Tobias DantzigThinkers

Mathematics is the supreme judge; from its decisions there is no appeal.

Plato is a thinker for who mathematics was largely a means to an end. The technical aspects of mathematics was a mere device for sharpening one's wits, or at most a course of training preparatory to handling the larger issues of philosophy.

Rene Descartes is responsible for the invention of the analytical diagram (x-y axis) which created analytic geometry, and gave Newton, Leibnitz, Euler, and the Bernoullis that weapon for the lack of which Archimedes and later Fermat had to leave inarticulate their profound and far-reaching thoughts.