Johann Friederich Carl Gauss

The further elaboration and development of systematic arithemetic, like nearly everything else in which the mathematics of our [nineteenth] century has produced in the way of original scientific ideas, is knit to Gauss. -- LEOPOLD KRONECKER

Archimedes, Newton, and Gauss are all mathematicians of the same caliber, genius. Like Archimedes and Newton, Gauss contributed to the areas of pure and applied mathematics. He did pioneering work in the field of infinite series and is known for rediscovering Euler's law of quadratic reciprocity and wrote the first proof of that law. Gauss also came up with the algorithm for the Gaussian Blur, a popular algorithm in digital graphics. Gauss made his contribution to knot theory with analysis situs, which deals with the mathematical differences between simple and complex knots, which are easily discernable to the human eye but difficult to differentiate between mathematically.