Each generation produces brilliant minds that advance humanity with their ideas and inventions. They leave a lasting legacy and become immortalized by the stories that people continue to tell about their lives.
Many of these brilliant people found throughout human history have had the characteristics of what is called a polymath.
A polymath is typically defined as a person of wide interests and expertise in various fields of science, humanities, and the arts.
They typically generate significant insights and breakthroughs in a variety of fields.
Since mainstream academics tend to be very discipline-focused, polymaths usually learn most of what they know as highly curious and experimental autodidacts.
History’s Greatest Geniuses?
In terms of influence, I measure greatness by the impact and influence of their ideas and inventions in the world today.
All of the people on this list have made their mark on history with notable contributions to the advancement of literature, technology, the arts, or education.
Here are 7 influential polymaths and how you can learn from their examples:
1. Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, theoretical and experimental physicist, mathematician, futurist and humanitarian.
He was a hyper-polyglot who could speak eight languages fluently including Serbo-Croatian, English, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, and Latin. Tesla essentially invented the technology that underpinned many of the 20th century’s greatest advances.
His inventions included the induction motor, the first radio-controlled vehicles, hydroelectric power turbines, wireless transmission stations, and the alternating current (AC) power standard used globally today.
He was also likely the first to discover the electron, cosmic rays, terrestrial resonance, stationary standing waves, and fluorescent light bulbs.
Tesla died in poverty after losing his battle with Wall Street bankers. His distaste for the corruption of the Western banking system and his visionary humanitarian views were so ahead of his time that for many decades his work was ignored or suppressed in many schools.
Today, thanks to the free flow of information on the Internet, there has been an explosion of interest again in Nikola Tesla’s life and ideas.
If you want to learn more about how Tesla used creative visualization then I recommend watching my video below on how to think like Nikola Tesla.
Recommendation: Read his autobiography My Inventions where he describes in detail the methods and mindset behind his incredible inventiveness.
Great quotes:
I don’t care that they stole my idea. I care that they don’t have any of their own.
Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.
The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.
The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.
Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.
The spread of civilization may be likened to a fire; first, a feeble spark, next a flickering flame, then a mighty blaze, ever increasing in speed and power.
2. Jagdish Chandra Bose
Jagdish Chandra Bose was a Bengali physicist, biologist, biophysicist, botanist, archaeologist, connoisseur of fine arts, and early writer of science fiction.
He pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics, made significant contributions to plant science, and laid the foundations for experimental science in India.
Bose pursued selfless research and experimentation without any desire for personal enrichment or fame, which is a big reason why so few people know about his work today.
Like Tesla, his research and inventions laid the basis for much of our modern existence, including the foundations of radio waves, microwave technology, wireless communication and the solid-state physics that underpins semiconductors.
If you want to go down the rabbit hole, study his Crescograph and his groundbreaking research into plant intelligence.
Recommendation: Read the excellent biography of his life The First Modern Scientist.
Great Quotes:
I was educated at Cambridge. How admirable is the Western method of submitting all theory to scrupulous experimental verification! That procedure has gone hand in hand with the gift for introspection which is my Eastern heritage. Together they have enabled me to sunder the silences of natural realms long uncommunicative. The telltale charts of my crescograph are evidence for the most skeptical that plants have a sensitive nervous system and a varied emotional life. Love, hate, joy, fear, pleasure, pain, excitability, and countless appropriate responses to stimuli are as universal in plants as in animals.
The true laboratory is the mind, where behind illusions we uncover the laws of truth.
The poet is intimate with truth, while the scientist approaches awkwardly. Come someday to my laboratory and see the unequivocable testimony of the crescograph.
I have sought permanently to associate the advancement of knowledge with the widest possible civic and public diffusion of it; and this without any academic limitations, henceforth to all races and languages, to both men and women alike, and for all time coming.
They who behold the One, in all the changing manifoldness of the Universe, unto them belongs the eternal truth, unto none else, unto none else.
3. Leonardo Da Vinci
The archetypal Renaissance Man, Leonardo da Vinci’s accomplishments were staggering.
He was a high-skilled scientist, artist, and inventor. His areas of interest included drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, paleontology, and cartography.
As an artist, he is known for inventing the High Renaissance style and having painted priceless masterpieces such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. He is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time.
Born a bastard child, he was given no formal academic training but self-educated himself with his unquenchable curiosity and by taking on many challenges with his feverishly inventive imagination.
He conceptualized flying machines, a type of armored fighting vehicle, parachutes, concentrated solar power, an adding machine, and the double-hull ship. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or even feasible during his lifetime.
Recommendation: Read the authoritative biography of his life Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson.
Great Quotes:
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.
Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.
Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.
To develop a complete mind: Study the science of art; Study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.
4. Aristotle
While his teacher Plato (and his teacher Socrates) share a similar philosophical lineage at the roots of Western Civilization, Aristotle was the most polymathic of the trio.
He was interested in every possible science practiced in his time and his works, which are collectively known as the Corpus Aristotelicum, cover many subjects: physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, linguistics, and politics.
He is one of the most quoted men who has ever lived and he is also widely known as the tutor of Alexander the Great. He was the founder of the Lyceum, the Peripatetic school of philosophy and the Aristotelian tradition.
Recommendation: Read his most famous book called Nicomachean Ethics.
Great quotes:
Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
5. Helen Keller
Helen Keller was an American author, women’s suffrage activist, anti-militarism activist, advocate for the poor and voiceless, and teacher who lectured all over the world. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Despite being deaf and blind she accomplished more than 99.9% of people in human history. She co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union, authored more than a dozen books and remains an enduring symbol of courage and triumph over adversity.
Her lasting legacy is felt in the female rights movement today and with declining male achievement and women now the majority in most Universities, I’m sure we’ll see a lot more female polymaths like her in the future.
Recommendation: Read her fascinating autobiography The Story of My Life.
Great Quotes:
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.
6. Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin was an American polymath and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was an author, printer, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, humorist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat.
He made major discoveries regarding electricity and is known for inventing the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin wood-burning stove, and many other inventions.
Franklin was foundational in defining the early American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, and opposition to authoritarianism in its political and religious forms.
He is one of the best-known Freemasons in history and he was unique among the founding fathers identifying as a deist who challenged traditional Christian doctrine.
Recommendation: Learn about the daily routines and mentality necessary for high achievement in the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.
Great quotes:
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.
Many people die at twenty-five and aren’t buried until they are seventy-five.
Well done is better than well said.
Never ruin an apology with an excuse.
7. Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller was an American inventor, architect, systems theorist, author, designer, autodidact, and futurist.
When you’re one step ahead of the crowd, you’re a genius. If you’re two steps ahead then it’s more likely that people will call you a crackpot. Labeled by some as a crackpot, I think the future will be very kind to Buckminster Fuller.
He passionately argued for the redesign and reinvention of society based on natural laws and the recognition of the fundamental interconnectedness of all life.
His holistic worldview and systems thinking has had a significant impact on architecture, sustainability, design and technology industries.
He published more than 30 books, coining or popularizing terms such as “Spaceship Earth”, “Dymaxion” house/car, ephemeralization, synergetic, and “tensegrity”.
Recommendation: Read his masterwork Critical Path about the future mentality and design of an ecological civilization.
Great Quotes:
There is only one revolution tolerable to all men, all societies, all political systems: Revolution by design and invention.
When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.
Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them.
Don’t fight forces, use them. Don’t try to change human nature, change the tools people use.
Polymaths That Have Inspired You?
While there are many other examples of polymaths and brilliant geniuses throughout history, the ideas and inventions of these 7 people are extremely influential in the world today.
Are there other polymaths who you think have had a similar influence in the world today?
Feel free to share them in the comments.
I built DIY Genius to help entrepreneurial people with ADHD traits find their focus and develop mindful habits that make it easy to get into the flow state.
I believe the future of education starts with helping people find their "zone of genius" so they can develop their uniquely human ability to create meaning, connection and community (that A.I. can't replicate).
I'm also big on completely unplugging from tech to recharge on nature retreats and trekking adventures. That led me to start my most recent company Sacred Treks where we help people reconnect with nature on wild trekking pilgrimages.
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Robert Oppenheimer seems to have been left out
Here are some polymaths which inspire me:
1. Charles Darwin, a scientist who specializes in biology including palaeontology and geology. He who travel on the 2nd voyage of the HMS Beagle which ran from 1831 to 1836 CE. He who study many fauna including giant tortoises, marine iguanas, and finches on the Galapagos during the year 1835 CE, and also Australia during the year 1835 CE. All of which inspire his idea on evolution. And also he figure humans develop from apes after seeing similarities on an orangutan when visiting London-Zoo during 1838 CE. He who publish the Origin of Species on 1859 and Descent of Man on 1871 CE. Such a genius. Father of Evolution and Natural selection.
2. Shen Kuo, a Chinese polymath, scientist, and politician of the Song dynasty (960–1279). Shen was a master in many fields of study including biology, archaeology, astronomy, music, mathematics, mechanical engineering, metallurgy, physics, meteorology, cartography, military tactics, poetry, politics, minerology, optics, and horology.
3. Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni, also known as al-Biruni. A Khwarazmian Iranian scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the “founder of Indology”, “Father of Comparative Religion”,”Father of modern geodesy”, and the first anthropologist. Clever on geology, physics, anthropology, comparative sociology, astronomy, chemistry, history, geography, mathematics, medicine, psychology, philosophy, and theology. In 1017, he travelled to the Indian subcontinent and wrote a treatise entitled Tārīkh al-Hind (“The History of India”), after exploring the Hindu faith practiced in India.
4. Johann Sperling was a 17th century German physician, zoologist and physicist, deacon and Rektor of the University of Wittenberg. He was among the first to practise zoology as a natural science, writing a first handbook about animals, Zoologia physica.
5. Richard Owen, an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist form 19th century England. Famous for coining the name ‘;dinosaur’. The father of London’s Natural History Museum on 1881 CE. He who helped Benjamin Hawkens forge the first life-size sculptures depicting dinosaurs as he thought they mighta appeared for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He who famously hosted a dinner for 21 prominent men of science inside the hollow concrete Iguanodon on New Year’s Eve 1853. He who described Diprotodon on 1838 and Thylacoleo on 1859. He who wrote Memoir on the Pearly Nautilus on 1832, Odontography from 1840 to 1845, Description of the Skeleton of an Extinct Gigantic Sloth on 1842, On the Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton on 1848, History of British Fossil Reptiles from 1849 to 1884, On the Nature of Limbs on 1849, Palæontology or a Systematic Summary of Extinct Animals and Their Geological Relations on 1860, Archaeopteryx on 1863, Anatomy of Vertebrates on 1866, Memoir of the Dodo on 1866, Monograph of the Fossil Mammalia of the Mesozoic Formations on 1871, Catalogue of the Fossil Reptilia of South Africa on 1876, and Antiquity of Man as deduced from the Discovery of a Human Skeleton during Excavations of the Docks at Tilbury on 1884.
6. Marie Eugène François Thomas Dubois, a Dutch paleoanthropologist and geologist. He who contributed an article on whale anatomy to a book by the Dutch zoologist, Max Weber. He who, inspired by the fresh discovery of new Neanderthal fossils at the Belgian town of Spy, spent his vacation fossil hunting in the vicinity of his birthplace where he found prehistoric human-bones in the Henekeput during 1881. He who became a part of the Dutch army and arrange to be post in the Dutch East Indies as part of a search for the origins of humans. He who found the first known remains of Pthecanthropus erectus or Java Man which many call Homo erectus on Java during 1891 CE. A keeper of paleontology, geology and mineralogy at Teylers Museum from 1897 to 1928.
