Who contributed more to Mathematics?

Gauss is usually considered one of the top three mathematicians who ever lived (the other two being Archimedes and Newton), but Euler was far more prolific. Honestly, I don't even consider the two comparable. They both contributed so much to mathematics, I would feel guilty saying one was better than the other.

Originally posted by richardvesely apart from all these legends of mathematics, Ramanujan's contribution cannot be denied. He was an exceptional mathematical genius.

Edited by Cryptic - 18-Feb-2011 at 10:19

in the doc to the link above there is nor differential or integral calculus (no wonder!); as already said, in my (maybe biased) opinion that the most important development in math. for a long time. I was really impressed by al those methods of nummerical approximation, or the methods by which newton or leibnitz made such things as calculus of an area below a curve possible. Polynomial algebra is not so impressive in my opinion, although I realize very well that for an 11th century man to develop it, it takes a lot of genius.

Euler is near the top. Fermat was also amazing, especially considering that he did math in his spare time.

Edited by Cryptic - 31-May-2010 at 05:51

so we have to admit that westerners really don't know about such guys bigggggg in maths like leibnitz, newton or hilbert?

looking to the results of "popular vote", one don't need an astrologer to tell him that middle easterners are majority here!

I did not vote in the above test! But for those of you who did, I would like to entertain the thought that the winner, is by p;roxy if nothing else, ordained to win! It is more like a question, "if you could die for Christ, or Moses, or Allah, just whom would you most likely vote for?

IE, a fixed question with a fixed response, expected!

Can any one of you deny it?

Please see; "Few details of al-Khwārizmī's life are known with certainty, even his birthplace is unsure. His name may indicate that he came from Khwarezm (Khiva), then in Greater Khorasan, which occupied the eastern part of the Persian Empire, now Xorazm Province in Uzbekistan. Abu Rayhan Biruni calls the people of Khwarizm "a branch of the Persian tree".[10]", the above is from Wikipedia!

Thus the winner of the test question can only be correct if he or she does not ever look at the possibility that this person "never existed", or at least that this person never wrote within the period where he is now expected to reside! This is called "revisionism!"

Thus, just what reliability can be established for the above "winner?"



Edited by opuslola - 03-Oct-2009 at 20:00

I was thinking of Pythagoras, but his contribution was mostly in geometry.

How about John von Neumann, the founder of modern computer science; and game theory, which is applicable to virtually every scientific deciplines from economics, political science, biology, psychology, quantom physics to even military strategy.

Dear Spey, what I was refering to is: