The following is a list of people who are considered a "father" or "mother" (or "founding father" or "founding mother") of ascientific field. Such people are generally regarded to have made the first significant contributions to and/or delineation of that field; they may also be seen as "a" rather than "the" father or mother of the field. Debate over who merits the title can be perennial.
| Field | Person/s considered "father" or "mother" | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Science (modern) | Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)[1] Isaac Newton (1643–1727)[2][3] | For systemic use of experimentation inscience and contributions toscientific method,physics andobservational astronomy. The work ofPrincipia by Newton, who also refined thescientific method, and who is widely regarded as the most important figure of theScientific Revolution.[4][5] |
| Science (ancient) | Thales (c. 624/623 – c. 548/545 BC)[6][7] | Attempted to explain natural phenomena without recourse tomythology |
| Field | Person/s considered "father" or "mother" | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Zoology | Aristotle (384–322 BC) | His contributions to the field include vast quantities of information about the variety, structure, and behavior of animals |
| Bacteriology | Robert Koch (1843–1910) Ferdinand Cohn (1828–1898)[8] Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) | First to produce precise, correct descriptions ofbacteria. |
| Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723)[9] | ||
| Biogeography | Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) | "... Often described as the Father of Biogeography, Wallace shows the impact of human activity on the natural world."[10] |
| Bioinformatics | Margaret Oakley Dayhoff (1925–1983) | "... the mother and father of bioinformatics", according toDavid J. Lipman, former director of theNational Center for Biotechnology Information.[11] |
| Biology[note 1] | Aristotle (384–322 BC) | |
| Botany | Theophrastus (c. 371 – c. 287 BC) | |
| Otto Brunfels (1488–1534) Hieronymus Bock (1498–1554) Leonhart Fuchs (1501–1566) | The three German fathers of botany.[12][13] | |
| Bryology | Johann Hedwig (1730–1799) | |
| Cheloniology | Archie Carr (1909–1987) | [14][15][16][17][18] |
| Ecology | Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) Eugenius Warming (1841–1924)[19] | Linnaeus founded an early branch of ecology that he calledThe Economy of Nature (1772), Haeckel coined the term "ecology" (German: Oekologie, Ökologie) (1866), Warming authored the first book on plant ecology.Plantesamfund (1895). |
| Modernelk management | Olaus Murie (1889–1963)[20] | |
| Entomology | Jan Swammerdam (1637–1680) | [21] |
| Johan Christian Fabricius (1745–1808)[22] | Fabricius described and published information on over 10,000 insects and refined Linnaeus's system of classification. | |
| William Kirby (1759–1850) | [23] | |
| Ethology | Nikolaas Tinbergen (1907–1988) Karl von Frisch (1886–1982) Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989) | The modern discipline ofethology is generally considered to have begun during the 1930s with the work ofNikolaas Tinbergen,Konrad Lorenz andKarl von Frisch, joint awardees of the 1973Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.[24] |
| Charles Darwin (1809–1882)[25][26][27][28] | On the Origin of Species (1859). | |
| Genetics | Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) | For his study of theinheritance oftraits inpea plants, which forms the basis forMendelian inheritance[29] |
| William Bateson (1861–1926) | Proponent of Mendelism.[30] | |
| Gerontology | Élie Metchnikoff (1845–1916) | Coined the term "gerontology" (1903). He was the first to perform systematic research on the effects of certain foods on lifespan and healthspan, developed the concept of probiotic diet that promotes long healthy life.[31][32][33][34][35][36][37] |
| Herpetology | John Edwards Holbrook (1796–1871) | "John Edwards Holbrook... was considered by many to be the Father of Herpetology."[38][39] |
| Ichthyology | Peter Artedi (1705–1735) | "Far greater than either of these... was he who has been justly called the Father of Ichthyology, Petrus (Peter) Artedi (1705–1735)."[40] |
| Immunology | Edward Jenner (1749–1823) | Pioneered the concept of vaccines including creating the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine (in 1796).[41][42][43][44] |
| Innate (natural) immunity | Élie Metchnikoff (1845–1916) | Research of phagocytosis by macrophages and microphages as a critical host-defense mechanism.[45][46][47][48][49][50][51] |
| Humoral immunity | Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915) | Described the side-chain theory of antibody formation and the mechanisms of how antibodies neutralize toxins and induce bacterial lysis with the help of complement.[45] |
| Lichenology | Erik Acharius (1757–1819) | "Erik Acharius, the father of lichenology..."[52] |
| Microbiology | Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) /Louis Pasteur (1822–1895)[53] | The first to microscopically observe micro-organisms in water and the first to seebacteria. |
| Molecular biology | Linus Pauling (1901–1994) | [54] |
| Molecular biophysics | Gopalasamudram Narayana Iyer Ramachandran (1922–2001)[55] | Founded the [world's first?] molecular biophysics unit (1970). |
| Paleontology | Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) | [56] |
| Parasitology | Francesco Redi (1626–1697) | The founder of experimental biology and the first person to challenge the theory of spontaneous generation by demonstrating that maggots come from eggs of flies.[57] |
| Population genetics | Ronald A. Fisher,Sewall Wright,J. B. S. Haldane | [58] |
| Protozoology | Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723)[9] | First to produce precise, correct descriptions ofprotozoa. |
| Quantitative genetics | Ronald A. Fisher | [59] |
| Taxonomy | Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778)[60] | Devised the system of naming living organisms that became universally accepted in the scientific world. |
| Virology | Martinus Beijerinck (1851–1931)[61] | Studies of agricultural microbiology andindustrial microbiology that yielded fundamental discoveries. |
| Field | Person/s considered "father" or "mother" | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Atomic theory (early) | Democritus (c. 460 – c. 370 BC)[62] | Founder ofatomism in cosmology. |
| Atomic theory (modern) | Father Roger Boscovich (1711–1787)[63] | First coherent description of atomic theory. |
| John Dalton (1766–1844)[64] | First scientific description of the atom as a building block for more complex structures. | |
| Atomic bomb | J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) | Served as the director of theManhattan Project'sLos Alamos Laboratory duringWorld War II. He is often called the "father of theatomic bomb" for his role in overseeing the development of the first nuclear weapons. |
| Chemical thermodynamics (modern) | Gilbert Lewis (1875–1946) Willard Gibbs (1839–1903) Merle Randall (1888–1950) Edward Guggenheim (1901–1970)[65] | Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances (1923) andModern Thermodynamics by the Methods of Willard Gibbs (1933), which made a major contribution to the use ofthermodynamics inchemistry. |
| Chemistry (modern) | Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794)[66] | Elements of Chemistry (1787) |
| Robert Boyle (1627–1691)[66] | The Sceptical Chymist (1661) | |
| Jöns Berzelius (1779–1848)[67][68] | Development of chemical nomenclature (1800s) | |
| John Dalton (1766–1844)[66] | Revival ofatomic theory (1803) | |
| Green chemistry | Paul Anastas (born 1962) | Design and manufacture of chemicals that are non-hazardous and environmentally benign. |
| Nuclear chemistry | Otto Hahn (1879–1968)[69] |
|
| Periodic table | Dmitri Mendeleev (1834–1907)[70] | Arranged the sixty-six elements known at the time in order ofatomic weight by periodic intervals (1869). |
| Physical chemistry | Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765) | The first to read lectures in physical chemistry and coin the term (1752). |
| Jacobus van 't Hoff (1852–1911) | Jacobus van 't Hoff is considered one of the founders of the discipline ofphysical chemistry. His work helped found the discipline as it is today.[71][72][73] | |
| Svante Arrhenius (1859–1927)[74] | Devised much of the theoretical foundation forphysical chemistry.On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances (1876),Thermodynamik chemischer Vorgange (1882). | |
| Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932) | "Wilhelm Ostwald is considered one of the founders of the discipline of physical chemistry..."[75] | |
| Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) | [citation needed] | |
| Theory ofChemical structure | August Kekulé (1829–1896) | Discovered the structure of the benzene ring (1865) and pioneered structural chemistry in general |
| Field | Person/s considered "father" or "mother" | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Geochemistry (modern) | Victor Goldschmidt (1888–1947) | For developing theGoldschmidt classification of elements. |
| Earlygeodesy (mathematical geography) | Eratosthenes (c. 276 – 195/194 BC)[76][77] | Eratosthenes was first to write the wordGeography (from Geo- and -graphy, literally "writing about the Earth") |
| Geodesy (modern) | Al-Biruni (973 – c. 1050)[78][79] | |
| Geology (modern) | Georgius Agricola (1494–1555)[80] | Wrote the first book on physical geology, De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum (1546) |
| Nicolas Steno (1638–1686)[81] | For setting down most of the principles of modern geology. | |
| James Hutton (1726–1797)[82] | For formulatinguniformitarianism and thePlutonic theory. | |
| Geotechnical engineering (Soil mechanics) | Karl von Terzaghi (1883–1963)[83] | |
| Limnology (modern) | G. Evelyn Hutchinson (1903–1991)[84] | |
| Mineralogy | Georgius Agricola (1494–1555)[85] | |
| Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806–1873)[86] | |
| Plate tectonics | Alfred Wegener (1880–1930)[citation needed] | |
| Acoustical oceanography | Leonid Brekhovskikh (1917–2005)[87] | |
| Stratigraphy | Nicolas Steno (1638–1686)[81] | |
| Speleology | Édouard-Alfred Martel (1859–1938) | Began the first systematic exploration of cave systems and promoted speleology as a field separate from geology. |
| Field | Person/s considered "father" or "mother" | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Anatomy (modern) | Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694) | |
| Biophysics | Henri Dutrochet (1776–1847) | Discoveredosmosis |
| Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) | Explained hearing and vision. | |
| Biomechanics | Christian Wilhelm Braune (1831–1892) | First to describe the methodology of humangait (walking). |
| Bioelectromagnetics | Luigi Galvani (1737–1798) | First to discover animal electricity through a series of experiments in 1780. |
| Cardiovascular physiology | Ibn al-Nafis (1213–1288) | Father of circulatory and cardiovascular physiology.[88][89][90] |
| Cognitive therapy | Aaron T. Beck (1921–2021) |
|
| Cryonics | Robert Ettinger (1918–2011) | 1962 book,The Prospect of Immortality[92] |
| Dentistry | Pierre Fauchard (1679–1761) | Widely known for writing the first complete scientific description of dentistry, Le Chirurgien Dentiste. |
| Electrophysiology | Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818–1896) | The discoverer of nerve action potential. |
| Emergency medicine |
|
|
| Epidemiology (modern) | John Snow (1813–1858) | Determining the cause of the1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak with a combination of public interviews and mapping |
| Gastrointestinal physiology | William Beaumont[96] (1785–1853) | |
| Gynaecology | J. Marion Sims (1813–1883)[97][98] | |
| Histology | Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694) | |
| Human anatomy (modern) | Vesalius (1514–1564)[99] | De humani corporis fabrica (1543) |
| Medical genetics | Victor McKusick (1921–2008) | Mendelian Inheritance in Man (started publishing in 1966) |
| Medicine (early) |
| |
| Medicine (modern) |
| |
| Neurosurgery | Harvey Cushing[104] (1869–1939) | Developed techniques that considerably reduced the risks involved with brain surgery in the early 20th century.[104] |
| Nutrition (modern) |
|
|
| Organ transplantation | Thomas Starzl[107] (1926–2017) | Performed the first human liver transplant and established the clinical utility of anti-rejection drugs includingciclosporin. Developed major advances in organ preservation, procurement and transplantation. |
| Orthopedic surgery (modern) | Hugh Owen Thomas[108] (1834–1891) | He stressed the importance of rest in treatment and was responsible for many landmark contributions to orthopaedic surgery. He was especially celebrated for his design and use of splints; the famous Thomas knee splint was still in wide use at the end of World War II. |
| Psychology | Wilhelm Wundt[109] (1832–1920) | Founded the firstlaboratory for psychological research, thereby establishing psychology as a distinct science.[110] Wundt is also regarded as the father ofexperimental psychology.[111] |
| Pediatrics | Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi ("Rhazes")[112] (c. 865 – 925 CE) | WroteThe Diseases of Children, the first book to deal with pediatrics as an independent field. |
| Physiology | François Magendie (1783–1855) | Précis élementaire de Physiologie (1816) |
| Physical culture | Bernarr Macfadden (1868–1955) | "It delighted the heart of our old friend Bernarr Macfadden, 'the Father of Physical Culture,' when we told him how much athletic activity and good sportsmanship had to do with the rehabilitation of boys."[113] |