7. Sir Richard Francis Burton, a British explorer, writer, orientalist scholar, and soldier. He was famed for his travels and explorations in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and societies According to one count, he spoke twenty-nine languages. His best-known achievements include: a well-document journey to Mecca undercover, at a time when foreigners were forbidden access on pain of death; a translation of One Thousand and One Nights (commonly called The Arabian Nights in English after early translations of Antoine Galland’s French version); the publication of the Kama Sutra in English; a translation of The Perfumed Garden, the “Arab Kama Sutra”; and a journey with John Hanning Speke as the first Europeans to visit the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile. He who criticised colonial policies of the British Empire, even to the detriment of his career. Although he aborted his university studies, he became a prolific and erudite author and wrote numerous books and scholarly articles about subjects including human behaviour, travel, falconry, fencing, and ethnography. A captain in the army of the East India Company, serving in India, and briefly in the Crimean War. He who was sent by the Royal Geographical Society to explore the east coast of Africa, where he lead an expedition guided by locals and was the first European known to have seen Lake Tanganyika. He who was British consol in Fernando Pó (now Bioko, Equatorial Guinea), Santos in Brazil, Damascus (now Syria), and finally in Trieste (now Italy). He who was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was awarded a knighthood in 1886.
8. Stephen William Hawking, an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who, at the time of his death, was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between 1979 and 2009, he was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, widely viewed as one of the most prestigious academic posts in the world. In 1963, at age 21, Hawking was diagnosed with an early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease that gradually, over decades, paralysed him.[20][21] After the loss of his speech, he communicated through a speech-generating device initially through use of a handheld switch, and eventually by using a single cheek muscle.
9. Heinrich von Kittlitz. He who was a Prussian artist, naval officer, explorer and naturalist. He was a descendant of a family of old Prussian nobility (“Freiherr” meaning “independent lord” – ranking with a baron). He collected specimens and made illustrations on major expeditions and wrote a few books on his travels. Several species were described on the basis of specimens collected by him and a few are named after him including Kittlitz’s plover.
10. Thomas Edward Lawrence, a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918) against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, a title used for the 1962 film based on his wartime activities. A colonel and a scientist who treated Arabs as equals when Britons saw them as savages.
11. Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie, a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. And the first she-teacher to become a professor at the University of Paris.
12. Su Song ; a Chinese polymathic scientist and statesman. Excelling in a variety of fields, he was accomplished in mathematics, astronomy, cartography, geography, horology, pharmacology, mineralogy, metallurgy, zoology, botany, mechanical engineering, hydraulic engineering, civil engineering, invention, art, poetry, philosophy, antiquities, and statesmanship during the Song dynasty (960–1279). He who was was the engineer for a hydro-mechanical astronomical clock tower in medieval Kaifeng, which employed an early escapement mechanism. The Xinyi Xiangfayao was Su’s best-known treatise, but the polymath compiled other works as well. He completed a large celestial atlas of several star maps, several terrestrial maps, as well as a treatise on pharmacology. The latter discussed related subjects on mineralogy, zoology, botany, and metallurgy.
13. Li Shizhen was a Chinese acupuncturist, herbalist, naturalist, pharmacologist, physician, and writer of the Ming dynasty. He is the author of a 27-year work, the Compendium of Materia Medica (Bencao Gangmu; Chinese: 本草綱目). He developed several methods for classifying herb components and medications for treating diseases.
