Sinopsis
This volume of concise biographies of scientists, inventors, and mathematicians is different from most resources about people who influenced their various cultures.
Not only have contributions been described in the context of the individual's life, society, and discipline, but also the longterm effects of each individual's work are considered as a global legacy. Unlike traditional encyclopedias, which present facts of individual lives in isolation, this volume makes the thread of interactions between science, technology, and society more apparent in the fabric of human history.
Accordingly, the selection criteria for the 200 exemplars of scientific, mathematical, and inventive thinking were different from those of standard works. Although many famous contributors to knowledge and technology are included, we have also deliberately chosen some people who are not wellknown and whose contributions were made by overcoming societal barriers to their productivity. In following this mandate, we have selected and described individuals who fall into one or both of the following categories:
a) their life and work had significant influence on society in general or on their discipline in particular and their influence extended beyond their lifetime; or
b) their work extended beyond the limits imposed on these individuals by contemporary society. This category includes women and minorities whose contributions and
legacies were limited because of societal constraints.
We used a flexible selection process based on the two categories above to decide which scientists, inventors, and mathematicians to include in this volume. The attempt to embrace a wider variety of thinkers and doers was sometimes frustrated by the limited information and scholarship available in English about persons of earlier times and various cultures. However, all of those chosen did contribute something new or rare to human society, communicating through their work, ideas, and
lives new perspectives on what is possible.
In addition, we used a specific definition of science and related fields to shape our selection process, a definition that emphasized creative thinking as opposed to discovery of existing realities. Science develops from contrarian thinking that produces testable new ideas, rather than the identification of new continents or petrified fossils. Without this distinction, recognition of wellknown "greats" in exploration and discovery might have overshadowed recognition of the lesserknown but significant achievements of people who are underrepresented in most historical and biographical works.
In choosing to illustrate a wide variety of contributors, and given the space limitations for this publication, many worthy people have not been included. But we hope
that readers will be intrigued by the variety of people, ideas, and inventions noted herein that have contributed to the culture, choices, and comforts available to citizens
of Earth.
Practitioners in the field of medicine are included in this volume even though, in the strictest sense, they do not fit our contemporary definition of science. We have done this because of popular notions concerning the nature of medical practice. Indeed, for many readers, the best known "scientist" is their family doctor, the best "invention" would be a cure for cancer or heart disease, and "mathematics" is required to consider how to pay for these resources.
These popular understandings suggest the need for working definitions of science, invention, mathematics, and medicine that highlight their characteristic differences and similarities with other areas of human creativity. Like a timeline, these considerations begin with the oldest of these creative fields, invention of technology.
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