| Plastic surgery |
| Wrote theSushruta Samhita (ancient) |
| Psychoanalysis | Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) | [116] |
| Psychophysics |
| Formulating theWeber–Fechner law inElements of Psychophysics (1860).[119] This publication is regarded as the beginning ofpsychophysics.[120] Fechner also coined the term psychophysics.[121] |
| Space medicine | Hubertus Strughold (1898–1986) | "AfterWernher von Braun, he was the top Nazi scientist employed by the American government, and he was subsequently hailed by NASA as the 'father of space medicine'"[122] |
| Surgery (early) | Sushruta[114][115] (sixth century?) | Wrote theSushruta Samhita (878 CE?) |
| Surgery (modern) |
|
|
| Toxicology | Paracelsus (1493/1494 – 1541) | [131] |
| Field | Person/s considered "father" or "mother" | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Acoustics | Ernst Chladni[132] | For important research invibrating plates |
| Atomic bomb | Enrico Fermi J. Robert Oppenheimer Leslie Groves Edward Teller | For their role in theManhattan Project |
| Aerodynamics | Nikolai Zhukovsky George Cayley[133] | Zhukovsky was the first to undertake the study of airflow, was the first engineer scientist to explain mathematically the origin of aerodynamiclift. Cayley Investigated theoretical aspects of flight and experimented with flight a century before the first airplane was built |
| Civil engineering | John Smeaton[134] | |
| Classical mechanics | Isaac Newton (founder)[135] | Describedlaws of motion andlaw of gravity inPhilosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) |
| Electrical Engineering | Michael Faraday[136][137] | Invented the generator, the firstDC electric motor, the transformer, and also discoveredFaraday's Law of Induction (1831) |
| Pre-Maxwell Electrodynamics | André-Marie Ampère[138] | Book:Memoir on the Mathematical Theory of Electrodynamic Phenomena, Uniquely Deduced from Experience (1827) |
| Energetics | Willard Gibbs[139] | Publication:On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances (1876) |
| Meteoritics | Ernst Chladni[140] | First to publish in modern Western thought (in 1794) the then audacious idea that meteorites are rocks from space.[141] |
| Modernastronomy | Nicolaus Copernicus[142] | Developed the first explicitheliocentric model inDe revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543) |
| Nuclear astrophysics | Hans Bethe[143] | Wrote a famous paper in 1938 onstellar nucleosynthesis |
| Nuclear physics | Ernest Rutherford[144] | Developed theRutherford atom model (1909) |
| Nuclear science | Marie Curie Pierre Curie[145] | |
| Optics | Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen)[146] | Correctly explainedvision and carried out the firstexperiments onlight and optics in theBook of Optics (1021). |
| Physical cosmology | Georges Lemaître (founder) Albert Einstein | Monsignor Lemaître is considered "the Father of the Big Bang" and the first to derive what is now known as Hubble's law. Leavitt discoveredCepheid variables, the "Standard Candle" by which Hubble later determined galactic distances. Einstein's general theory of relativity is usually recognized as the theoretic foundation of modern cosmology. |
| Physics (modern) | Galileo Galilei[148] | His development and extensive use of experimental physics, e.g. thetelescope |
| Plasma physics | Irving Langmuir Hannes Alfvén[149] | Langmuir first described ionised gas asplasma and observed fundamental plasma vibrations,Langmuir waves. Alfvén pioneered the theoretical description of plasma by developingmagnetohydrodynamics. |
| Quantum mechanics | Max Planck[150] | Stated thatelectromagnetic energy could be emitted only inquantized form |
| Relativity | Albert Einstein (founder)[151] | Pioneeredspecial relativity (1905) andgeneral relativity (1915) |
| Spaceflight(rocketry) | Robert Hutchings Goddard Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Hermann Oberth Wernher von Braun | Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket. Tsiolkovsky created theTsiolkovsky rocket equation. Oberth was the first, who presented mathematically analyzed concepts and designs of space ships.[152] Braun´sV2 rocket was the first man made object in space.[153] He led theApollo program. |
| Thermodynamics | Sadi Carnot (founder)[154] Rudolf Clausius (one of the founding fathers) | Publication:On the Motive Power of Fire and Machines Fitted to Develop that Power (1824) Restated Carnot's principle known as theCarnot cycle and gave so thetheory of heat a truer and sounder basis. His most important paper, "On the Moving Force of Heat",[155] published in 1850, first stated thesecond law of thermodynamics. In 1865 he introduced the concept ofentropy. In 1870 he introduced thevirial theorem, which applied toheat.[156] |
