1791-1871
Charles Babbage
England
Charles Babbage was mathematician, inventor, and reformer. He designed the Difference Engine and Analytical Engine to automate numerical tables and general calculation.
Documented historical recordMath Adventures
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Showing 1–18 of 25 matching heroes.
1892-1945
Stefan Banach
Poland
Stefan Banach was mathematician. He helped found functional analysis and studied complete normed vector spaces now called Banach spaces.
Documented historical record1630-1677
Isaac Barrow
England
Isaac Barrow was mathematician and teacher. He clarified the inverse relationship between tangent problems and area problems.
Documented historical record1924-2011
Jean Bartik
United States
Jean Bartik was mathematician and computer programmer. She programmed ENIAC and later worked on converting stored-program computer designs into working systems.
Documented historical recordc. 800-c. 740 BCE
Baudhayana
Ancient India
Baudhayana was Vedic ritual geometer. The Baudhayana Sulba Sutra gives construction rules for ritual altars and states a relation equivalent to the Pythagorean theorem.
Historical record with limited biographyc. 1701-1761
Thomas Bayes
England
Thomas Bayes was minister and mathematician. A posthumous essay associated with him developed a rule for updating probabilities in light of evidence.
Documented historical record1394-1449
Ulugh Beg
Samarkand in Central Asia
Ulugh Beg was astronomer, mathematician, and ruler. He founded a major observatory and sponsored a star catalogue built from precise observations.
Documented historical record1920-1984
Richard Bellman
United States
Richard Bellman was mathematician and applied scientist. He created dynamic programming for multistage optimization and decision problems.
Documented historical record1655-1705
Jacob Bernoulli
Switzerland
Jacob Bernoulli was mathematician. He developed probability, series, differential equations, and the law of large numbers.
Documented historical record1667-1748
Johann Bernoulli
Switzerland
Johann Bernoulli was mathematician and teacher. He advanced calculus, differential equations, and optimization problems while training a generation of mathematicians.
Documented historical recordBiblical period; exact dates unknownFeatured
Bezalel
Sinai and the ancient Near East
A biblical master craftsman whose design and construction work shows how measurement, proportion, geometry, and planning serve skilled trades.
Direct text with mathematical inference1927-1985
Albert Turner Bharucha-Reid
United States
Albert Turner Bharucha-Reid was mathematician and probabilist. He advanced probabilistic analysis, random operators, and mathematical biology.
Documented historical record1114-1185
Bhaskara II
India
Bhaskara II was mathematician and astronomer. His works Lilavati and Bijaganita developed arithmetic, algebra, indeterminate equations, geometry, and astronomical computation.
Documented historical record1919-2010
David Blackwell
United States
David Blackwell was mathematician and statistician. He contributed to game theory, probability, dynamic programming, and Bayesian statistics.
Documented historical record1897-1996
Gertrude Blanch
Russia and the United States
Gertrude Blanch was mathematician and numerical-computation leader. She directed large teams producing mathematical tables and later worked on numerical analysis and early computing.
Documented historical recordBiblical era; date uncertain
Boaz
Bethlehem in ancient Israel
Boaz managed fields, workers, harvest quantities, grain distribution, and a public land-redemption transaction. His work required measurement, labor planning, inventory, and fair accounting.
Direct biblical text with mathematical inference1802-1860
János Bolyai
Hungary
János Bolyai was mathematician and military engineer. He independently developed hyperbolic geometry and described it as a new world.
Documented historical record1526-1572
Rafael Bombelli
Italy
Rafael Bombelli was engineer and algebraist. He developed practical rules for complex numbers while explaining solutions of cubic equations.
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