Polymath Geniuses

Discover 151 polymath geniuses who excelled across multiple fields — from scientist-artists to mathematician-philosophers who refused to be defined by a single discipline.

Aristotle

b. 384 · Greece

A genius whose philosophical ideas are still taught, but his contributions to physics retarded progr

IQ 200

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Edith Stern

b. 1952 · United States

Holding over 100 US patents and being awarded the ASME Kate Gleason Award.

IQ 200

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Leonardo Da Vinci

1452–1519 · Italy

Painting, drawing, sculpting, science, engineering, architecture, anatomy

IQ 200

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Pierre-Simon Laplace

1749–1827 · France

Predicting the existence of black holes

IQ 195

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Richard G. Rosner

b. 1960 · United States

IQ 192

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Athanasius Kircher

1602–1680 · Germany

IQ 190

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Carl Friedrich Gauss

1777–1855 · Germany

Gaussian elimination, also known as "row reduction" or "Gaussian method" • Gauss–Jordan elimination

IQ 190

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Francis Bacon

1561–1626 · England

IQ 190

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Isaac Newton

1643–1727 · England

Newtonian mechanics • Universal gravitation • Calculus • Newton's laws of motion • Optics • Binomial

IQ 190

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John von Neumann

1903–1957 · Hungary

Abelian von Neumann algebra Affiliated operator Amenable group Arithmetic logic unit Artificial visc

IQ 190

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Joseph-Louis Lagrange

1736–1813 · Italy

Analytical mechanics, celestial mechanics, mathematical analysis, number theory, theory of equations

IQ 190

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Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot

1796–1832 · France

Carnot cycle • Carnot efficiency • Carnot theorem • Carnot heat engine

IQ 190

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Auguste Comte

1798–1857 · France

Formulating the doctrine of positivism.

IQ 185

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Ctesibius

285–222 · Egypt

IQ 185

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Epicurus

341–270 · Greece

IQ 185

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Gerald Massey

1828–1907 · United Kingdom

The Ballad of Babe Christabel (1854), War Waits (1855), Havelock's March (1860), and A Tale of Etern

IQ 185

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Hero of Alexandria

10–70 · Greece

Aeolipile • Heron's fountain • Heron's formula • Vending machine

IQ 185

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Immanuel Kant

1724–1804 · Germany

Critique of Pure Reason

IQ 185

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Pierre Louis Maupertuis

1698–1759 · France

Principle of least action, precursor of transmutation

IQ 185

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Satyendra Nath Bose

1894–1974 · India

Bose–Einstein condensateBose–Einstein statisticsBose–Einstein distributionBose–Einstein correlations

IQ 185

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Thomas Edison

1847–1931 · United States

The phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb

IQ 185

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Thomas Young

1773–1829 · United Kingdom

Wave theory of light • Double-slit experiment • Astigmatism • Young–Dupré equation • Young–Helmholtz

IQ 185

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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

1646–1716 · Germany

Discourse on Metaphysics,Théodicée, integral calculus

IQ 182

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Alexander Graham Bell

1847–1922 · Scotland

Invention of the telephone.

IQ 180

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Alexander von Humboldt

1769–1859 · Germany

Biogeography, Kosmos (1845–1862), Humboldt Current, magnetic storm, Humboldtian science, Berlin Roma

IQ 180

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Avicenna

980–1037 · UZ

The Book of Healing • The Canon of Medicine

IQ 180

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Benjamin Franklin

1706–1790 · United States

Being the founding father of the USA • Shaping the understanding of electricity • Inventing the ligh

IQ 180

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Bertrand Russell

1872–1970 · United Kingdom

IQ 180

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Francis Ysidro Edgeworth

1845–1926 · United Kingdom

Being the founding editor of The Economic Journal.

