The Most Famous
MATHEMATICIANS from Japan
This page contains a list of the greatest Japanese Mathematicians. The pantheon dataset contains 823 Mathematicians, 11 of which were born in Japan. This makes Japan the birth place of the 20th most number of Mathematicians behind Turkey and Greece.
Top 10
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Japanese Mathematicians of all time. This list of famous Japanese 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 Japanese Mathematicians.
1. Seki Takakazu (1642 - 1708)
With an HPI of 56.42, Seki Takakazu is the most famous Japanese Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 28 different languages on wikipedia.
Seki Takakazu (関 孝和, c. March 1642 – December 5, 1708), also known as Seki Kōwa (関 孝和), was a Japanese mathematician and author of the Edo period. Seki laid foundations for the subsequent development of Japanese mathematics, known as wasan. He has been described as "Japan's Newton". He created a new algebraic notation system and, motivated by astronomical computations, did work on infinitesimal calculus and Diophantine equations. Although he was a contemporary of German polymath mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz and British polymath physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton, Seki's work was independent. His successors later developed a school dominant in Japanese mathematics until the end of the Edo period. While it is not clear how much of the achievements of wasan are Seki's, since many of them appear only in writings of his pupils, some of the results parallel or anticipate those discovered in Europe. For example, he is credited with the discovery of Bernoulli numbers. The resultant and determinant (the first in 1683, the complete version no later than 1710) are attributed to him. Seki also calculated the value of pi correct to the 10th decimal place, having used what is now called the Aitken's delta-squared process, rediscovered later by Alexander Aitken. Seki has been influenced by Japanese mathematics books such as the Jinkōki.
2. Kiyosi Itô (1915 - 2008)
With an HPI of 55.01, Kiyosi Itô is the 2nd most famous Japanese Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 26 different languages.
Kiyosi Itô (伊藤 清, Itō Kiyoshi, Japanese pronunciation: [itoː kiꜜjoɕi], September 7, 1915 – 10 November 2008) was a Japanese mathematician who made fundamental contributions to probability theory, in particular, the theory of stochastic processes. He invented the concept of stochastic integral and stochastic differential equation, and is known as the founder of so-called Itô calculus. He also pioneered the world connections between stochastic calculus and differential geometry, known as stochastic differential geometry, invited for the ICM in Stockholm.
3. Kunihiko Kodaira (1915 - 1997)
With an HPI of 54.71, Kunihiko Kodaira is the 3rd most famous Japanese Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 32 different languages.
Kunihiko Kodaira (小平 邦彦, Kodaira Kunihiko, Japanese pronunciation: [kodaꜜiɾa kɯɲiꜜçi̥ko], 16 March 1915 – 26 July 1997) was a Japanese mathematician known for distinguished work in algebraic geometry and the theory of complex manifolds, and as the founder of the Japanese school of algebraic geometers. He was awarded a Fields Medal in 1954, being the first Japanese national to receive this honour.
4. Yutaka Taniyama (1927 - 1958)
With an HPI of 53.21, Yutaka Taniyama is the 4th most famous Japanese Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.
Yutaka Taniyama (谷山 豊, Taniyama Yutaka, 12 November 1927 – 17 November 1958) was a Japanese mathematician known for the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture.
5. Heisuke Hironaka (1931 - )
With an HPI of 52.58, Heisuke Hironaka is the 5th most famous Japanese Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 28 different languages.
Heisuke Hironaka (広中 平祐, Hironaka Heisuke, born April 9, 1931) is a Japanese mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970 for his contributions to algebraic geometry.
6. Goro Shimura (1930 - 2019)
With an HPI of 52.47, Goro Shimura is the 6th most famous Japanese Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 25 different languages.
