1783 French Jean le Rond d'Alembert
31%
In 1926, he discovered an equation, the simplest and prototypical example of relativistic wave equation. 1894 - 1977 Swedish Oskar Klein
31%
The "father of nuclear chemistry". 1879 - 1968 German Otto Hahn
31%
One of the founders of non-Euclidean geometry. 1804 - 1860 Hungarian János Bolyai
29%
Discovered the electromagnetic phenomenon of self-inductance. 1797 - 1878 American Joseph Henry
29%
Her calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights. 1918 - 2020 American Katherine Johnson
29%
"For any continuous function f mapping a nonempty compactconvex set to itself, there is a point x such that f(x) = x." 1881 - 1966 Dutch L.E.J Brouwer
29%
Proved that the Earth rotates on its axis. 1819 - 1868 French Léon Foucault
29%
Instrumental in the discovery of nuclear fission. 1878 - 1968 Austrian/Swedish Lise Meitner
29%
The "father of modern geodesy". 973 - 1048 Persian Al-Biruni
27%
He was the first person to create a mathematical theory of electricity and magnetism and his theory formed the foundation for the work of other scientists. Introduced the current idea of potential functions. 1793 - 1841 British George Green
27%
Made many contributions to plasma physics, including theories describing the behavior of aurorae, the Van Allen radiation belts, the effect of magnetic storms on the Earth's magnetic field, the terrestrial magnetosphere, and the dynamics of plasmas in the Milky Way galaxy. 1908 - 1995 Swedish Hannes Alfvén
27%
The "father of modern optics". 965 - 1040 Arabic Ibn al-Haytham
27%
Received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1910 "for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids". 1837 - 1923 Dutch Johannes Diderik van der Waals
27%
Devised an electromagnetic telegraph. 1804 - 1891 German Wilhelm Eduard Weber
27%
Known for an effect that demonstrated the particle nature of electromagnetic radiation. 1892 - 1962 American Arthur Compton
24%
Gave the first purely analytic proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra. 1781 - 1848 German Bernard Bolzano
24%
Discovered argon. Provided the first theoretical treatment of the elastic scattering of light by particles much smaller than the light's wavelength which notably explains why the sky is blue. 1842 - 1919 British (John Strutt) Lord Rayleigh
24%
He is best known for originating a law in 1879, a physical power law stating that the total radiation from a black body is proportional to the fourth power of its thermodynamic temperature. 1835 - 1893 Slovene Josef Stefan
24%
Made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. 1821 - 1894 German Hermann von Helmholtz
22%
The first astronomer who determined reliable values for the distance from the Sun to another star by the method of parallax. Certain important mathematical functions were first studied systematically by him and were named after him in his honor. 1784 - 1846 German Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel
20%
He made important contributions in many areas of physics, including quantum theory, the theory of radiation and stellar evolution. 1877 - 1946 English James Jeans
20%
Major contributions in the study of the biological effects of ionizing radiation. 1896 - 1966 Swedish Rolf Sievert
20%
Known for the a rule to approximate definite integrals. 1710 - 1761 British Thomas Simpson
20%
Credited with being the first to produce a transuranium element, neptunium. 1907 - 1991 American Edwin McMillan
18%
Known mostly for his discovery that water is made of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen by volume, and for two laws related to gases, 1778 - 1850 French Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
18%
Most famous for a theorem, which showed that the Fourier transform is unitary. 1755 - 1836 French Marc-Antoine Parseval
18%
Worked in the areas of mathematical analysis, mathematical physics and algebra, and is known for a theorem in harmonic analysis. 1885 - 1967 Swiss Michel Plancherel
18%
Used theories about heat and electromagnetism to deduce alaw, which calculates the emission of a blackbody at any temperature from the emission at any one reference temperature. 1864 - 1928 German Wilhelm Wien
16%
Together with other prominent physicists, he created statistical mechanics (a term that he coined), explaining the laws of thermodynamics. 1839 - 1903 American Josiah Willard Gibbs
14%
He was co-developer of a method to approximate solutions todifferential equations, in the field of what is today
known as numerical analysis.
1856 - 1927 German Carl Runge
12%
Known for his discovery of spontaneous fission and his important contribution towards crystallography and material science, for which, he was honored with many awards. 1913 - 1990 Russian Georgy Flerov
12%
In 1829, he discovered the theorem that bears his name, and concerns real-root isolation, that is the determination of the number and the localization of the real roots of a polynomial. 1803 - 1855 French Jacques Charles François Sturm
12%
Made important contribution in advancing the understanding of nuclear physics and computer science. He also participated in the Manhattan Project. 1909 - 1984 Polish/American Stanisław Ulam
12%
Made important theoretical discoveries regarding energy production in stars from nuclear fusion processes. 1912 - 2007 German Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
10%
Developed the explicit trapezoidal rule, and worked on functions solving certain differential equations. 1859 - 1929 German Karl Heun
10%
"On series expansions determined by the methods of least squares, and Investigations of the number of primes less than a given number." 1850 - 1916 Danish Jørgen Pedersen Gram
8%
Worked in a number of different fields in mathematics, including number theory, complex analysis, differential geometry and topology, but also mathematical physics and astronomy. 1809 - 1882 French Joseph Liouville
8%
Jointly discovered new findings concerning nuclear shell structure. 1906 - 1972 German/American Maria Goeppert-Mayer
8%
"Let N be the largest positive integer. If N>1, then N^2>N, contradicting the definition of N. Hence N = 1." 1880 - 1975 German Oskar Perron
8%
Together with another notable mathematician he made important contributions to functional analysis. 1876 - 1959 Baltic/German Erhard Schmidt
6%
He co-developed a method, used to solve ordinary differential equations numerically 1867 - 1944 German Martin Kutta
6%
Worked mainly on algebraic invariants, and geometry. 1811 - 1874 German Otto Hesse
6%
Made contributions to mathematical analysis and differentialgeometry, as well as number theory, algebras with involution and classical mechanics. 1832 - 1903 German Rudolf Lipschitz
6%
Known for the famous determinantal identities governing elliptic functions, and for developing the theory of biquadratic forms. 1849 - 1917 German Ferdinand Georg Frobenius
4%
Invented a new technique for solving differential equations,independently developed vector calculus, and rewrote Maxwell's equations in the form commonly used today. 1850 - 1925 British Oliver Heaviside
4%
His 1867 exposition on complex numbers and quaternions is particularly memorable. 1839 - 1873 German Hermann Hankel
2%
He applied his type of matrix decomposition to solve the normal equations arising in least squares problems. 1875 - 1918 French André-Louis Cholesky
0%
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