| Field | Person/s considered "father" or "mother" | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Algebra (see alsoThe father of algebra) | Muhammad Al-Khwarizmi (Algorismi)[157] Diophantus[158][159][160] | Full exposition of solvingquadratic equations in hisAl-Jabr and recognized algebra as an independent discipline. First use of symbolism (syncopation) in hisArithmetica, influenced Arabic development of algebra. |
| Algebraic topology | Henri Poincaré[161] | PublishedAnalysis Situs in 1895,[162] introducing the concepts ofhomotopy andhomology, which are now considered part ofalgebraic topology. |
| Analysis | Augustin-Louis Cauchy[163] Karl Weierstrass[164] | |
| Analytic geometry | René Descartes Pierre de Fermat[165] (founders) | For their independent invention of theCartesian Coordinate System |
| Artificial intelligence | Alan Turing,Claude Shannon,John McCarthy,Allen Newell,Marvin Minsky,Herbert A. Simon,Nathaniel Rochester | For their numerous contributions to the field, such as Turing's1950 paper on AI, or Shannon's 1950 paper on how to program a computer forchess.[166] Also for either the organization of or participation in the famous 1956Dartmouth workshop, the founding event of AI.[167] |
| Calculus | Isaac Newton[168] Gottfried Leibniz | SeeLeibniz and Newton calculus controversy. |
| Computer science | Charles Babbage Alan Turing | In thehistory of computer science Babbage is often regarded as one of the first pioneers of computing and Turing invented the principle of the modern computer and the stored program concept that almost all modern day computers use. |
| Computer programming | Ada Lovelace Charles Babbage | Work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine |
| Cryptanalysis | Al-Kindi[169][170][171] | Developed the first code breaking algorithm based onfrequency analysis. He wrote a book entitled "Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages", containing detailed discussions onstatistics. |
| Cryptography(modern) | Claude Shannon[172][173] | Wrote a revolutionarypaper that was released in 1949, and did work during WWII |
| Descriptive geometry | Gaspard Monge[174] (founder) | Developed a graphical protocol that creates three-dimensional virtual space on a two-dimensional plane |
| Fractal geometry | Benoit Mandelbrot | |
| Geometry | Euclid[175] | Euclid's Elements deduced the principles ofEuclidean geometry from a set ofaxioms. |
| Graph theory | Leonhard Euler[176] | SeeSeven Bridges of Königsberg |
| Italian school of algebraic geometry | Corrado Segre[177] | Publications and students developingalgebraic geometry |
| Modern algebra | Emmy Noether[178] Emil Artin | Provided the first general definitions of acommutative ring, and suggested that topology be studied algebraically.[179] Combined the structure theory ofassociative algebras and the representation theory of groups into a single arithmetic theory ofmodules andideals inrings satisfyingascending chain conditions.[180] |
| Non-Euclidean geometry | Carl Friedrich Gauss,János Bolyai, Nikolai Lobachevsky[181] (founders) | Independent development ofhyperbolic geometry in which Euclid's fifth postulate is not true |
| Number theory | Pythagoras[182] | |
| Probability | Gerolamo Cardano Pierre de Fermat Blaise Pascal Christiaan Huygens[183] (founders) | Fermat and Pascal co-foundedprobability theory, about which Huygens wrote the first book |
| Projective geometry | Girard Desargues[184] (founder) | By generalizing the use of vanishing points to include the case when these are infinitely far away |
| Set theory | Georg Cantor | |
| Statistics (modern) | Ronald A. Fisher | [185][186][187] |
| Tensor calculus | Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro[188] (founder) | Book: The Absolute Differential Calculus |
| Topology | Leonard Euler | Seven Bridges of Königsberg andEuler's polyhedron formula |
| Trigonometry | Hipparchus[189][190] | Constructed the first trigonometric table. |
| Vector algebra, vector calculus | Willard Gibbs[191] Oliver Heaviside[192] (founders) | For their development and use ofvectors inalgebra andcalculus |
| Field | Person/s considered "father" or "mother" | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Chaos theory | Henri Poincaré[193] Mary Cartwright[194][195] Edward Lorenz[196] | Poincaré's work on thethree-body problem was the first discovered example of a chaotic dynamical system. Cartwright made the first mathematical analysis of dynamical systems withchaos. Lorenz introducedstrange attractor notation. |
