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Category
Disciplines in Mathematics & Computing
Pure and applied mathematics, statistics, logic and the origins of computing.
Era
10 figures
Aryabhata
476 – 550Gave place-value, an accurate π, and a rotating Earth in 499 CE.
Brahmagupta
598 – 668First to treat zero as a number and define rules for negatives.
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi
780 – 850Gave the world algebra and, through his own name, the algorithm.
Ibn al-Haytham
965 – 1040Founded optics and the experimental method in the Book of Optics.
Al-Biruni
973 – 1048Measured Earth's radius to within 1% and wrote the first comparative anthropology of India.
Omar Khayyam
1048 – 1131Solved cubics geometrically, reformed the calendar, wrote the Rubaiyat.
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi
1201 – 1274Tusi couple; his planetary models likely reached Copernicus.
Ulugh Beg
1394 – 1449Sultan-astronomer whose star catalogue stood unmatched for two centuries.
Srinivasa Ramanujan
1887 – 1920Self-taught genius whose notebooks still yield theorems a century later.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
1910 – 1995Worked out at nineteen why some stars must collapse into black holes.