IQ 180

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François Fénelon

1651–1715 · France

The Adventures of Telemachus

IQ 180

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James Prescott Joule

1818–1889 · England

First law of thermodynamicsDisproving caloric theory

IQ 180

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Joseph Fourier

1768–1830 · France

Fourier number • Fourier series • Fourier transform • Fourier's law of conduction • Fourier–Motzkin

IQ 180

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John Toland

1670–1722 · Ireland

Christianity not Mysterious (1696)

IQ 180

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John Stuart Mill

1806–1873 · United Kingdom

On Liberty, The Subjection of Women

IQ 180

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John Locke

1632–1704 · United Kingdom

Being known as the "Father of Liberalism"

IQ 180

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Jorge Luis Borges

1899–1986 · Argentina

A Universal History of Infamy (1935), Ficciones (1944), El Aleph (1949), Labyrinths (1962) and The B

IQ 180

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Lord Byron

1788–1824 · England

Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

IQ 180

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Marquis de Condorcet

1743–1794 · France

Girondin constitutional project and Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Min

IQ 180

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Mary Somerville

1780–1872 · United Kingdom

Self-taught mathematician and polymath; bestselling popularizer of science; acclaimed for her transl

IQ 180

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Nicholas of Cusa

1401–1464 · Germany

IQ 180

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Oliver Heaviside

1850–1925 · England

Heaviside cover-up method • Heaviside step function • Heaviside condition • Heaviside-Feynman formul

IQ 180

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Pythagoras

b. 570 · Greece

Communalism • Metempsychosis • Musica universalis

IQ 180

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Roger Bacon

b. 1219 · United Kingdom

IQ 180

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Willem Jacob 's Gravesande

1688–1742 · Netherlands

Developing experimental demonstrations of the laws of classical mechanics.

IQ 180

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Erasmus

1469–1536 · Netherlands

In Praise of Folly • Handbook of a Christian Knight • On Civility in Children • Julius Excluded • Th

IQ 177

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Antoine Arnauld

1612–1694 · France

Being one of the leading intellectuals of the Jansenist group of Port-Royal.

IQ 175

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Averroes - Ibn Rushd

1126–1198 · Spain

Andalusian polymath, Aristotle commentator, and middle ages genius; his work on atheism was influent

IQ 175

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Gerolamo Cardano

1501–1576 · Italy

Cardano–Tartaglia formulaFirst systematic use of negative numbers in Europe

IQ 175

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James Thomson (poet, born 1700)

1700–1748 · Scotland

Writing the lyrics for the song "Rule, Britannia!".

IQ 175

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Theophrastus

371–287 · Greece

Greek philosopher, not to be confused with the Anon Theophrastus (c.1609-1665), pupil and successor

IQ 175

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Thomas Browne

1605–1682 · England

Religio Medici, Urne-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Christian Morals

IQ 175

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William Kingdon Clifford

1845–1879 · United Kingdom

Clifford algebra

IQ 175

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William Whewell

1794–1866 · United Kingdom

Coining the words scientist and physicist

IQ 175

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Nicolaus Copernicus

1473–1543 · Poland

HeliocentrismQuantity theory of moneyGresham–Copernicus law

IQ 173

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Adam Smith

1723–1790 · United Kingdom

Invisible hand theory, The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments

IQ 170

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Charles Babbage

1791–1871 · United Kingdom

Originating the concept of a digital programmable computer.

IQ 170

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Christian Doppler

1803–1853 · Austria

Discovering the Doppler effect

IQ 170

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

1807–1882 · United States

Being the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy

IQ 170

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Hugues Felicité Robert de Lamennais

1782–1854 · France

One of the most influential intellectuals of Restoration France

IQ 170

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Hypatia

350–415 · Egypt

The greatest mathematician of her time, Hypatia’s murder signaled the coming of the dark ages.

IQ 170

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Isaac Asimov

1920–1992 · United States

The Foundation series

IQ 170

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Laozi

6–4 · China

Supposed author of Tao Te Ching, the book that founded of Taoism ("Daoism")

IQ 170

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Marion Tinsley

1927–1995 · United States

Never losing a world championship match

IQ 170

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Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi

854–932 · Iran

The first to write up limited or extensive notes on diseases such as smallpox and chickenpox, a pion

IQ 170

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Nicolaas Hartsoeker

1656–1725 · Netherlands

Contributions to microscopy, preformationism

IQ 170

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Norbert Wiener

1894–1964 · United States

Cybernetics

IQ 170

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Pedro Calderón de la Barca

1600–1681 · Spain

IQ 170

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Pietro Metastasio

1698–1782 · Italy

Demetrio, Olimpiade, Demofoonte, La clemenza di Tito, and Attilio Regolo

IQ 170

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Robert M. Pirsig

1928–2017 · United States

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Lila: An Inquiry into Morals (1991)

IQ 170

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William Penn

1644–1718 · United Kingdom

IQ 170

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Ben Jonson

1572–1637 · England

Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox (c. 1606), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew

