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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32 thinkers
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Creative expression × 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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Physics
Al-Biruni
973 CE - c. 1048 CE · Khwarezm (modern Uzbekistan)
Al-Biruni was a Central Asian polymath. The word 'polymath' means a person with deep knowledge in many fields. He worked as an astronomer, mathematician, geographer,…
Scientific thinking Research skills Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity +1
"We must clear our minds of all the causes that blind people to the truth: ancient customs, the desire to…"
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Technology & Engineering
Al-Jazari
1136-1206 · Upper Mesopotamia (modern Turkey/Syria)
Badi al-Zaman Abu al-Izz ibn Ismail ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari (1136-1206) was an engineer, craftsman, inventor, and mathematician who served the Artuqid dynasty in Upper Mesopotamia,…
Scientific thinking Creative expression Research skills Cultural heritage and identity +1
"It is not permissible once one has understood a subject completely to neglect to give credit to the pioneers."
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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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Chemistry
Antoine Lavoisier
1743-1794 · France
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (1743-1794) was a French chemist whose systematic use of the balance to measure the weights of substances before and after chemical reactions…
Scientific thinking Research skills Critical thinking Creative expression +1
"Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed."
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Mathematics
Archimedes
c. 287 BCE - c. 212 BCE · Syracuse, Sicily (Hellenistic Greek world)
Archimedes was a Greek mathematician, scientist, and engineer. He was born around 287 BCE in Syracuse, a Greek city on the island of Sicily. We…
Scientific thinking Problem solving Critical thinking Creative expression +1
"Eureka! I have found it!"
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Mathematics
Claude Shannon
1916 - 2001 · United States
Claude Shannon was an American mathematician and engineer. He invented the field of information theory. His work made the digital age possible. Almost every technology…
Scientific thinking Problem solving Creative expression Research skills +1
"Information is the resolution of uncertainty."
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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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Mathematics
Euclid
c. 325 BCE - c. 265 BCE · Alexandria, Egypt (Hellenistic Greek world)
Euclid was a Greek mathematician who lived in Alexandria, in Egypt, around 300 BCE. He is sometimes called the 'father of geometry'. We know almost…
Scientific thinking Critical thinking Problem solving Research skills +1
"There is no royal road to geometry."
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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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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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Arts
Imhotep
c. 2650 BCE - c. 2600 BCE · Ancient Egypt (probably Memphis area)
Imhotep was an ancient Egyptian architect, doctor, and high official. He lived around 2,650 BCE, more than 4,500 years ago. This makes him one of…
Scientific thinking Creative expression Problem solving Cultural heritage and identity +1
"Imhotep, son of Ptah, the great chief of artists."
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Chemistry
Jabir ibn Hayyan
c.721-815 CE · Persia / Iraq (Abbasid Caliphate)
Jabir ibn Hayyan (c.721-815 CE), known in medieval Europe as Geber, was a scholar of the early Islamic world whose writings on alchemy, chemistry, pharmacy,…
Scientific thinking Research skills Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity +1
"He who experiments not, attains nothing."
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Arts
Johann Sebastian Bach
1685-1750 · Germany
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a German composer and organist usually regarded as the supreme master of Baroque music and one of the greatest composers…
Creative expression Scientific thinking Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity +1
"I was obliged to work hard. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well."
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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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Mathematics
Kurt Gödel
1906 - 1978 · Austria (later United States)
Kurt Gödel was an Austrian-American logician, mathematician, and philosopher. He is widely considered the greatest logician of the 20th century. His incompleteness theorems changed how…
Scientific thinking Critical thinking Problem solving Research skills +1
"Either mathematics is too big for the human mind, or the human mind is more than a machine."
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Arts
Leonardo da Vinci
1452 - 1519 · Florence and Milan, Italy
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian artist, scientist, and inventor. He was born in 1452 in the small town of Vinci, near Florence, in what…
Creative expression Scientific thinking Problem solving Research skills +1
"Learning never exhausts the mind."
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Education
Maria Montessori
1870-1952 · Italy
Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was an Italian educator and doctor whose method of teaching young children has spread to thousands of schools around the world. She…
Scientific thinking Ethical thinking Research skills Creative expression +1
"Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed."
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Philosophy
Mary Midgley
1919 - 2018 · United Kingdom
Mary Midgley was a British moral philosopher. She is one of the most original ethical thinkers of the 20th century. She is best known for…
Ethical thinking Critical thinking Scientific thinking Creative expression +1
"Philosophy is like plumbing. It is something nobody notices until it goes wrong."
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Literature
Mary Shelley
1797-1851 · England
Mary Shelley (1797-1851) was an English novelist whose Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, written when she was eighteen years old, is widely regarded as the…
Creative expression Ethical thinking Critical thinking Scientific thinking +1
"Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge."
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