Who were the greatest mathematicians of all time?

Question

I'm looking for your opinion of, at most, the top three mathematicians of all time. Tell me what you think.

Answer 1

There's only one unarguable, nobody-informed-could-disagree member of the list: Gauss. He probably did the most important work of all time in each of the fields of abstract algebra/number theory, differential geometry, and statistics. And he did quite a bit of other stuff as well.

The next guy on my personal list is Euclid. His geometry wasn't superseded for almost 2000 years. He did a bit of number theory too. Other than Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, he was probably THE most influential thinker in a several-century period, and certainly the only candidate who was a mathematician.

The third spot is a many-way competition. The contenders include Archimedes, Euler, Riemann, and Poincare'.

Answer 2

No one will ever agree to a list but here are some possibilities:

Abel, Archimedes, Einstein, Eratosthenes, Euclid, Leibnitz, Newton, Riemmann.

Pick any three.

But they are just, a few of, the famous ones; what about all those whose names are attached to mathematical constructs like Taylor series, Cauchy integrals, Jacobian matrices ...

What's the point? If Newton and Leibnitz hadn't described calculus someone else would have worked it out just a little later. Einstein's work brilliant though it is rests on work done by Lorentz, Riemman, Mach and many others. It might have slowed things down if Einstein had been run over by a bus when in high school but probably not by more than twenty years.

Answer 3

Leonhard Euler
to know more abt him check this website
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler