Évariste Galois
1811–1832 · French · Romantic Era
Known for: Founded group theory and solved a 350-year-old problem about polynomial equations before dying at 20
Evariste Galois created an entire branch of mathematics in one night and died the next morning. The night before his fatal duel—over a woman or a political quarrel, historians still debate—he frantically wrote his mathematical testament, scribbling 'I have no time' in the margins. He was 20 years old.
His papers, initially rejected by the French Academy, eventually founded group theory—one of the most important branches of modern mathematics with applications across physics, chemistry, and computer science. He was a political radical imprisoned for republican activism.
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