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.