Timeline of Modern Mathematics


Century Mathematician Major areas / contributions
17th century René Descartes |deɪˈkɑːrt| Analytic geometry, Cartesian coordinates
  Pierre de Fermat |fɚˈmɑː| Number theory, analytic geometry, early calculus
  Blaise Pascal |pæsˈkæl| Probability, projective geometry
  John Wallis |ˈwɔː.lɪs| Analysis, infinitesimal methods
  Isaac Newton |ˈnuː.tən| Calculus, infinite series, mathematical physics
  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz |ˈlaɪb.nɪts| Calculus, notation, symbolic methods
  Christiaan Huygens |ˈhaɪ.ɡənz| Probability, geometry, mathematical physics
  Jacob Bernoulli |bɚˈnuː.li| Probability, infinite series, calculus
18th century Johann Bernoulli |bɚˈnuː.li| Calculus, differential equations, variational problems
  Abraham de Moivre |də ˈmwɑːv| Probability, complex numbers
  Brook Taylor |ˈteɪ.lɚ| Taylor series
  Colin Maclaurin |məˈklɔːr.ɪn| Infinite series, calculus
  Leonhard Euler |ˈɔɪ.lɚ| Analysis, number theory, graph theory, notation
  Joseph-Louis Lagrange |ləˈɡrɑːnʒ| Analysis, mechanics, number theory
  Pierre-Simon Laplace |ləˈplɑːs| Probability, analysis, differential equations
  Adrien-Marie Legendre |ləˈʒɑːn.drə| Number theory, elliptic integrals
19th century Carl Friedrich Gauss |ɡaʊs| Number theory, geometry, analysis, statistics
  Augustin-Louis Cauchy |ˈkoʊ.ʃi| Rigorous analysis, complex analysis
  Niels Henrik Abel |ˈeɪ.bəl| Algebra, elliptic functions
  Évariste Galois |ɡælˈwɑː| Group theory, algebraic equations
  Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi |dʒəˈkoʊ.bi| Analysis, elliptic functions, mechanics
  Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet |ˌdɪr.ɪˈkleɪ| Number theory, analysis
  William Rowan Hamilton |ˈhæm.ɪl.tən| Quaternions, algebra, mechanics
  George Boole |buːl| Boolean algebra, mathematical logic
  Bernhard Riemann |ˈriː.mən| Geometry, analysis, number theory
  Karl Weierstrass |ˈwaɪ.ɚ.stræs| Rigorous analysis, foundations of calculus
  Richard Dedekind |ˈdeɪ.də.kɪnt| Foundations of real numbers, abstract algebra
  Georg Cantor |ˈkæn.tɔːr| Set theory, infinite cardinalities
  Felix Klein |klaɪn| Geometry, group-theoretic viewpoint
  Sophus Lie |liː| Lie groups and Lie algebras
  Henri Poincaré |ˌpwɑːn.kəˈreɪ| Topology, dynamical systems, geometry
20th century David Hilbert |ˈhɪl.bɚt| Foundations, geometry, functional analysis
  Henri Lebesgue |ləˈbɛɡ| Measure theory, integration
  Emmy Noether |ˈnɔɪ.tɚ| Abstract algebra, invariant theory
  Hermann Weyl |vaɪl| Geometry, representation theory, mathematical physics
  Stefan Banach |ˈbɑː.nɑːx| Functional analysis
  John von Neumann |vɑːn ˈnɔɪ.mən| Functional analysis, operator theory, mathematical foundations
  Andrey Kolmogorov |ˌkɑːl.məˈɡɔːr.ɑːv| Probability theory, dynamical systems
  Kurt Gödel |ˈɡɝː.dəl| Mathematical logic, incompleteness theorems
  Alan Turing |ˈtʊr.ɪŋ| Computability theory, mathematical logic
  André Weil |veɪ| Number theory, algebraic geometry
  Alexander Grothendieck |ˈɡroʊ.tən.diːk| Algebraic geometry, category-theoretic methods
  Jean-Pierre Serre |sɛr| Algebraic topology, algebraic geometry, number theory
  Laurent Schwartz |ʃwɔːrts| Distribution theory, functional analysis
  Paul Erdős |ˈer.dɝːʃ| Combinatorics, number theory, graph theory
  John Nash |næʃ| Geometry, partial differential equations, game theory
  Michael Atiyah |əˈtiː.jə| Geometry, topology, index theory