Great Thinkers

Meet the great minds whose ideas have shaped the world — philosophers, scientists, artists, leaders, and revolutionaries whose thinking still matters today.

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Biology 5 Chemistry 6 Physics 4 Mathematics 8 Medicine & Health 7 Technology & Engineering 6 Psychology 2
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45 thinkers
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Era: Modern × Scientific thinking × Page 1 of 2
Politics
Ada Lovelace
1815-1852 · England
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852), usually known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician widely regarded as the author of the first published…
Scientific thinking Critical thinking Creative expression Research skills +1
"The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it…"
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Mathematics
Alan Turing
1912-1954 · United Kingdom
Alan Turing was an English mathematician, codebreaker, and founder of modern computer science. He was born in London on 23 June 1912. His father worked…
Critical thinking Problem solving Scientific thinking Creative expression +1
"We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done."
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Physics
Albert Einstein
1879-1955 · Germany / United States
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist. He is widely seen as the most influential scientist of the twentieth century. He was born on 14…
Scientific thinking Critical thinking Problem solving Creative expression +1
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
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Law
Anténor Firmin
1850-1911 · Haiti
Joseph Auguste Anténor Firmin was a Haitian lawyer, politician, and pioneering anthropologist. He may be the first Black anthropologist in history. He was born on…
Critical thinking Scientific thinking Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity +1
"All human beings are endowed with the same qualities and the same faults, without distinction of colour or anatomical form.…"
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Biology
Charles Darwin
1809-1882 · England, United Kingdom
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was an English naturalist and biologist. He was born in Shrewsbury into a wealthy and intellectually distinguished family: his grandfather Erasmus Darwin…
Scientific thinking Environmental thinking Critical thinking Research skills +1
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms…"
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Anthropology & Culture
Claude Lévi-Strauss
1908-2009 · Belgium / France
Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009) was a Belgian-French anthropologist, one of the most influential social scientists of the twentieth century. He was born in Brussels to a…
Critical thinking Research skills Storytelling and narrative Scientific thinking +1
"The world began without man and will end without him."
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Economics
Claudia Goldin
1946-present · United States
Claudia Goldin is an American economist and economic historian. In 2023, she won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, becoming the first woman to win…
Critical thinking Research skills Scientific thinking Ethical thinking +1
"I have always thought of myself as a detective."
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Anthropology & Culture
Clifford Geertz
1926-2006 · United States
Clifford Geertz (1926-2006) was an American cultural anthropologist and one of the most influential social scientists of the twentieth century. He was born in San…
Research skills Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Storytelling and narrative +1
"Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun. I take culture to be those webs."
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Chemistry
Dmitri Mendeleev
1834-1907 · Russia
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907) was a Russian chemist who devised the periodic table of the elements, one of the most important organising schemes in the…
Scientific thinking Critical thinking Research skills Cultural heritage and identity +1
"The elements, if arranged according to their atomic weights, exhibit an evident periodicity of properties."
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Chemistry
Dorothy Hodgkin
1910-1994 · United Kingdom
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was an English chemist. She remains the only British woman ever to win a Nobel Prize in any of the sciences. She…
Scientific thinking Problem solving Research skills Ethical thinking +1
"I was captured for life by chemistry and by crystals."
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Mathematics
Emmy Noether
1882-1935 · Germany (later United States)
Emmy Noether was a German mathematician who changed how we understand algebra and physics. She was born in 1882 in Erlangen, Germany. Her father was…
Scientific thinking Critical thinking Problem solving Creative expression +1
"My methods are really methods of working and thinking; this is why they have crept in everywhere anonymously."
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Technology & Engineering
Fazlur Rahman Khan
1929-1982 · Bangladesh / United States
Fazlur Rahman Khan (1929-1982) was a Bangladeshi-American structural engineer whose innovations transformed how tall buildings are designed and made the modern generation of skyscrapers possible.…
Scientific thinking Creative expression Research skills Critical thinking +1
"The technical man must not be lost in his own technology. He must be able to appreciate life, and life…"
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Language & Linguistics
Ferdinand de Saussure
1857-1913 · Switzerland
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) was a Swiss linguist whose ideas about language changed how people study not only language but many other fields as well.…
Critical thinking Scientific thinking Cultural heritage and identity Research skills +1
"In language there are only differences."
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Medicine & Health
Florence Nightingale
1820-1910 · England, United Kingdom
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) was a British nurse, statistician, and public health reformer. She was born into a wealthy English family and received an unusually thorough…
Health literacy Research skills Scientific thinking Numeracy and mathematical thinking +1
"The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm."
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Anthropology & Culture
Franz Boas
1858-1942 · Germany / United States
Franz Boas (1858-1942) was a German-American anthropologist, widely regarded as the founder of modern cultural anthropology. He was born in Minden, Westphalia, into a secular…
Research skills Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Scientific thinking +1
"The mind of man is the same the world over."
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Medicine & Health
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
1947-present · France
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi is a French virologist. She is one of the two scientists who discovered the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the cause of AIDS. She…
Scientific thinking Research skills Critical thinking Ethical thinking +1
"We are not making science for science. We are making science for the benefit of humanity."
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Technology & Engineering
Frederick Winslow Taylor
1856-1915 · United States
Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) was an American mechanical engineer whose systematic approach to industrial work created the school of thought known as scientific management and…
Scientific thinking Critical thinking Research skills Ethical thinking +1
"In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first."
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Mathematics
Grace Hopper
1906-1992 · United States
Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (1906-1992) was an American mathematician, computer scientist, and United States Navy rear admiral whose work on programming languages and compilers helped…
Scientific thinking Critical thinking Creative expression Research skills +1
"It is easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission."
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Biology
Gregor Mendel
1822-1884 · Moravia, Austrian Empire (now Czech Republic)
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) was an Augustinian friar, botanist, and the founder of genetics. He was born Johann Mendel in what is now the Czech Republic,…
Scientific thinking Research skills Numeracy and mathematical thinking Critical thinking +1
"My scientific work has brought me a great deal of satisfaction, and I am convinced that it will be appreciated…"
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Medicine & Health
Ignaz Semmelweis
1818-1865 · Hungary / Austria
Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865) was a Hungarian physician working in Vienna. He was born in Buda, in what is now Budapest, and studied medicine at the…
Scientific thinking Health literacy Critical thinking Research skills +1
"God only knows the number of patients who have gone prematurely to their graves because of me."
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Economics
Karl Marx
1818-1883 · Germany / England
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a German economist, philosopher, historian, and political thinker whose ideas have shaped the modern world more than almost any other thinker…
Critical thinking Ethical thinking Research skills Cultural heritage and identity +1
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it."
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Arts
Katsushika Hokusai
1760-1849 · Japan (Edo / Tokyo)
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) was a Japanese painter and printmaker of the Edo period, widely regarded as the greatest artist of the ukiyo-e tradition and one…
Creative expression Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Research skills +1
"From the age of six I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things."
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Psychology
Lev Vygotsky
1896-1934 · Russia / Soviet Union
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a Russian psychologist whose ideas about how children learn and develop have become central to education and developmental psychology worldwide.…
Scientific thinking Research skills Critical thinking Ethical thinking +1
"What a child can do with assistance today she will be able to do by herself tomorrow."
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Biology
Lynn Margulis
1938-2011 · United States
Lynn Margulis (1938-2011) was an American biologist and theorist. She was born Lynn Alexander in Chicago, graduated from the University of Chicago at eighteen, and…
Scientific thinking Environmental thinking Critical thinking Systems thinking +1
"Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking."
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