This evening I stumbled on the fact that John von Neumann and Fibonacci both have asteroids named after them.
Then I wondered how many more famous mathematicians have asteroids named after them.
As it turns out, most of them.
I wrote a little script to search for the 100 greatest mathematicians (according to James Allen’s list) and look for names missing from a list of named asteroids.
Here are the ones that were missing, in order of greatness.
Alexandre GrothendieckHermann K.
H.
WeylBrahmaguptaAryabhataApolloniusCarl Ludwig SiegelDiophantusMuhammed al-KhowarizmiBhascara (II) AcharyaAlhazen ibn al-HaythamAndrey N.
KolmogorovEudoxusPaniniJakob SteinerHermann G.
GrassmannM.
E.
Camille JordanJean-Pierre SerreAristotleMichael F.
AtiyahAtle SelbergPappusSo of Allen’s top 100 list of mathematicians, 79 have asteroids named after them and the 21 above do not.
Alexandre Grothendieck, is the greatest mathematician—11th on James Allen’s list—not to have an asteroid named in his honor.
.