The Most Famous

MATHEMATICIANS from Canada

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This page contains a list of the greatest Canadian Mathematicians. The pantheon dataset contains 1,004 Mathematicians, 10 of which were born in Canada. This makes Canada the birth place of the 22nd most number of Mathematicians behind Japan, and Iran.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Canadian Mathematicians of all time. This list of famous Canadian 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 Canadian Mathematicians.

Photo of John Charles Fields

1. John Charles Fields (1863 - 1932)

With an HPI of 58.40, John Charles Fields is the most famous Canadian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 37 different languages on wikipedia.

John Charles Fields, FRS, FRSC (May 14, 1863 – August 9, 1932) was a Canadian mathematician and the founder of the Fields Medal for outstanding achievement in mathematics.

Photo of Simon Newcomb

2. Simon Newcomb (1835 - 1909)

With an HPI of 58.27, Simon Newcomb is the 2nd most famous Canadian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 41 different languages.

Simon Newcomb (March 12, 1835 – July 11, 1909) was a Canadian–American astronomer, applied mathematician, and autodidactic polymath. He served as Professor of Mathematics in the United States Navy and at Johns Hopkins University. Born in Nova Scotia, at the age of 19 Newcomb left an apprenticeship to join his father in Massachusetts, where the latter was teaching. Though Newcomb had little conventional schooling, he completed a B.S. at Harvard in 1858. He later made important contributions to timekeeping, as well as to other fields in applied mathematics, such as economics and statistics. Fluent in several languages, he also wrote and published several popular science books and a science fiction novel.

Photo of Albert W. Tucker

3. Albert W. Tucker (1905 - 1995)

With an HPI of 54.00, Albert W. Tucker is the 3rd most famous Canadian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Albert William Tucker (28 November 1905 – 25 January 1995) was a Canadian mathematician who made important contributions in topology, game theory, and non-linear programming.

Photo of Louis Nirenberg

4. Louis Nirenberg (1925 - 2020)

With an HPI of 51.59, Louis Nirenberg is the 4th most famous Canadian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 29 different languages.

Louis Nirenberg (February 28, 1925 – January 26, 2020) was a Canadian-American mathematician, considered one of the most outstanding mathematicians of the 20th century. Nearly all of his work was in the field of partial differential equations. Many of his contributions are now regarded as fundamental to the field, such as his strong maximum principle for second-order parabolic partial differential equations and the Newlander–Nirenberg theorem in complex geometry. He is regarded as a foundational figure in the field of geometric analysis, with many of his works being closely related to the study of complex analysis and differential geometry.

Photo of Edward Routh

5. Edward Routh (1831 - 1907)

With an HPI of 50.64, Edward Routh is the 5th most famous Canadian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Edward John Routh (; 20 January 1831 – 7 June 1907) was an English mathematician, noted as the outstanding coach of students preparing for the Mathematical Tripos examination of the University of Cambridge in its heyday in the middle of the nineteenth century. He also did much to systematise the mathematical theory of mechanics and created several ideas critical to the development of modern control systems theory.

Photo of Robert Langlands

6. Robert Langlands (b. 1936)

With an HPI of 50.21, Robert Langlands is the 6th most famous Canadian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 32 different languages.

Robert Phelan Langlands, (; born October 6, 1936) is a Canadian mathematician. He is best known as the founder of the Langlands program, a vast web of conjectures and results connecting representation theory and automorphic forms to the study of Galois groups in number theory, for which he received the 2018 Abel Prize. He is emeritus professor and occupied Albert Einstein's office at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, until 2020 when he retired.

Photo of William Kahan

7. William Kahan (b. 1933)

With an HPI of 48.26, William Kahan is the 7th most famous Canadian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 29 different languages.

William "Velvel" Morton Kahan (born June 5, 1933) is a Canadian mathematician and computer scientist, who received the Turing Award in 1989 for "his fundamental contributions to numerical analysis", was named an ACM Fellow in 1994, and inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2005.

Photo of James Arthur

8. James Arthur (b. 1944)

With an HPI of 44.56, James Arthur is the 8th most famous Canadian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

James Greig Arthur (born May 18, 1944) is a Canadian mathematician working on automorphic forms, and former President of the American Mathematical Society. He is a Mossman Chair and University Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto Department of Mathematics.

Photo of Cathleen Synge Morawetz

9. Cathleen Synge Morawetz (1923 - 2017)

With an HPI of 42.92, Cathleen Synge Morawetz is the 9th most famous Canadian Mathematician.  Her biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Cathleen Synge Morawetz (May 5, 1923 – August 8, 2017) was a Canadian mathematician who spent much of her career in the United States. Morawetz's research was mainly in the study of the partial differential equations governing fluid flow, particularly those of mixed type occurring in transonic flow. She was professor emerita at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at the New York University, where she had also served as director from 1984 to 1988. She was president of the American Mathematical Society from 1995 to 1996. She was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1998.

Photo of Irving Kaplansky

10. Irving Kaplansky (1917 - 2006)

With an HPI of 39.05, Irving Kaplansky is the 10th most famous Canadian Mathematician.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Irving Kaplansky (March 22, 1917 – June 25, 2006) was a mathematician, college professor, author, and amateur musician.

People

Pantheon has 11 people classified as Canadian mathematicians born between 1831 and 1974. Of these 11, 4 (36.36%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Canadian mathematicians include Robert Langlands, William Kahan, and James Arthur. The most famous deceased Canadian mathematicians include John Charles Fields, Simon Newcomb, and Albert W. Tucker. As of April 2024, 1 new Canadian mathematicians have been added to Pantheon including James Arthur.

Living Canadian Mathematicians

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Deceased Canadian Mathematicians

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Newly Added Canadian Mathematicians (2024)

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Overlapping Lives

Which Mathematicians were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 7 most globally memorable Mathematicians since 1700.