MATHEMATICIANS from Belgium

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Belgian Mathematicians of all time. This list of famous Belgian Mathematicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Belgian Mathematicians.

1. Simon Stevin (1548 - 1620)

With an HPI of 68.80, Simon Stevin is the most famous Belgian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 44 different languages on wikipedia.

Simon Stevin (Dutch: [ˈsimɔn steːˈvɪn]; 1548–1620), sometimes called Stevinus, was a Flemish mathematician, scientist and music theorist. He made various contributions in many areas of science and engineering, both theoretical and practical. He also translated various mathematical terms into Dutch, making it one of the few European languages in which the word for mathematics, wiskunde (wis and kunde, i.e., "the knowledge of what is certain"), was not a loanword from Greek but a calque via Latin. He also replaced the word chemie, the Dutch for chemistry, by scheikunde ("the art of separating"), made in analogy with wiskunde.

2. Victor D'Hondt (1841 - 1902)

With an HPI of 59.98, Victor D'Hondt is the 2nd most famous Belgian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 33 different languages.

Victor Joseph Auguste D'Hondt (Dutch: [ˈvɪktɔr ˈtɔnt]; 20 November 1841 – 30 May 1901) was a Belgian lawyer and jurist of civil law at Ghent University. He devised a procedure, the D'Hondt method, which he first described in 1878, for allocating seats to candidates in party-list proportional representation elections. The method has been adopted by a number of countries, including Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Fiji, Finland, Israel, Japan, North Macedonia, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Slovenia, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Iceland, Uruguay and Wales. A modified D'Hondt system is used for elections to the London Assembly and the Scottish Parliament. Victor D’Hondt was an influential proponent of proportional representation in Belgium. He published several articles on proportional representation and was founding member of the Association Réformiste Belge pour l'Adoption de la Representation Proportionnelle in 1881. From 1885 he served as professor of civil and fiscal law at the University of Ghent. In 1896 he was awarded the title Officer in the Belgian Order of Leopold.

3. Eugène Charles Catalan (1814 - 1894)

With an HPI of 56.61, Eugène Charles Catalan is the 3rd most famous Belgian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 35 different languages.

Eugène Charles Catalan (French pronunciation: [øʒɛn ʃaʁl katalɑ̃]; 30 May 1814 – 14 February 1894) was a French and Belgian mathematician who worked on continued fractions, descriptive geometry, number theory and combinatorics. His notable contributions included discovering a periodic minimal surface in the space R3{\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{3}}; stating the famous Catalan's conjecture, which was eventually proved in 2002; and introducing the Catalan numbers to solve a combinatorial problem.

4. Pierre Deligne (b. 1944)

With an HPI of 56.51, Pierre Deligne is the 4th most famous Belgian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 38 different languages.

Pierre René, Viscount Deligne (French: [dəliɲ]; born 3 October 1944) is a Belgian mathematician. He is best known for work on the Weil conjectures, leading to a complete proof in 1973. He is the winner of the 2013 Abel Prize, 2008 Wolf Prize, 1988 Crafoord Prize, and 1978 Fields Medal.

5. Adriaan van Roomen (1561 - 1615)

With an HPI of 53.10, Adriaan van Roomen is the 5th most famous Belgian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Adriaan van Roomen (29 September 1561 – 4 May 1615), also known as Adrianus Romanus, was a mathematician, professor of medicine and medical astrologer from the Duchy of Brabant in the Habsburg Netherlands who was active throughout Central Europe in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. As a mathematician he worked in algebra, trigonometry and geometry; and on the decimal expansion of pi. He solved the Problem of Apollonius using a new method that involved intersecting hyperbolas. He also wrote on the Gregorian calendar reform.

6. Pierre François Verhulst (1804 - 1849)

With an HPI of 52.45, Pierre François Verhulst is the 6th most famous Belgian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Pierre François Verhulst (28 October 1804, in Brussels – 15 February 1849, in Brussels) was a Belgian mathematician and a doctor in number theory from the University of Ghent in 1825. He is best known for the logistic growth model.

7. Charles Jean de la Vallée Poussin (1866 - 1962)

With an HPI of 51.30, Charles Jean de la Vallée Poussin is the 7th most famous Belgian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Charles-Jean Étienne Gustave Nicolas, baron de la Vallée Poussin (French pronunciation: [ʃaʁl ʒɑ̃ etjɛn ɡystav nikɔla baʁɔ̃ də la vale pusɛ̃]; 14 August 1866 – 2 March 1962) was a Belgian mathematician. He is best known for proving the prime number theorem. The King of Belgium ennobled him with the title of baron.

8. David Ruelle (b. 1935)

With an HPI of 50.59, David Ruelle is the 8th most famous Belgian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

David Pierre Ruelle (French: [ʁɥɛl]; born 20 August 1935) is a Belgian and naturalized French mathematical physicist. He has worked on statistical physics and dynamical systems. With Floris Takens, Ruelle coined the term strange attractor, and developed a new theory of turbulence.

9. Jean Bourgain (1954 - 2018)

With an HPI of 50.26, Jean Bourgain is the 9th most famous Belgian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 35 different languages.

Jean Louis, baron Bourgain (French: [buʁɡɛ̃]; (1954-02-28)28 February 1954 – (2018-12-22)22 December 2018) was a Belgian mathematician. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1994 in recognition of his work on several core topics of mathematical analysis such as the geometry of Banach spaces, harmonic analysis, ergodic theory and nonlinear partial differential equations from mathematical physics.

10. Elias M. Stein (1931 - 2018)

With an HPI of 50.07, Elias M. Stein is the 10th most famous Belgian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

Elias Menachem Stein (January 13, 1931 – December 23, 2018) was an American mathematician who was a leading figure in the field of harmonic analysis. He was the Albert Baldwin Dod Professor of Mathematics, Emeritus, at Princeton University, where he was a faculty member from 1963 until his death in 2018.