Top 10 Mathematicians please

>>some people would say it was known in various form well prior to Liebnitz and Newton.

Indeed, there was a recent programme by Marcus du Sautoy in which he gave some 'calculus credit' to ancient babylonians (I think it was).  The problem, in giving credit, is that it's likely that it was re-invented from time to time, and that in the ancient past no means to publish and 'claim priority' existed (or survive!)  Ergo, Newton seems to have discovered it, and was eventually forced to publish the method; where he'd hitherto simply used it to calculate answers (which he published) to problems.


Newton *should* be on your list, and I agree that it's ridiculous that he's not.


I would also add Paul Erdos, and even Andrew Wiles perhaps.

Some more recent ones might be added
von Neumann certainly
Pearson
Fisher

also
Fourier
Cauchy
Lagrange
Laplace
Weierstrass
Cayley
Stokes
Green
Gibbs
Taylor
Maclaurin

some women perhaps
Try Nightingale - yes Florence Nightingale. She made many contributions to statistics and was in fact the first woman elected to the Royal Statistical Society.

I must be the third or fourth member here to say "Not to include Newton in your list is ridiculous."

>>some women perhaps

Yet you missed dear ol' Ada Lovelace!   A Google or Wikipedia malfunction?

And no mention of Archimedes?

Good addition!

Yet, in a simplistic way perhaps; I've actually been able to appreciate the popular 'stuff', and the logic that  Archimedes' [myth?] went through - and how he might have reasoned ... I just wish I could 'see' [understand] an ounce of what he, and the others, have in this increasing list.  It always seems so obvious with hindsight [to a degree] - and when someone else has been able to cast light on the darkness - that it's so obvious!  As in, how could I have not had that same thought!

And  on 'higher thinking'; I'm reminded of Feynman - and how one interviewer asked him how he thought ... oh, what I'd give to be able to think like that [yet 'that' is such an unkown (to me)] ; It's a gift that almost all of us must secretly wish for (long for) - and that anyone 'out' of the 'set' must surely envy.  And, it makes one [me!] realise how completely thick one is [I am}.

Can you imagine how 'dull' normal conversation must have been to 'Feynam' [Newton, ...]  It must have been dire!

Some other candidates: Cantor, Einstein, and Noether.

And Hardy.

And Galois.

I don't see how one could rank them though (what criteria would you use?)

I think that when one considers Ramanujan's background, he would make a strong contender for first place (certainly top 3).

>> von Neumann certainly

Definitely.

And I'm a bit surprised no-one has mentioned Fermat yet.

Of course adding all those mentioned must-haves to the top ten list without any idea who to remove instead might cause this to be one of the longest top ten lists ever :)