René Descartes 1596 to 1650

Born La Haye (now Descartes),Touraine, France

Cogito Ergo

Sum.

"I think,

therefore I am."

Abu Arrayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni

973 - 1048

Born in Kara-Kalpakskaya, Uzbekistan

Once a sage asked why

scholars always flock to the

doors of the rich, whilst the

rich are not inclined to call at

the doors of scholars. "The

scholars" he answered , "are

well aware of the use of

money, but the rich are

ignorant of the nobility of

science"

Archimedes of Syracuse

287 BC - 212 BC

Born in Syracuse, Sciliy, Italy

“Give me a

place to stand

and I will move

the earth.”

On the lever

Charles Babbage

1791 - 1871

Born in London, England

“Errors using

inadequate data

are much less

than those using

no data at all.”

Niels Henrik David Bohr

1885 - 1962

Born in Copenhagen, Denmark

“An expert is a

man who has

made all the

mistakes, which

can be made, in

a very narrow

field”

Girolamo Cardano

1501 - 1576

Born in Pavia, Italy

Quinquies exscriptus,

maneat tot millibus

annis.

“I wrote it out five

times, may it last the

same number of

millennia.”

Lewis Carroll

1832 - 1898

Born in Daresbury, England

“The different

branches of

Arithmetic --

Ambition, Distraction,

Uglification, and

Derision.”

Alice in Wonderland.

Julius Wilhelm Richard Dedekind

1831 - 1916

Born in Braunschweig, Germany

“Numbers are

the free creation

of the human

mind”

Albert Einstein

1879 - 1955

Born in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany

“If my theory of relativity is

proven successful, Germany

will claim me as a German

and France will declare that I

am a citizen of the world.

Should my theory prove

untrue, France will say that I

am a German and Germany

will declare that I am a Jew.”

Euclid of Alexandria

about 325 BC - about 265 BC Born in Greece?

A youth who had begun to

read geometry with Euclid,

when he had learnt the first

proposition, inquired, "What

do I get by learning these

things?" So Euclid called a

slave and said "Give him

threepence, since he must

make a gain out of what he

learns."

Galileo Galilei

1564 – 1642 Born in Pisa, Italy

“In questions of

science, the authority

of a thousand is not

worth the humble

reasoning of a single

individual.”

Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss

1777 – 1855 Born in Brunswick, Germany

“Mathematics is

the queen of the

sciences and

number theory is

the queen of

mathematics.”

Omar Khayyam

1048 – 1122 Born in Nishapur, Persia (now Iran)

“The Moving Finger

writes; and, having

writ,

Moves on : nor all thy

Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to

cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash

out a Word of it.”

Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya

1850 – 1891

Born in Moscow

“It is impossible

to be a

mathematician

without being a

poet in soul.”

Leonardo da Vinci

1452 – 1519 Born in Vinci (near Empolia), Italy

“There are three

classes of people.

Those who see; those

who see when they are

shown; those who do

not see.”

Pierre-Simon Laplace

1749 – 1827 Born in Beaumont-en-Auge, Normandy, France

“What we know

is not much.

What we do not

know is

immense.” (Allegedly his last words.)

Benoit Mandelbrot

1924 – Born in Warsaw, Poland

“Being a language,

mathematics may be

used not only to

inform but also,

among other things, to

seduce.”

Sir Isaac Newton

1643 – 1727 Born in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England

“If I have been

able to see

further, it was

only because I

stood on the

shoulders of

giants.”

Pythagoras of Samos

about 569 BC - about 475 BC Born in Samos, Ionia

“Every man has

been made by

God in order to

acquire

knowledge and

contemplate.”

Blaise Pascal

1623 – 1662 Born in Clermont-Ferrand, Auvergne, France

“We are usually

convinced more easily

by reasons we have

found ourselves than

by those which have

occurred to others”

Plato

427 BC - 347 BC Born in Athens, Greece

“Let no one

ignorant of

Mathematics

enter here.”

Alfréd Rényi

1921 – 1970 Born in Budapest, Hungary

“If I feel

unhappy, I do

mathematics to

become happy.

If I am happy, I

do mathematics

to keep happy”

Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger

1887 – 1961 Born in Erdberg, Vienna, Austria

“I don't like it,

and I'm sorry I

ever had

anything to do

with it.” [On quantum mechanics ]

Alan Mathison Turing

1912 – 1954 Born in London, England

“We can only see a

short distance ahead,

but we can see plenty

there that needs to be

done.”

Ulugh Beg

1393 – 1449 Born in Soltaniyeh, Timurid, Iran

“It is the duty of

every true

Muslim, man

and woman, to

strive after

knowledge.”

Erik Christopher Zeeman

1925 – Born in Japan

“Technical skill

is mastery of

complexity

while creativity

is mastery of

simplicity”