, by
Dan Greenburg
Spice Merchant Dhirubhai AmbaniAmassed family fortune of more than $60 billion, sufficient for his son, Mukesh, to build a 27-story private home in Mumbai. |
University Dropout Carl Friedrich GaussBy the age of 21, he had constructed a regular 17-gon by ruler and compasses, the most major advance in this field since the time of the Greeks. Subsequently developed method of least squares, normal probability distribution, Fast Fourier Transform, and a non-Euclidean geometry. |
Stoic Philosopher Marcus AureliusRuled the entire world as it was known in his day; was the only Roman Emperor to refrain from disgracing himself. |
Tuberculosis Sufferer Niels Henrik AbelDeveloped group theory, proved the binomial theorem, and did important work in quintic equations and elliptic functions prior to his death at age 26. |
Programmed by Eve Astrid Andersson and Philip Greenspun back in the mid-1990s. If you're a nerd, you might find the source code useful.
Original Inspiration: How to Make Yourself Miserable