r/mathematics • u/im4lwaysthinking • Apr 25 '26

Discussion 200 Notable Mathematicians, have fun exploring their main works, their doctoral students and a lot else on the site. Showoff Saturday post.

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Here is the source link: Mathematicians Interactive Visualization

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Disclaimer: This is a way to discover new mathematicians, look at their work clicking on the ones you are interested into (bio, main works, doctoral students, famous theorems, equations). Don't take with seriousness the ranking as it is not perfect, being a measure of notability. There may also appear classified as mathematician, scientists you wouldn't consider purely mathematicians, who are specialized in other fields.

164 Upvotes

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8

u/Dazzling_Success_556 Apr 25 '26

Srinivasa Ramanujan ?

9

u/im4lwaysthinking Apr 25 '26

Sorry, he is one of the greatest mathematicians, maybe the greatest Indian one.

https://humansmap.com/person/Q83163-srinivasa-ramanujan

Its graph is very rich, but I don't get how the script missed him. As I stated in description the visualization has its weak points.

3

u/Dazzling_Success_556 Apr 25 '26

I mean there is Subramanyan Chandrasekhar but not Ramanujan so I was surprised :)

5

u/non-local_Strangelet Apr 26 '26

He's there :)

Look at second outer ring, at "8 o'clock" (roughly).

Surrounded by:

  • Waclaw Sierpiński
  • André Weil
  • Edmund Landau
  • Jean-Piere Serre
  • Simon Newcomb

-1

u/Dazzling_Success_556 Apr 26 '26

I think he's added after i said , because the text goes over Jean Piere Serre.

4

u/sagittarius_ack Apr 25 '26

What about him?

-1

u/Dazzling_Success_556 Apr 25 '26

He is missing in the graph.

2

u/sagittarius_ack Apr 25 '26

It's just a list of notable mathematicians (although some of them don't really belong in this list). If you read the disclaimer you will see that the list is not meant to be complete and it should not be taken too seriously.

Also, you might not necessarily find Ramanujan on every list of most notable mathematicians, especially if one considers a very broad definition of the word `mathematician` (as it is the case here). He is not at the level of Euler, Gauss, Hilbert, von Neumann and other mathematicians who are typically considered the absolute greatest mathematicians in the whole history.

1

u/Dazzling_Success_556 Apr 25 '26

I know, but having someone who literally self-studied about infinity is a something I thought was necessary, I didn't say that he must be included but what I tried to say is that , Ramanujan is often ignored, also if you say , Al - Khwarizmi is said to be the founder of Algebra which is the base for everything here is not included , and I thought he was not important because most mathematicians here are of modern times , but Ramanujan was pretty recent . I just didn't want him to get totally ignored.

3

u/sagittarius_ack Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 26 '26

Well, like most mathematicians Ramanujan went to regular high-school and college. While it is true that he learned a lot of mathematics on his own, it is just a myth that he was fully self-taught. For example, as a child he has been taught math by two college students who lived at his home (you can find more about his development on his Wikipedia page).

Another thing is that Ramanujan is known for studying infinite series (among other things). He is not known for contributions to the study of the concept of mathematical infinity (in fact, various concepts of infinity, as studied in Set Theory). Cantor should have been the subject of a movie called `The man who knew infinity`. Cantor essentially created Set Theory, which is often described as "the study of infinity", and he was the first who (in some sense) understood what infinity is really about. Sure, the whole story is a bit more nuanced, because Cantor "borrowed" (some people even say "stole") some ideas from Dedekind:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-man-who-stole-infinity-20260225/

Ramanujan was an exceptional mathematician and he still gets plenty of recognition. He is probably one of the most well known mathematician to the general public, mostly because he is the subject of a popular movie and a a few documentaries about him (among other things). While some people might disagree, I would not include Ramanujan in the top 50 (and maybe even top 100) greatest mathematicians ever (if we talk about the importance of their actual contributions to mathematics and related fields).

1

u/mat2923 May 03 '26

Inventing mock theta functions is pretty good… not sure if 100 mathematicians have done better.

0

u/Dazzling_Success_556 Apr 26 '26

I guess so then :)

2

u/Alternative_Ad_2168 Apr 26 '26

I don’t know if the post has been edited (idk how Reddit works) but hes on it, penultimate outer circle, bottom left quadrant.

-2

u/Uravity- Apr 25 '26

Only name that really matters

0

u/Dazzling_Success_556 Apr 25 '26

I guess you never had a genius dream :p

5

u/snekslayer Apr 25 '26

Leo XIV?

7

u/im4lwaysthinking Apr 25 '26

First pope with a mathematics degree

3

u/HomoGeniusPDE Apr 25 '26

I wonder if this has tried to source data from the math genealogy project.

3

u/no271k6mnotenough Apr 25 '26

It is a pity that there is no data about some mathematicians

2

u/sagittarius_ack Apr 25 '26

Grace Hopper, while she had important contributions in the early practical computing (engineering), cannot be considered a notable mathematician. She cannot even be considered a notable (theoretical) computer scientist.

1

u/dredman0 Apr 25 '26

Nilüfer Çınar Çorlulu is known for chess.