History's Greatest Polymaths

Abu Rayhan al-Biruni

An Iranian scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age.

Al-Kindi

A Muslim philosopher, mathematician, physician, and musician who is hailed as the "father of Arab philosophy".

Alexander von Humboldt

A German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science.

Ibn al-Haytham

A Muslim Arab mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age who is referred to as the father of mod

André-Marie Ampère

A French physicist and mathematician who was one of the founders of the science of classical electromagnetism.

Aristotle

A Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece.

Athanasius Kircher

A German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works.

Averroes - Ibn Rushd

A Muslim Andalusi scholar and philosopher.

Avicenna

A Medieval Persian polymath, physician and philosopher

Benjamin Franklin

American polymath and a Founding Father of the United States.

Bertrand Russell

A British polymath, philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, and Nobe

Carl Jung

A Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology.

Charles Babbage

A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer.

Christopher Hitchens

An English intellectual, polemicist, and socio-political critic, who expressed himself as an author, orator, essayist an

Daniel Defoe

An English trader, writer, journalist, pamphleteer and spy most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719.

Eratosthenes

A Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. He was the chief librarian at the Library of Al

Francis Galton

An English Victorian era polymath who was proponent of social Darwinism, eugenics and scientific racism.

Galileo Galilei

An Italian astronomer whose works deeply contributed to the field. He is regarded as the father of observational astrono

George Berkeley

An Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism"

Gerolamo Cardano

An Italian polymath was one of the key figures in the foundation of probability and the earliest introducer of the binom

Girolamo Savonarola

An Italian Dominican friar from Ferrara and preacher active in Renaissance Florence

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

A German philosopher, mathematician, scientist, diplomat and polymath. He is a prominent figure in both the history of p

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

A German polymath, physician, theologian, and occult writer widely considered as the top occultists of the early modern

Hildegard of Bingen

A German Benedictine abbess who is among the best best-known composers of sacred monophony

Hypatia

Neoplatonist philosopher and mathematician who was a prominent thinker of the Neoplatonic school in Alexandria where she

Jean-François Champollion

A French scholar, philologist and orientalist, known primarily as the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and a founding

John Herschel

An English polymath, mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, an experimental photographer who invented the bluepri

John Calvin

A French theologian, pastor, and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation.

John von Neumann

Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath.

Henri Poincaré

French mathematician, physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science who made fundamental contributions to pure and app

Larry Page

An American business magnate who co-founded Google along with Sergey Brin.

Leon Battista Alberti

An Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who is widely considered one of the greatest minds and painters of all time

Martin Gardner

Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science; "Mathematical Games" (Scientific American column); The Annotated Alice; The

Mary Somerville

A Scottish scientist, writer, and polymath who played a crucial role in the women's rights movement in the United Kingdo

Michelangelo

An Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance who is one of the most recognized artists in th

Maimonides

12th-century Sephardic Jewish rabbi & scholar who is considered to be the greatest Jewish scholar in the Second Milleniu

Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi

A Persian polymath, physician, alchemist, philosopher, and important figure in the history of medicine.

Nicolas Steno

A Danish scientist, a pioneer in both anatomy and geology who became a Catholic bishop in his later years.

Nicolaus Copernicus

A Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated a model of the univers

Omar Khayyam

A Persian polymath, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet best known for the Rubaiyat.

Otto Weininger

An Austrian thinker who lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire whose writings were adapted for use by the Nazi party.

Pierre Beaumarchais

French polymath & renaissance man

Pierre-Simon Laplace

A French scholar and polymath whose work was important to the development of engineering, mathematics, statistics, physi

Posidonius

A Greek politician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, historian, mathematician, and teacher.

Robert Hooke

An English polymath active as a scientist and architect, who, using a microscope, was the first to visualize a micro-org

Roger Joseph Boscovich

A physicist, astronomer, mathematician, philosopher, diplomat, poet, theologian, and Jesuit priest from the Republic of

Satyendra Nath Bose

An Indian mathematician and physicist specialising in theoretical physics.

Theophrastus

A Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos who was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school.

Thomas Young

A British polymath who made notable contributions to the fields of vision, light, solid mechanics, energy, physiology, l

Thomas Browne

An English polymath and author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including science and me

Wilhelm Ostwald

A Baltic German chemist and philosopher who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1909 for his scientific contributio

William Shakespeare

An English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's g

William Whewell

An English polymath, scientist, Anglican priest, philosopher, theologian, and historian of science.

Yeshayahu Leibowitz

Greatest Israeli philosopher

Thomas Jefferson

An American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third President o

Stephen Fry

An English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer.

Shen Kuo

Octavio Paz

the life and legacy of Octavio Paz, a Nobel Prize-winning Mexican poet.