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Pierre de Fermat
French mathematician who is often called the founder of the modern theory of numbers. Fermat was one of the two leading mathematicians of the first half of the 17th century. Fermat discovered the fundamental principle of analytic geometry. His methods for finding tangents to curves and their maximum and minimum points led him to be regarded as the inventor of the differential calculus.Through his correspondence with Blaise Pascal he was a co-founder of the theory of probability. -
John Wallis
English mathematician who contributed substantially to the origins of the calculus and was the most influential English mathematician before Isaac Newton. Wallis learned Latin, Greek, Hebrew, logic, and arithmetic during his early school years. In 1632 he entered the University of Cambridge, where he received B.A. and M.A. degrees in 1637 and 1640, respectively. He was ordained a priest in 1640 and shortly afterward exhibited his skill in mathematics. -
Isaac Newton
He made contributions to all branches of mathematics then studied, but is especially famous for his solutions to the contemporary problems in analytical geometry of drawing tangents to curves and defining areas bounded by curves.He discovered general methods of resolving problems of curvature, embraced in his "method of fluxions".Late in life, Newton expressed regret for the algebraic style of recent mathematical progress, preferring the geometrical method of the Classical Greeks. -
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, (born July 1 [June 21, Old Style], 1646, Leipzig [Germany]—died November 14, 1716, Hannover, Hanover) German philosopher, mathematician, and political adviser, important both as a metaphysician and as a logician and distinguished also for his independent invention of the differential and integral calculus. -
James Bernoulli
The Swiss Bernoulli brothers, James and John, were the first to achieve a full understanding of Leibniz’s presentation of the calculus. Their subsequent publications did much to make the subject widely known to the rest of the continent.He created the "Bernoullian inequality," and to do so, he used the principles stated by Leibniz.