| Cybernetics | Norbert Wiener[197] | BookCybernetics: Or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. 1948. |
| Dynamic programming | Richard E. Bellman | |
| Fuzzy logic | Lotfi Asker Zadeh | |
| Information theory | Claude Shannon[198] | Article:A Mathematical Theory of Communication (1948) |
| Optimal control | Arthur E. Bryson[199] | Book: Applied Optimal Control[200] |
| Robust control | George Zames[citation needed] | Small gain theorem andH infinity control. |
| Stability theory | Alexander Lyapunov[citation needed] | Lyapunov function |
| System dynamics | Jay Wright Forrester[201] | Book:Industrial dynamics (1961) |
| Field | Person/s considered "father" or "mother" | Rationale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropology | Herodotus[202] Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī[203][204] | ||
| Bibliometrics | Paul Otlet | The termbibliométrie was first used by Paul Otlet in 1934[205] and defined as "the measurement of all aspects related to the publication and reading of books and documents".[206] | |
| Egyptology | Father Athanasius Kircher[207] | First to identify the phonetic importance of thehieroglyph, and he demonstratedCoptic as a vestige ofearly Egyptian, before theRosetta Stone's discovery. Translated parts of the Rosetta Stone. | |
| Ethnography | Gerhard Friedrich Müller (1705-1783) | Described and categorized clothing, religions and rituals of the Siberian ethnic groups.[209] | |
| Historiography | Thucydides | Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the deities, as outlined in his introduction to his work. | |
| History | Herodotus (who also coined the term) | The first writer to apply ascientific method to historical events. | |
| Indology | Al-Biruni[204][210] | Wrote theIndica[211] | |
| International law | Alberico Gentili Francisco de Vitoria Hugo Grotius | Influential contributions to the theory of international law, war andhuman rights | |
| Linguistics (early) | Panini | Wrote the first descriptive grammar (of Sanskrit) | |
| Linguistics (modern) | Ferdinand de Saussure | ||
| Media studies | Marshall McLuhan | Emphasized the importance of medium, and coined terms like "global village" and "the medium is the message"[212] | |
| Political science | Aristotle Niccolò Machiavelli* Thomas Hobbes** | Aristotle is called the father of political science largely because of his work entitledPolitics. This treatise is divided into eight books, and deals with subjects such as citizenship, democracy, oligarchy and the ideal state.[213] *Machiavelli is considered the 'modern father of political science'[214] **Hobbes is considered the Father of ModernPolitical Philosophy for his postulation of theState of Nature inLeviathan. | |
| Sociology | Ibn Khaldun[215] Adam Ferguson[216] Auguste Comte (who also coined the term)[217] Marquis de Condorcet (founder)[218] | Wrote the first sociological book, theMuqaddimah (Prolegomena). "Father of modern sociology" Introduced thescientific method into sociology. |
| Field | Person(s) considered "father" or "mother" | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Accounting andbookkeeping | Luca Pacioli (c. 1447–1517)[219] | Establisher of accounting and the first person to publish a work on bookkeeping.[219] |
| Economics (early) | Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406)[220] Chanakya /Kautilya (375 BCE – 283 BCE)[221] | Publication:Muqaddimah (1370) Publication:Arthashastra (400 BCE – 200 CE) |
| Economics (modern) |
|
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| Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1906–1994)[226][227][228][229][230] | The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971) | |
| Macroeconomics | John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)[231] | Author ofThe General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money and groundbreaking economist, Keynes spearheaded a revolution in economic thinking. Prior to Keynes, the general consensus among economists was that the economy was self-fixing. During the Great Depression, when people began to realize that the economy would not fix itself, Keynes proposed that the government needed to intervene to combat excessiveboom and bust. This idea was the largest influence in U.S. PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt'sNew Deal.[232][233] |
| Mathematical economics | Daniel Bernoulli (1700–1782) | Forerunner of theTableau économique.[234] |
| Monetary economics |
