Mathematicians
12 people, across 3 fields.
John von Neumann 1903–1957Science & MathematicsHungarian-American mathematician and engineer whose computer architecture remains the basis of modern computing.
Claude Shannon 1916–2001Technology & InventionMathematician and engineer who founded information theory, the basis of all digital communication.
Katherine Johnson 1918–2020Exploration, Aviation & SpaceNASA mathematician whose orbital trajectory calculations supported the Mercury and Apollo crewed flights.
John Forbes Nash Jr. 1928–2015Science & MathematicsFormulated the Nash equilibrium and proved major results in differential geometry.
Benjamin Banneker 1731–1806Science & MathematicsFree Black astronomer and almanac author who helped survey the federal district and challenged Jefferson on race.
Kurt Gödel 1906–1978Science & MathematicsProved the incompleteness theorems and spent his later career at the Institute for Advanced Study.
Benoit Mandelbrot 1924–2010Science & MathematicsDeveloped fractal geometry during a long research career at IBM and Yale.
Donald Knuth b. 1938Technology & InventionWrote The Art of Computer Programming and created the TeX typesetting system.
John McCarthy 1927–2011Technology & InventionCoined the term artificial intelligence and created the Lisp programming language.
Norbert Wiener 1894–1964Science & MathematicsMathematician who founded cybernetics, influencing computing, automation, neuroscience, and theories of communication and control.
Josiah Willard Gibbs 1839–1903Science & MathematicsFounded chemical thermodynamics and statistical mechanics through his work on heterogeneous equilibrium at Yale.
Charles Proteus Steinmetz 1865–1923Engineering & ArchitectureElectrical engineer whose work on alternating current systems powered the electrification of America.