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Top intellectual influences

Not in special order:

AruNi 2) kaNAda 3) pata~njali 4) Plato 5) Euclid 6) Darwin 7) Haldane 8) Euler 9) Gauss 10) Pauling

Though I confess understanding only snatches of some of them.

Brief summaries

uddAlaka AruNi: the idea that structure of the physical world can be analyzed in terms of combination of a small collection of fundamental principles.
kaNada: the analysis of nature using discrete atoms & laws relating to them.
pata~njali: The principle of homology to infer function from structural relationships.
Plato: the world of Platonic ideals whose approximations are “refracted” into the physical world
Euclid: axiomatic thought& the systematization of geometry
Darwin: The foundations of biology: descent with modification & evolution through natural selection
Haldane: Enzyme kinetics, chemical origin of life, kin selection, geometric foundations of biology, genetic foundations of evolutionary theory.
Euler: The deep connections between arithmetic, exponential functions, trigonometry, and complex numbers; foundation of graph theory; and wave theory of light.
Gauss: Elliptical integrals, prime distribution, method of least squares & normal distribution, fast Fourier transforms, understanding curvature, geometries beyond Euclid, measuring earth’s magnetism.
Pauling: The chemical bond, the structure of biopolymers, inferring evolutionary relationships from structure of biopolymers.