|
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| Microcredit | Muhammad Yunus (born 1940)[238] | FoundedGrameen Bank |
| Personnel economics | Edward Lazear (1948–2020) | Published the first paper in the field. |
| Family and consumer science | Ellen Swallow Richards (1842–1911) | Founded the American Association of Home Economics, currently the American Association of Family & Consumer Sciences. "Bringing science into the home, Richards hoped to '...attain the best physical, mental, and moral development' for the family, which she believed was the basic unit of civilization."[239] |
| Field | Person(s) considered "father" or "mother" | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Austrian School | Carl Menger (1840–1921)[240] | |
| School of Salamanca | Francisco de Vitoria (c. 1483–1546)[241] | Highly influential teacher and lecturer oncommercial morality |
| Field | Person(s) considered "father" or "mother" | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Expectations theory | Thomas Cardinal Cajetan (1469–1534)[242] | Recognised the effect of marketexpectations on the value ofmoney |
| Modern portfolio theory | Harry Markowitz (1927–2023)[243] | |
| Social choice theory | Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) | Created the field with his 1951 bookSocial Choice and Individual Values. |
| Game theory |
|
|
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1973 was awarded jointly to Karl von Frisch, Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen 'for their discoveries concerning organization and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns'.
His interest in both fields would serve him well, because he became a principal founder of physical chemistry.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)editions:PwR_Sbkwa8IC.Contains English translations of many of his other works.
Diophantus sometimes is called "the father of algebra", but this title more appropriately belongs to al-Khwarizmi. It is true that in two respects the work of al-Khwarizmi represented a retrogression from that of Diophantus. First, it is on a far more elementary level than that found in the Diophantine problems and, second, the algebra of al-naren is thoroughly rhetorical, with none of the syncopation found in the GreekArithmetica or in Brahmagupta's work. Even numbers were written out in words rather than symbols! It is quite unlikely that al-Khwarizmi knew of the work of Diophantus, but he must have been familiar with at least the astronomical and computational portions of Brahmagupta; yet neither al-Khwarizmi nor other Arabic scholars made use of syncopation or of negative numbers.
Diophantus, the father of algebra, in whose honor I have named this chapter, lived in Alexandria, in Roman Egypt, in either the 1st, the 2nd, or the 3rd century CE.
Poincaré: the founder of algebraic topology
For some two and a half centuries, from Hippocrates to Eratosthenes, Greek mathematicians had studied relationships between lines and circles and had applied these in a variety of astronomical problems, but no systematic trigonometry had resulted. Then, presumably during the second half of the second century B.C., the first trigonometric table apparently was compiled by the astronomer Hipparchus of Nicaea (ca. 180 – ca. 125 B.C.), who thus earned the right to be known asthe father of trigonometry. Aristarchus had known that in a given circle the ratio of arc to chord decreases from 180° to 0°, tending toward a limit of 1. However, it appears that not until Hipparchus undertook the task had anyone tabulated corresponding values of arc and chord for a whole series of angles.
The tablet, catalogued asPlimpton 322, is composed in Old Babylonian script so that it must fall in the period from 1900 B.C. and 1600 B.C., at least a millennium before the Pythagoreans... It is evident, however, that at this early date the Babylonians not only had completely mastered the Pythagorean problem, but also had used it as the basis for the construction of trigonometric tables.)
Henri Poincaré was really the "Father of Chaos [Theory]", however.
Adam Ferguson of Edinburgh became 'the father of modern sociology'.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)The honour of being called the 'father of modern economics' belongs, then, not to its usual recipient, Adam Smith, but to a gallicized Irish merchant, banker, and adventurer who wrote the first treatise on economics more than four decades before the publication of theWealth of Nations. Richard Cantillon (c. early 1680s – 1734)...
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