14. Udagawa Yōan (宇田川 榕菴, March 9, 1798 – June 22, 1846) was a 19th-century Japanese scholar of Western studies, or “Rangaku”. In 1837, he published the first volume of his Introduction to Chemistry (舎密開宗, Seimi Kaisō),[a] a compilation of scientific books in Dutch, which describes a wide range of scientific knowledge from the West. Most of the Dutch original material appears to be derived from William Henry’s 1799 Elements of Experimental Chemistry. In particular, the book contains a very detailed description of the electric battery invented by Volta forty years earlier in 1800. The battery itself was constructed by Udagawa in 1831 and used in experiments, including medical ones, based on a belief that electricity could help cure illnesses.[1][2][ His Science of Chemistry also reports for the first time in details the findings and theories of Lavoisier in Japan. Accordingly, Udagawa made numerous scientific experiments and created new scientific terms, which are still in current use in modern scientific Japanese: e.g., “oxygen” (酸素, sanso), “hydrogen” (水素, suiso), “nitrogen” (窒素, chisso), “carbon” (炭素, tanso), “oxidation” (酸化, sanka), “reduction” (還元, kangen), “saturation” (飽和, hōwa), “dissolution” (溶解, yōkai) and “element” (元素, genso).[1][5][6]
Ibn al-Haytham 🙂
Charles Darwin be a polymath from 19th century England which should be mentioned. The man of biology and geology. The one who treavel on the HMS Beagle on he 1830s. The man who publish the Origin of Species on the 1850s and the Descent of Man on the 1870s. Because of him we know about evolution including our ape ancestors sucha s Lucy the Austrolopithecus.
Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni, commonly known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the “founder of Indology”, “Father of Comparative Religion”, “Father of modern geodesy”, and the first anthropologist. And well versed in physics, mathematics, astronomy, and natural sciences, and also distinguished himself as a historian, chronologist, and linguist.
Shen Kuo was a Chineser polymath from the Song Dynasty. He knew biology, archaeology, agronomy, military tactics, philosophy, poetry, politics, mechanical engineering, metallurgy, music, mineralogy, astronomy, cartography, meteorology, optics, hydraulic engineering, and more.
Theodore Roosevelt was a polymath of politics, military tactics, history and more.,
Sun Tzu was a Chinese polymath about military tactics and philosophy, famous for the Art of War which taught many warfare tactics.
All these should be feature.
Stevin.
Christiaan Huygens: almost an equal to Newton. …
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek: inventor of the microscope. …
Hendrik Lorentz: a huge influence on Einstein. …
Baruch Spinoza: questions the supernatural…
Jacobus van ‘t Hoff: the first Nobelprize for chemistry.
What about Alex Humbolt…he foresaw climate change issues hundreds of years ago…..
Dr. Jose Rizal was an impressive polymath.
History has not enabled or captured as much of the achievement of women so let’s consider a couple additions:
Hildegard of Bingen: German Benedictine abbess, writer, poet, composer, artist, medical researcher, botanist, linguist and mother. She illuminated female anatomy and women’s health.
Marie Curie was a Polish (and French) physicist and chemist who conducted research (and gave her life) to advance the utility of radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, (And in fact the first person and only woman to win the Nobel prize twice, and the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two different scientific fields.)
I think there is missing a name ‘Karl Marx’.
George Cantor, he developed a language to talk about infinity. He never defined what infinity was.
I think I am inspired by Da Vinci already. I will soon read his biography too.
Great article! Thank you for the additional recommendations. I would also add Jacque Fresco, creator of The Venus Project. I’ll leave a short bio from his website below:
Jacque Fresco’s background includes industrial design and social engineering, as well as being a forerunner in the field of Human Factors. Mr. Fresco worked as both designer and inventor in a wide range of fields spanning from biomedical innovations to totally integrated social systems.
The Venus Project reflects the culmination of Mr. Fresco’s life work: the integration of the best of science and technology into a comprehensive plan for a new society based on human and environmental concern. It is a global vision of hope for the future of humankind in our technological age.
Jacque Fresco is definitely worthy of mention! He has built on top of many of Buckminster Fuller’s ideas.
Hi!
I would add Nicolaus Copernicus, Sir Isaac Newton, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Charles Sanders Pierce and Howard Hughes to the list. Fun read!
Thanks,
Stefan
Great additions!