# People who made significant contributions to math/science yet received no education in those fields. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 30, 2016, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113 "2016-10-30T14:24:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/21 "2016-10-31T20:57:30Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > One story I’m fond of is that of [Britney Gallivan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britney_Gallivan), who, while still in high school, completely settled the problem of how many times a piece of paper can be folded. She first of all recognized that the oft-quoted figure of a maximum of seven folds had no basis, then recognized what the actual limiting factors were, then derived a model for such folding and a formula based on it, and then applied the formula she had derived to actually do the experiment and folded a single piece of paper in half twelve times. > > I have no idea what she went on to do after high school, and the problem she solved was not a fundamental one with widespread implications, but still, it’s impressive to see any single person so thoroughly own every aspect of a problem. I never understood why this story got so much attention. Perhaps it is remarkable for a high school student, but the math is trivial and I’m sure the calculation had been done thousands of times before by people who never accepted the easily debunked theory that there is a fixed limit. One of my colleagues did the calculation in a few idle moments when I was in graduate school. He then did the experiment with some especially thin and large pieces of paper. That was years before Britney was born. ---
**Author:** ![Jimpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@Jimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimpy)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/22 "2016-10-31T21:26:40Z")
Srinivasa Ramanujan[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa\_Ramanujan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujanhttp://) ---
**Author:** ![Santelia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Santelia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santelia)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/23 "2016-10-31T21:34:59Z")
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary\_Anning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Anning) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/24 "2016-10-31T23:50:45Z")
> [@](#): > > I never understood why this story got so much attention. Perhaps it is remarkable for a high school student, but the math is trivial and I’m sure the calculation had been done thousands of times before by people who never accepted the easily debunked theory that there is a fixed limit. Did any of them publish it (for any definition of “publish”)? ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/25 "2016-11-01T00:13:20Z")
[John Harrison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison) John Harrison was a self-educated English carpenter and clockmaker His wooden turret clock for Brocklesby Park, built in the 1720s still operates. He then turned his attention to the one of the greatest problems of the age, calculating longitude at sea, and solved it with his invention of the marine chronometer. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/26 "2016-11-01T04:57:44Z")
[Thomas Edison](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison) - a home-schooled telegrapher. Who became one of the most successful American inventors. > [@Wiki](#): > > Edison was a prolific inventor, holding 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. More significant than the number of Edison’s patents was the widespread impact of his inventions: electric light and power utilities, sound recording, and motion pictures all established major new industries worldwide. Edison’s inventions contributed to mass communication and, in particular, telecommunications. These included a stock ticker, a mechanical vote recorder, a battery for an electric car, electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures. ---
**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/27 "2016-11-02T02:26:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Did any of them publish it (for any definition of “publish”)? On a napkin, as I recall. ---
**Author:** ![tallcoldone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9a140/32.png) [@tallcoldone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tallcoldone)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/28 "2016-11-02T16:34:13Z")
Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto (he did earn degrees after his discovery). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde\_Tombaugh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Tombaugh) ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/29 "2016-11-02T19:10:44Z")
> [@tallcoldone](#): > > Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto (he did earn degrees after his discovery). > > [Clyde Tombaugh - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Tombaugh) Yeah, but it’s not like Pluto was a real planet or anything… ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/30 "2016-11-03T03:11:01Z")
Just read the thread title as “People who made significant contributions to _meth_ science”. I was going to say I’m pretty sure none of them received education in that field, then I remembered a college acquaintance who used his organic chemistry skills to brew up methamphetamine. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/31 "2016-11-03T14:05:13Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > [Michael Faraday](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday). One of the greatest experimenters ever. Yet his knowledge in math didn’t extend above basic algebra. Faraday may not have had much formal education, but he was plenty educated - he attended lots of Royal Society lectures and served as an apprentice of sorts to Humphry Davy for years. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/32 "2016-11-03T14:28:49Z")