Gorō Shimura (志村 五郎, Shimura Gorō, 23 February 1930 – 3 May 2019) was a Japanese mathematician and Michael Henry Strater Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Princeton University who worked in number theory, automorphic forms, and arithmetic geometry. He was known for developing the theory of complex multiplication of abelian varieties and Shimura varieties, as well as posing the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture which ultimately led to the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
7. Shigefumi Mori (1951 - )
With an HPI of 47.99, Shigefumi Mori is the 7th most famous Japanese Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 31 different languages.
Shigefumi Mori (森 重文, Mori Shigefumi, born February 23, 1951) is a Japanese mathematician, known for his work in algebraic geometry, particularly in relation to the classification of three-folds.
8. Mikio Sato (1928 - 2023)
With an HPI of 47.71, Mikio Sato is the 8th most famous Japanese Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.
Mikio Sato (Japanese: 佐藤 幹夫, Hepburn: Satō Mikio, 18 April 1928 – 9 January 2023) was a Japanese mathematician known for founding the fields of algebraic analysis, hyperfunctions, and holonomic quantum fields. He was a professor at the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Kyoto.
9. Shinichi Mochizuki (1969 - )
With an HPI of 44.14, Shinichi Mochizuki is the 9th most famous Japanese Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.
Shinichi Mochizuki (望月 新一, Mochizuki Shin'ichi, born March 29, 1969) is a Japanese mathematician working in number theory and arithmetic geometry. He is one of the main contributors to anabelian geometry. His contributions include his solution of the Grothendieck conjecture in anabelian geometry about hyperbolic curves over number fields. Mochizuki has also worked in Hodge–Arakelov theory and p-adic Teichmüller theory. Mochizuki developed inter-universal Teichmüller theory, which has attracted attention from non-mathematicians due to claims it provides a resolution of the abc conjecture.
10. Yasumasa Kanada (1948 - 2020)
With an HPI of 43.14, Yasumasa Kanada is the 10th most famous Japanese Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.
Yasumasa Kanada (金田 康正, Kanada Yasumasa, 1949 – 11 February 2020) was a Japanese computer scientist most known for his numerous world records over the past three decades for calculating digits of π. He set the record 11 of the past 21 times. Kanada was a professor in the Department of Information Science at the University of Tokyo in Tokyo, Japan until 2015. From 2002 until 2009, Kanada held the world record calculating the number of digits in the decimal expansion of pi – exactly 1.2411 trillion digits. The calculation took more than 600 hours on 64 nodes of a HITACHI SR8000/MPP supercomputer. Some of his competitors in recent years include Jonathan and Peter Borwein and the Chudnovsky brothers.
Pantheon has 11 people classified as mathematicians born between 1642 and 1969. Of these 11, 3 (27.27%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living mathematicians include Heisuke Hironaka, Shigefumi Mori, and Shinichi Mochizuki. The most famous deceased mathematicians include Seki Takakazu, Kiyosi Itô, and Kunihiko Kodaira. As of April 2022, 2 new mathematicians have been added to Pantheon including Yasumasa Kanada and Christopher Zeeman.
Living Mathematicians
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Heisuke Hironaka
1931 - Present
HPI: 52.58
Shigefumi Mori
1951 - Present
HPI: 47.99
Shinichi Mochizuki
1969 - Present
HPI: 44.14
Deceased Mathematicians
Go to all RankingsSeki Takakazu
1642 - 1708
HPI: 56.42
Kiyosi Itô
1915 - 2008
HPI: 55.01
Kunihiko Kodaira
1915 - 1997
HPI: 54.71
Yutaka Taniyama
1927 - 1958
HPI: 53.21
Goro Shimura
1930 - 2019
HPI: 52.47
Mikio Sato
1928 - 2023
HPI: 47.71
Yasumasa Kanada
1948 - 2020
HPI: 43.14
Christopher Zeeman
1925 - 2016
HPI: 38.17
Newly Added Mathematicians (2022)
Go to all RankingsWhich Mathematicians were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 6 most globally memorable Mathematicians since 1700.
