Francis Wilton Reichelderfer

Instrumental in bringing modern computerized technology to weather forecasting, Reichelderfer presided over a revolutionary era in the history of the National Weather Service. From 1938 to 1963, he guided the organization through...

Elisha Gray

Best known for his development of a telephone prototype in 1876, Gray is considered by some writers to be the true inventor of the variable resistance telephone, despite losing out to Alexander...

Pierre Jaquet-Droz

Creator of animated dolls, or automata, devices which some consider to be the oldest examples of the computer, Jaquet-Droz lived in Paris, London, and Geneva, where he designed and built these mechanisms...

René Descartes

Credited as the father of analytical geometry, Descartes built the bridge between algebra and geometry that proved crucial to the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. The Cartesian coordinate system—allowing algebraic equations...

Lewis Fry Richardson

Pioneer of fractals and the modified Richardson iteration method for solving systems of linear equations, Richardson was also an English mathematician, physicist, meteorologist, psychologist, and pacifist who pioneered modern mathematical techniques of...

Richard Ernest Bellman

Developer of dynamic programming, Bellman made foundational contributions to mathematics and computer science by introducing a method for solving complex problems by breaking them down into simpler sub-problems. An American applied mathematician...

Julius Blank

Co-developer of an inexpensive method for manufacturing silicon chips, building them from scratch beginning with the machinery for growing silicon crystals, Blank was a semiconductor pioneer and a member of the so-called...

Alice Rowe Burks

One of 75 females employed as a "woman computer" performing mathematical calculations before electronic computers became commercially available, and co-publisher of the definitive Who Invented the Computer? in 2003, Burks was also...

Philip Stuart Milner-Barry

One of four leading codebreakers at Bletchley Park to petition Prime Minister Winston Churchill directly for more resources for their work, Milner-Barry was also a British chess player, chess writer, and civil...

Samuel Morland

Credited with early developments in relation to computing, hydraulics and steam power, Morland was a notable English academic, diplomat, spy, inventor and mathematician of the 17th century. He was educated at Winchester...

Giovanni Caselli

Inventor of the pantelegraph (a.k.a. Universal Telegraph or "all-purpose telegraph"), the predecessor of the modern fax machine, Caselli put the world's first practical operating facsimile machine ("fax") system into use. Pantèlègraph is...

Paul Marie Ghislain Otlet

Considered one of the fathers of information science, Otlet was an author, entrepreneur, visionary, lawyer, and peace activist whose writings have sometimes been called prescient of the current World Wide Web. He...

William (Bill) Thomas Tutte

A foundational figure in combinatorics and graph theory, Tutte performed significant work in fields with many applications in computer science, and is credited with helping create graph theory in its modern form....

William Oughtred

Credited as the inventor of the slide rule in 1622, Oughtred was the first to use two logarithmic scales sliding by one another to perform direct multiplication and division. Oughtred also introduced the...

Charles Proteus Steinmetz

Fostering the development of alternating current that made possible the expansion of the electric power industry in the United States, Steinmetz was a mathematician and electrical engineer who formulated mathematical theories for...

Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier

Best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series and their applications to problems of heat transfer and vibrations, Fourier left an unfinished work on determinate equations which was edited by Claude-Louis...

Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci

Among those who designed a calculator, da Vinci stands as one of history's most remarkable minds — an Italian polymath regarded as the epitome of the "Renaissance Man", displaying skills in numerous...

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Discoverer of the binary number system and independent co-inventor of infinitesimal calculus, Leibniz occupied a prominent place in the history of mathematics and the history of philosophy. He developed the infinitesimal calculus...

Allessandro Volta

Inventor of the battery in 1800 and a remotely operated pistol that was a significant forerunner of the telegraph, Volta transformed the understanding of electricity. He was born in Como, Italy, and taught...

Robin Oliver Gandy

A pioneer in recursion theory, Gandy is best known for the Spector-Gandy theorem, the Gandy Stage Comparison theorem, and the Gandy Selection Theorem. A British mathematician and logician, he was a friend,...