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Built the first seismoscope and mapped 2,500 stars.

The Almagest ruled astronomy for 1,400 years; his Geography guided Columbus.

Mathematician and astronomer murdered by a mob; symbol of learning against zealotry.

Gave place-value, an accurate π, and a rotating Earth in 499 CE.

Gave the world algebra and, through his own name, the algorithm.

Measured Earth's radius to within 1% and wrote the first comparative anthropology of India.

Wrote the medical textbook that trained Europe's doctors until 1650.

Built an astronomical clock tower with the first known escapement chain drive.

Described the magnetic compass and deduced geological deep time.

Solved cubics geometrically, reformed the calendar, wrote the Rubaiyat.

Tusi couple; his planetary models likely reached Copernicus.

Sultan-astronomer whose star catalogue stood unmatched for two centuries.

Proved that art and science are one act of looking.

Moved the Earth from the centre of the universe.

Pointed a telescope upward and broke the authority of the ancients.

Three laws of planetary motion; every satellite orbit obeys them.

Wave theory of light, the pendulum clock, Saturn's rings.

Showed that one law governs the apple and the Moon alike.

Proposed an atomic force theory two centuries early.

Invented the idea that nature is a single connected web — and that we can wreck it.

The Prince of Mathematicians; number theory, geodesy, magnetism.

Worked out at nineteen why some stars must collapse into black holes.

Mapped the ocean floor and proved continental drift.

Hawking radiation and A Brief History of Time.