John von Neumann [1] is certainly up there among the greats. His list of contributions to math, physics, and computer science is so long I won’t bother writing here but to name a few, he:

- formalized the math of quantum mechanics

- invented game theory

- invented cellular automata

- proposed the von Neumann architecture that powers today’s computers

- first to axiomatically define a Hilbert space

- first proposed quantum logic

- invented the Monte Carlo method

- invented the first pseudorandom number generator

- first to describe the technological singularity

I recommend reading “The Man from the Future” if you want to learn more.