Polymath

A polymath is a person who excels in multiple fields, particularly in both arts and sciences. Another term for this is Renaissance man; many notable polymaths lived during the European Renaissance period, and a rounded approach to education was typical of the ideals of the humanists of the time. On the other hand 'polymath' may be applied more strictly, taking da Vinci or Goethe as prime examples, and requiring a universality of approach. A polymath may not necessarily be classed as a genius, which is a more debatable classification; and certainly a genius may not display the breadth to qualify as a polymath. There is no requirement to be male, though that might be suggested by the current list.

Examples include:

• Ancient
  • Aristotle
  • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius
  • Avicenna
  • Biruni
  • Maimonides, or RaMBaM — physician, rabbi, and philosopher
  • Ptolemy
  • Pythagoras
  • Abu Bakr Mohammad Ibn Zakariya al-Razi, Razi or Rhazes — medicine, chemistry and philosophy
  • Hypatia

• Renaissance
  • Leone Battista Alberti — painter, poet, philosopher, cryptographer, musician and architect
  • Sir Thomas Browne — medicine , religion, science
  • Albrecht Dürer — painter, geometry, fortification
  • Christiaan Huygens — astronomer, mathematician
  • Athanasius Kircher — egyptology, geology, and music theory
  • Leonardo da Vinci — engineer, physician, artist
  • William Petty — scientist and philosopher
  • Thomas More
  • Desiderius Erasmus

• Classical
  • Alexander Borodin — Composer and chemist
  • Sir George Cayley — naturalist, physical scientist, engineer, inventor and politician
  • Liu E — writer, musician, physician and entrepreneur
  • Benjamin Franklin — politician, physicist, inventor and writer.
  • Karl Friedrich Gauss — mathematician, astronomer and physicist
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — writer, philosopher, scientist
  • Thomas Jefferson — politician, architect, archaeologist and writer.
  • Gottfried Leibniz — lawyer, mathematician, philosopher
  • Mikhail Lomonosov — literature, education, and science
  • Isaac Newton — mathematician, physicist, alchemist, theologian, economist
  • Henri Poincaré — mathematician, physicist
  • Adam Smith
  • Nikola Tesla — electrical engineer, mechanical engineer and physicist
  • Giambattista Vico
  • Christopher Wren — architect, astronomer and mathematician

• Modern
  • Gregory Bateson — anthropologist, social scientist, linguist and cyberneticist.
  • Jacob Bronowski — physicist, biologist, writer
  • Noam Chomsky — linguist, psychologist, political writer
  • Moshe Feldenkrais — engineer, physicist, judo blackbelt, creator of the Feldenkrais Method
  • Jonathan Miller — opera director, physician, writer
  • Herbert Simon — cognitive psychologist, computer scientist, economist and philosopher