Great Thinkers of the World: An intellectual is a person who indulges in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and proposes solutions for the normative problems of society, and thus gains authority as a public intellectual. The great thinkers of the world have made our world a better place to live in with their brilliant thoughts and ideas.

Great people from centuries have been putting their intellect at work for the betterment of humanity and it is our responsibility to know about their life and their contributions to the world we live in. In this article, we talk about the great thinkers of the western world and the great thinkers of the eastern world.

Great Thinkers of the World

Here are the 11 top most great thinkers of the world:

1. Leonardo da Vinci

Born: 15 April 1452, Anchiano
Died: 2 May 1519, Clos Lucé, Amboise, France
Siblings: Giovanni Ser Piero, Guglielmo Ser Piero, more
Structures: Milan Cathedral

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 -1519) Leonardo da Vinci was born on 15 April 1452 near the Tuscan town of Vinci, the illegitimate son of a local lawyer. He is considered one of the top great thinkers if the western world. He was apprenticed to the sculptor and painter Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence and in 1478 became an independent master. A European, Vinci was great thinkers of the western world of his time and beyond.

2. Isaac Newton

Born: January 4, 1643, Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, United Kingdom
Died: March 31, 1727, Kensington, London, United Kingdom
Full name: Sir Isaac Newton
Education: Trinity College, Cambridge (1667–1668), The King’s School, Grantham (1955-1959)

Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English mathematician, astronomer, and physicist who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution.

3. Albert Einstein

Born: March 14, 1879, Ulm, Germany
Died: April 18, 1955, Princeton, New Jersey, United States
Influenced: Satyendra Nath Bose, Leo Szilard, Wolfgang Pauli, more
Influenced by: Isaac Newton, Mahatma Gandhi and many more.

Albert Einstein was unquestionably one of the two greatest physicists in all of history, and one of the great thinkers of the world in the field of Science. The atomic theory achieved general acceptance only after Einstein’s 1905 paper which showed that atoms’ discreteness explained Brownian motion. Another 1905 paper introduced the famous equation E = mc2. Einstein published at least 300 books or papers on physics altogether.

4. Galileo Galilei

Born: 15 February 1564, Pisa, Italy
Died: 8 January 1642, Arcetri, Italy
Discovered: Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, Rings of Saturn, Io
Parents: Giulia di Cosimo Ammannati, Vincenzo Galilei

Galileo Galilei was an Italian polymath: astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician, he played a major role in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century.

5. Plato

Born: Classical Athens
Died: 348 BC, Classical Athens
Influenced by: Socrates, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Homer, more
Movies: Sokratova odbrana i smrt, Socrates.

Plato was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world.

6. Aristotle

Born: 384 BC, Stagira, Greece
Died: 322 BC, Chalcis, Greece
Nationality: Greek
Parents: Nicomachus, Phaestis

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, whereafter Proxenus of Atarneus became his guardian.

7. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Born: 27 January 1756, Salzburg, Austria
Died: 5 December 1791, Vienna, Austria
Movies: Don Giovanni, Idomeneo
Siblings: Maria Anna Mozart, Johann Leopold Joachim Mozart, and more.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood.

8. Nikola Tesla

Born: 10 July 1856, Smiljan, Croatia
Died: 7 January 1943, Wyndham New Yorker Hotel, New York City, New York, United States
Height: 1.88 m
Education: Graz University of Technology (1875–1878), Gymnasium Karlovac (1870–1873)

Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist who is best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current electricity supply system.

9. Archimedes

Born: Syracuse, Italy
Died: Syracuse, Italy
Nationality: Greek
Parents: Phidias
Fields: Mathematics, Physics, Engineering, Astronomy, Invention

Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity.

10. William Shakespeare

Born: April 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom
Died: 23 April 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom
Poems: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?, more
Awards: Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet, and the “Bard of Avon”.

11. Marie Curie

Born: 7 November 1867, Warsaw, Poland
Died: 4 July 1934, Sancellemoz, Passy, Haute-Savoie, France
Discovered: Radium, Polonium
Awards: Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, more
Discoveries: Radium, Polonium

Marie Skłodowska Curie, born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity.

Great Thinkers of the Eastern World

There have not been many great thinkers of the eastern world as many as the western world, but they have played an equally important part in the progress of the modern world. A few great thinkers of the eastern world are as mentioned below:

1. Confucius
2. Lao Tzu
3. Mao Zedong
4. Buddha
5. Mahatma Gandhi

We hope this article on the Great Thinkers of the World has provided you information about the people who have made our lives getter.

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