Weird History
The Greatest Minds of All Time
List Rules
Vote up the individuals who you think had the most influential ideas throughout history.
List of the Greatest Minds of All Time, throughout history. This list represents the most influential thinkers across various disciplines, ranked in a way that represents the power of their ideas and their impact on the world. The wisest men and women include top philosophers, physicists, famous poets, thinkers, teachers, physiologists, artists, inventors, engineers, the most irreplaceable CEOs in the world, economists and politicians and those whose talents span across many fields of study.
This list takes a historic perspective, so the greatest thinkers who are included on this list come from many different eras. The greatest minds of the 21st century may be quite different from great geniuses from the distant past, but each person should be judged within the context of the time that they were living. For example, inventing a new type of telephone in 2013 would not qualify one as "the most brilliant mind of all time," but in 1876 when Alexander Graham Bell first patented the telephone, it was an act of genius not seen before.
See Also: The Most Influential People of All Time.Ranked by
- 1Dec. at 86 (1856-1943)
- Birthplace: Smiljan, Croatia
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current ...more - 2Dec. at 76 (1879-1955)
- Birthplace: Ulm, Germany
Albert Einstein ( EYEN-styne; German: [ˈalbɛɐ̯t ˈʔaɪnʃtaɪn] (listen); 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity, one of the two ...more - 3Dec. at 84 (1643-1727)
- Birthplace: Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, United Kingdom
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, and author (described in his own day as a "natural philosopher") who is widely ...more - 4Dec. at 67 (1452-1519)
- Birthplace: Vinci, Italy
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath, painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. He is ...more - 5Dec. at 77 (1564-1642)
- Birthplace: Pisa, Italy
Galileo Galilei ( GAL-il-AY-oh, also US: -EE-oh, Italian: [ɡaliˈlɛːo ɡaliˈlɛi]; 15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath from ...more - 6Dec. at 62 (383 BC-321 BC)
- Birthplace: Stagira, Greece
Aristotle (; Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotélēs, pronounced [aristotélɛːs]; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher during the Classical period in Ancient Greece, the founder of the Lyceum and the ...more - Archimedes of Syracuse (; Greek: Ἀρχιμήδης; c. 287 – c. 212 BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded ...more
- Socrates (; Ancient Greek: Σωκρᾰ́της, romanized: Sōkrátēs, [sɔːkrátɛːs]; c. 470 – 399 BC) was a classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, and as ...more
- Euclid (; Ancient Greek: Εὐκλείδης – Eukleídēs, pronounced [eu̯.kleː.dɛːs]; fl. 300 BC), sometimes called Euclid of Alexandria to distinguish him from Euclid of Megara, was a Greek mathematician, ...more
- Pythagoras of Samos (c. 570 – c. 495 BC) was an ancient Ionian Greek philosopher and the eponymous founder of Pythagoreanism. His political and religious teachings were well known in Magna Graecia ...more
- 11Dec. at 41 (1912-1954)
- Birthplace: Maida Vale, London, United Kingdom
Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in ...more - 12Plato (; PLAY-toe Greek: Πλάτων Plátōn, pronounced [plá.tɔːn] in Classical Attic; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was an Athenian philosopher during the Classical period in Ancient Greece, founder ...more
- 13Dec. at 70 (1473-1543)
- Birthplace: Toruń, Second Polish Republic
Nicolaus Copernicus (; Polish: Mikołaj Kopernik; German: Nikolaus Kopernikus; Niklas Koppernigk; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance-era mathematician and astronomer, who formulated a ...more - 14Dec. at 57 (1770-1827)
- Birthplace: Bonn, Germany
Ludwig van Beethoven ( (listen); German: [ˈluːtvɪç fan ˈbeːthoːfn̩] (listen); baptised 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between ...more - 15Dec. at 75 (1791-1867)
- Birthplace: Newington Butts, United Kingdom
Michael Faraday FRS (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles ...more - 16Dec. at 88 (1475-1564)
- Birthplace: Caprese Michelangelo, Italy
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled ...more - 17Dec. at 87 (1752-1840)
- Birthplace: Gotha, Germany
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (11 May 1752 – 22 January 1840) was a German physician, naturalist, physiologist, and anthropologist. He was one of the first to explore the study of the human being as an ...more - 18Dec. at 89 (1858-1947)
- Birthplace: Kiel, Germany
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, ForMemRS (German: [ˈplaŋk]; English: ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in ...more - 19Dec. at 58 (1571-1630)
- Birthplace: Weil der Stadt, Germany
Johannes Kepler (; German: [joˈhanəs ˈkɛplɐ, -nɛs -]; December 27, 1571 – November 15, 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer. He is a key figure in the 17th-century scientific ...more - 20Dec. at 43 (1632-1675)
- Birthplace: Delft, Netherlands
Johannes Vermeer (UK: , US: , Dutch: [joːˈɦɑnəs fərˈmeːr]; October 1632 – December 1675) was a Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle class life. He was a ...more - 21Dec. at 39 (1623-1662)
- Birthplace: Clermont-Ferrand, France
Blaise Pascal ( pa-SKAL, also UK: -SKAHL, PASK-əl, -al, US: pah-SKAHL, French: [blɛz paskal]; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic ...more - 22Dec. at 77 (1777-1855)
- Birthplace: Braunschweig, Germany
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; German: Gauß [ˈkaɐ̯l ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈɡaʊs] (listen); Latin: Carolus Fridericus Gauss; (30 April 1777 – 23 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physicist who made ...more - 23Dec. at 40 (1834-1874)
- Birthplace: Gelnhausen, Germany
Johann Philipp Reis (German: [ʁaɪs]; January 7, 1834 – January 14, 1874) was a self-taught German scientist and inventor. In 1861, he constructed the first make-and-break telephone, today called the ...more - 24Dec. at 63 (1889-1953)
- Birthplace: Marshfield, Missouri
Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was an American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology and ...more - 25Dec. at 78 (1853-1932)
- Birthplace: Riga, Latvia
Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald (2 September [O.S. 21 August] 1853 – 4 April 1932) was a Baltic German chemist and philosopher. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1909 for his work on catalysis, ...more