IQ 170

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Solon

Greece

Greek statesman, lawmaker, philosopher, and poet, one of the seven sages (Ѻ); credited with being th

IQ 170

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Charles Dickens

1812–1870 · England

The Pickwick Papers • Oliver Twist • Nicholas Nickleby • A Christmas Carol • David Copperfield • Ble

IQ 165

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Marquis de Sade

1740–1814 · France

IQ 165

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Emanuel Swedenborg

1688–1772 · Sweden

Hs book on the afterlife, Heaven and Hell (1758)

IQ 165

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Évariste Galois

1811–1832 · France

Work on the theory of equations and Abelian integrals

IQ 165

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Gilbert Burnet

1643–1715 · Scotland

IQ 165

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Jean de La Bruyère

1645–1696 · France

French philosopher, moralist, and satirist,

IQ 165

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Karl Pearson

1857–1936 · England

Common Sense of the Exact Sciences and History of the Theory of Elasticity

IQ 165

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Pierre Beaumarchais

1732–1799 · France

Le Barbier de Séville, Le Mariage de Figaro, and La Mère coupable

IQ 165

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John Henry Newman

1801–1890 · United Kingdom

Anglican priest, poet, and theologian.

IQ 165

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Ludvig Holberg

1684–1754 · Norway

Norwegian writer, essayist, philosopher, historian and playwright.

IQ 165

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Vincenzo Galilei

1520–1591 · Italy

The astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei

IQ 165

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Ada Lovelace

1815–1852 · United Kingdom

The mother of computing science; contributed to the first published computer program; was the first

IQ 160

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Alphonse de Lamartine

1790–1869 · France

Graziella (1852)

IQ 160

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Ayn Rand

1905–1982 · Russia

The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged

IQ 160

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Christoph Martin Wieland

1733–1813 · Germany

Oberon and Bildungsroman

IQ 160

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Diodorus Siculus

90–30 · Greece

Bibliotheca historica

IQ 160

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Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

1486–1535 · Germany

Three Books of Occult Philosophy

IQ 160

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John Bunyan

1628–1688 · England

The Pilgrim's Progress, The Life and Death of Mr. Badman, The Holy War

IQ 160

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Omar Khayyam

1048–1131 · Iran

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

IQ 160

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Peter Paul Rubens

1577–1640 · Netherlands

Painting, drawing, tapestry design, print design

IQ 160

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Samuel Clarke

1675–1729 · United Kingdom

English philosopher and Anglican clergyman; was a Boyle anti-atheism lecturer for two years.

IQ 160

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William Cowper

1731–1800 · United Kingdom

Light Shining out of Darkness

IQ 160

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Peter Abelard

1079–1142 · France

French scholastic philosopher, theologian, and logician, characterized a “fine genius” (Bayle, c.169

IQ 160

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Albert Camus

1913–1960

The Stranger, The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Fall, and The Rebel.

IQ 155

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Diagoras of Melos

Greece

Chopping up a wooden statue of Heracles and used it to roast his lentils and revealed the secrets of

IQ 155

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Edward Bulwer-Lytton

1803–1873 · England

Vril: the Power of the Coming Race

IQ 155

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Pierre-Jean de Béranger

1780–1857 · France

"The old flag", 1820

IQ 155

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Clive Staples Lewis

1898–1963 · United Kingdom

The Chronicles of Narnia • Mere Christianity • The Allegory of Love • The Screwtape Letters • The Sp

IQ 150

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Robert Burns

1759–1796 · Scotland

"Auld Lang Syne" "To a Mouse" "A Man's a Man for A' That" "Ae Fond Kiss" "Scots Wha Hae" "Tam O'Sha

IQ 150

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Alan Watts

1915–1973 · United Kingdom

IQ 145

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Francis Galton

1822–1911 · United Kingdom

Galton board • Galton distribution • Galton–Watson process • Galton's problem • Galton's whistle

IQ 145

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Edgar Allan Poe

1809–1849 · United States

American writer, editor, and literary critic; best-known for his poem “The Raven” (1845) noted for i

IQ 145

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Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban

1633–1707 · France

French military engineer and marshal.

IQ 140

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Stephen Wiltshire

b. 1974 · United Kingdom

His ability to draw a landscape from memory after seeing it just once

IQ 52

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Abu Rayhan al-Biruni

973–1048 · Iran

Iranian-born Afghanistan astronomer, mathematician, physicist, comparative religions scholar, a univ

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Alexandre Dumas

1802–1870 · France

The Three Musketeers (1844), The Count of Monte Cristo (1844–1845)

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Alfred, Lord Tennyson

1809–1892 · England

'In Memoriam,' 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' and 'Idylls of the King'.

