Mathematics: Did you mean...?

The Royal Society was founded in 1662 to promote scientific research and increase our knowledge of the natural world. With royal patronage and a stellar membership of great minds, the society quickly gained international recognition for its...

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543 CE) was a Polish astronomer who famously proposed that the Earth and other planets revolved around the Sun in a heliocentric system and not, as then widely thought, in a geocentric system where the Earth is...

René Descartes (1596-1650) was a French mathematician, natural scientist, and philosopher, best known by the phrase 'Cogito ergo sum' ('I think therefore I am'). He published works on optics, coordinate geometry, physiology, and cosmology...

Mesopotamian science and technology developed during the Uruk period (circa 4000-3100 BCE) and the Early Dynastic period (circa 2900-2350/2334 BCE) of the Sumerian culture of southern Mesopotamia. The foundation of future Mesopotamian advances...

Euclid of Alexandria (lived c. 300 BCE) systematized ancient Greek and Near Eastern mathematics and geometry. He wrote The Elements, the most widely used mathematics and geometry textbook in history. Older books sometimes confuse him with...

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was a German polymath who became well-known across Europe for his work, particularly in the fields of science, mathematics, and philosophy. Leibniz's rationalist philosophy attempted to reconcile traditional...

Aristarchus of Samos (l. c. 310 - c. 230 BCE) was a Greek astronomer who first proposed a heliocentric model of the universe in which the sun, not the earth, was at the center. Although his theory was noted by other thinkers of his time...

Mesopotamian inventions include many items taken for granted today, most of which were created during the Early Dynastic period (circa 2900-2350/2334 BCE) or developed from achievements of the Uruk period (circa 4000-3100 BCE). The Sumerians...

Fatima Al-Fihri (c. 800-880) was a Muslim woman, scholar and philanthropist who is credited with founding the world’s oldest, continuously running university during the 9th century: the University of Al-Qarawiyyin, located in Fez in Morocco...

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an English philosopher who famously summarised his pessimistic view of human nature in his greatest work, Leviathan, published in 1651. Hobbes believed that the life of humanity in the state of nature is short...