Aristotle of Stagira (384-322 BC) Macedonia Aristotle is considered the greatest scientist of the ancient world, and the

most influential philosopher and logician ever; he ranks #13 on Michael Hart's list of the Most Influential Persons in History. (His science was a standard curriculum for almost 2000 years, unfortunate since many of his ideas were quite mistaken.) He was personal tutor to the young Alexander the Great. Aristotle's writings on definitions, axioms and proofs may have influenced Euclid. He was also the first mathematician to write on the subject of infinity. His writings include geometric theorems, some with proofs different from Euclid's or missing from Euclid altogether; one of these (which is seen only in Aristotle's work prior to Apollonius) is that a circle is the locus of points whose distances from two given points are in constant ratio. Even if, as is widely agreed, Aristotle's geometric theorems were not his own work, his status as the most influential logician and philosopher makes him a candidate for the List.