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Barbara McClintock

1902–1992 · United States

Work in genetic structure of maize

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Caroline Herschel

1750–1848 · United Kingdom

Being the first woman to receive a salary as a scientist and to hold a government position in Englan

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Felix Klein

1849–1925 · Germany

Erlangen program • Klein bottle • Beltrami–Klein model • Klein's Encyclopedia of Mathematical Scienc

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Cleanthes

330–230 · Greece

Hymn to Zeus

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Daniel Bernoulli

1700–1782 · Switzerland

Bernoulli's principle • Early kinetic theory of gases

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David Hilbert

1862–1943 · Germany

Hilbert's basis theorem • Hilbert's axioms • Hilbert's problems • Hilbert's program • Einstein–Hil

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Meister Eckhart

1260–1328 · Germany

His work with pious lay groups such as the Friends of God

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Emily Bear

b. 2001 · United States

Composed and released her first piano album at age five

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Ernest Lawrence

1901–1958 · United States

Invention of the cyclotronManhattan Project

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George Washington Carver

1860–1943 · United Kingdom

Improved the agricultural economy of the United States by promoting nitrogen-providing peanuts as an

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Grace Hopper

1906–1992 · United States

Pioneer of electronic computers: invented the first compiler; was the principal architect of COBOL,

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John Herschel

1792–1871 · United Kingdom

The invention of photography

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John Milton

1608–1674 · United Kingdom

Paradise Lost

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Paul Cézanne

1839–1906 · France

Mont Sainte-Victoire (1885–1906) • Apothéose de Delacroix (1890–1894) • Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier

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Robert Hooke

1635–1703 · England

Hooke's law • Microscopy • Coining the term 'cell'

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Ruth Lawrence

b. 1971 · United Kingdom

Lawrence–Krammer representation

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Saul Kripke

b. 1940 · United States

Kripke-Platek set theory.

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Scott Aaronson

b. 1981 · United States

Quantum Turing machine with postselection • Algebrization • Boson sampling

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Shakuntala Devi

1929–2013 · India

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Thomas Digges

1546–1595 · United Kingdom

Proposing that the universe is infinite in extent

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Émilie du Châtelet

1706–1749 · France

Translation of Newton's Principia into French, natural philosophy which combines Newtonian physics w

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Heraclides Ponticus

390–310 · Greece

Suggesting that the Earth rotates on its axis, from west to east, once every 24 hours

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Akiane Kramarik

b. 1994 · United States

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Brahmagupta

598–668 · India

Writing the Brahmasphutasiddhānt

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Federico Faggin

b. 1941 · United States

MOS silicon-gate technology and Intel 4004

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GZA

b. 1966 · United States

Being the founding member of Wu-Tang Clan

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Tatyana Afanasyeva

1876–1964 · Ukraine

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Shen Kuo

1031–1095 · China

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Plutarch

46–119 · Greece

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L. L. Zamenhof

1859–1917 · Poland

.mw-parser-output .plainlist ol,.mw-parser-output .plainlist ul{line-height:inherit;list-style:none;

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Jane Marcet

1769–1858 · United Kingdom

Author of Conversations on Chemistry, a unique textbook for its time written for people with little

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Joseph Henry

1797–1878 · United States

Electromagnetic induction, Inventor of a precursor to the electric doorbell and electric relay

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William Armstrong Fairburn

1876–1947 · United States

English-born American naval architect, marine engineer, chemical engineer, and industrial executive;

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Kelvin Doe

b. 1996 · SL

Teaching himself engineering at the age of 12 and building his own radio station in Sierra Leone

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Kazuo Ishiguro

b. 1954 · Japan

An Artist of the Floating WorldThe Remains of the DayWhen We Were OrphansNever Let Me GoKlara and th

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is a polymath?

A polymath is a person whose expertise spans multiple different subject areas. They draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Famous polymaths include Leonardo da Vinci and Benjamin Franklin.

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Who is the greatest polymath in history?

Leonardo da Vinci is often cited as history's greatest polymath, with mastery spanning art, science, engineering, anatomy, and invention. Aristotle and Leibniz are other strong contenders.