That’s true of many of the people mentioned above, that even though they were not formally educated that they had studied the subject in great detail. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/33 "2016-11-04T20:27:13Z")
E.E. Barnard (1857-1923) made several important discoveries in astronomy, despite having little formal education of any kind. > **[Edward Emerson Barnard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Emerson_Barnard)** > > Edward Emerson Barnard /ˈbɑːrnərd/ (December 16, 1857 – February 6, 1923) was an American astronomer. He was commonly known as E. E. Barnard, and was recognized as a gifted observational astronomer. He is best known for his discovery of the high proper motion of Barnard's Star in 1916, which is named in his honor. > Barnard was born in Nashville, Tennessee, to Reuben Barnard and Elizabeth Jane Barnard (née Haywood), and had one brother. His father died three months before his birth, so he grew ... ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/34 "2016-11-05T08:36:57Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Vivien Thomas, a black man who lost his life savings in the 1929 crash and therefore could not attend college, who nonetheless was a pioneer in the development of open heart surgery. > > [Vivien Thomas - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas) Thomas was played by actor/rapper Mos Def (opposite the late Alan Rickman) in the movie [_Something the Lord Made_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386792/?ref_=fn_al_tt_). It is an excellent film and Mos Def gives an outstanding performance. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/35 "2016-11-05T15:33:26Z")
John Baird [John Logie Baird - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Logie_Baird) Never finished college. [The following excerpt may be enjoyed for the fluidity, suggestiveness, exuberance and the many more-or-less accurate references to discrete components and design of the technology in the late 1930s. It from a scene in _Finnegans Wake_ where customers in an Irish bar watch a television show:] …the bairdboard bombardment screen, if tastefully taut guranium satin, tends to teleframe and step up to the charge of a light barricade. Down the photoslope in syncopanc pulses, with the bitts bugtwug their teffs, the missledhropes, glitteraglatteraglutt, borne by their carnier walve. Spraygun rakes and splits them from a double focus: grenadite, damnymite, alextronite, nichilite: and the scanning firespot of the sgunners traverses the rutilanced illustred sunksundered lines. Shlossh! A gaspel truce leaks out over the caeseine coatings. Amid a fluorescence of spectracular mephiticism there caoculates through the inconoscope… ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/36 "2016-11-05T18:01:04Z")
On 5 December 1960, four-month-old Theo Dahl was severely injured when his baby carriage was struck by a taxicab in New York City. For a time, he suffered from hydrocephalus and, as a result, his father author Roald Dahl (who only had a high school education) became involved in the development of what became known as the “Wade-Dahl-Till” (or WDT) valve, a device to alleviate the condition. The valve was a collaboration between Dahl, hydraulic engineer Stanley Wade and London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital neurosurgeon Kenneth Till, and was used successfully on almost 3,000 children around the world. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2016, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/37 "2016-11-06T00:07:24Z")
Microbiologist [Antoni van Leeuwenhoek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonie_van_Leeuwenhoek), the subject of a [Google Doodle](https://www.google.com/doodles/antoni-van-leeuwenhoeks-384th-birthday) last month. He had no formal scientific background, but had a monopoly on cool discoveries because he wouldn’t tell anyone how he made his microscope lenses. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2016, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/38 "2016-11-06T00:19:42Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > John Baird [John Logie Baird - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Logie_Baird) > > Never finished college. While there are instances in the past of Dopers accusing me - offline - of being a John Logie Baird partisan, I’m not quite sure this works as an example. Baird did have exposure to a technical education significantly beyond secondary school level (which I’d guess was minimal at the Larchfield of the period). Baird is a sort of parallel with Faraday or Ramanujan. Someone who, without having accumulated formal certificates or a thorough education in the field in question, had actually been exposed to a good chunk of the current understanding. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2016, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/39 "2016-11-06T14:45:54Z")
[but did you like the Joyce? ;)] ETA: I wasn’t sure of the normal style when referring to him–I’m taking from your post that the “Logie” is generally used (like the “Harvey” of Lee Oswald)? And, while we’re at it, how is it pronounced? ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2016, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113/40 "2016-11-06T14:57:35Z")
Wikipedia’s got an entire [list of amateur mathematicians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amateur_mathematicians). Many of the people on that list are still living, so I wouldn’t say that amateurs making significant mathematical contributions is “essentially unheard of today”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-made-significant-contributions-to-math-science-yet-received-no-education-in-those-fields/770113.md?page=3)