Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

popular name: John von Neumann

date_of_death: February 8, 1957

age: 53

cause_of_death: Bone cancer (disputed)

claim_to_fame: Science

best_know_for: John von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. Von Neumann was regarded as perhaps the mathematician with the widest coverage of the subject in his time and was said to have been "the last representative of the great mathematicians who were equally at home in pure and applied mathematics". Von Neumann's academic career was filled with awards and honors. He was a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Academiz Nacional de Ciencias Exactas, Peru; Acamedia Nazionale dei Lincei, Italy; National Academy of Sciences; Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and Letters; Information Processing Hall of Fame; and held numerous honorary degrees. Described as the scientific genius who pioneered the modern computer, game theory, nuclear deterrence, and more, John von Neumann illuminated the fields of pure and applied mathematics, computer science, physics, and economics. In the end, it would be supremely difficult to effectively refute the claim that John von Neumann is likely the most intelligent person who has ever lived. By the time of his death in 1957 at the modest age of 53, the Hungarian polymath had not only revolutionized several subfields of mathematics and physics but also made foundational contributions to pure economics and statistics and taken key parts in the invention of the atomic bomb, nuclear energy and digital computing.

popular name: Kurt Gödel

date_of_death: January 14, 1978

age: 71

cause_of_death: Malnutrition and inanition caused by personality disturbance

claim_to_fame: Science

best_know_for: Kurt Gödel was a prominent Austrian/American logician, mathematician and philosopher who is mentioned as most likely autistic (Asperger's Syndrome) in Genius Genes by Michael Fitzgerald and Brendan O’Brien, in Asperger Syndrome – A Gift or a Curse? by Michael Fitzgerald and Viktoria Lyons. He is known in particular for Gödel's incompleteness theorems, Gödel's completeness theorem, the consistency of the Continuum hypothesis with ZFC, Gödel metric, Gödel's ontological proof and Gödel–Dummett logic, Among notable awards he has won are the Albert Einstein Award (1951), the National Medal of Science (1974) and ForMemRS (1968). He was also a Fellow of the British Academy. Looking back over that century in the year 2000, TIME magazine included Kurt Gödel (1906–78), the foremost mathematical logician of the twentieth century among its top 100 most influential thinkers. Gödel was associated with the Princeton University Institute for Advanced Study from his first visit in the academic year 1933–34, until his death in 1978. He was Professor in the School of Mathematics from 1953 until 1976, when he became Professor Emeritus.

popular name: Jean Baptiste Perrin

date_of_death: April 17, 1942

age: 71

cause_of_death: Natural Causes

claim_to_fame: Science

best_know_for: Jean Baptiste Perrin was a French physicist who, in his studies of the Brownian motion of minute particles suspended in liquids, verified Albert Einstein’s explanation of this phenomenon and thereby confirmed the atomic nature of matter (sedimentation equilibrium). He was awarded with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1926 for this achievement.