Which person had the biggest influence on your life? When I say "your life" I do not mean to say a person who you grealty love and admire, but I mean a person who influenced you in the way you act or think or live. For instance, I love mathematicians, someone like Dirichlet and Fermat are among my favorite people in history, but they had no effect on my actual life - except a continued interest in math. [Thus, even though I love mathematicians I cannot imagine them having an influence on life, math is so pure that it is disconnected from life, and so it is reasonable to say that math cannot influence a person's life too much.]

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"Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain power
over people is to assure the people that they are ruling
themselves. Once they believe that, they make wonderfully
submissive slaves." - Joseph Sobran

nobody anymore! but there were two people i admired most and they influenced me for quite a while: Franz Kafka (i still admire his work!) and Fiodor Dostoyevski.

once i even tried to learn German so i could read "The Castle" in German, which didn't happen if you must know.

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My Mother
L J B Cooper
Richard Feynman
Ian Roxbourgh
Greg Chaitin
Barnes Wallis

CB

For some reason, I take my inspiration from Florence Nightingale. She is chiefly famous for being the Lady with the Lamp, a nurse whose revolutionary ideas on sanitation saved countless lives during the Crimean War, and for founding the modern nursing profession. Much less well known is that she was also a mathematician – a statistician, who is credited with inventing the modern pie chart.

Now for some trivia. Florence Nightingale was apparently the first female to be named “Florence” (after the Italian city); previously the name had only been used for boys. It is even possible that she was already reasonably well known before she made her everlasting mark in the Crimean War. I think Charles Dickens probably knew about her even before she had made her name in the Crimean War, and was sufficiently impressed to name a female character in one of his novels after her: Florence Dombey in Dombey and Son (which was published before the Crimean War).

My guess is that you liked them because they were existentialists.

My mother had no big influence on me, and I do not mean that in any negative way.

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For me the American founders were very influencial in particular Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Also Spinoza for so many reasons, one of them is that he is the supreme rationalist. I also think that he was a nihilist, even though he is not described that way, it should be quite evident to deduce that from his writings. Just read Nietzsche's description of Spinoza (interesting to see how insane people describe insane people):

I am utterly amazed, utterly enchanted! I have a precursor, and what a precursor! I hardly knew Spinoza: that I should have turned to him just now, was inspired by "instinct." Not only is his overtendency like mine—namely to make all knowledge the most powerful affect—but in five main points of his doctrine I recognize myself; this most unusual and loneliest thinker is closest to me precisely in these matters: he denies the freedom of the will, teleology, the moral world-order, the unegoistic, and evil. Even though the divergencies are admittedly tremendous, they are due more to the difference in time, culture, and science. In summa: my lonesomeness, which, as on very high mountains, often made it hard for me to breathe and make my blood rush out, is now at least a twosomeness. Strange! Incidentally, I am not at all as well as I had hoped. Exceptional weather here too! Eternal change of atmospheric conditions!—that will yet drive me out of Europe! I must have clear skies for months, else I get nowhere. Already six severe attacks of two or three days each!! — With affectionate love, Your friend.

Among the people who are still alive I would say that "Penn & Teller" are highly influencial to me.

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"Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain power
over people is to assure the people that they are ruling
themselves. Once they believe that, they make wonderfully
submissive slaves." - Joseph Sobran

The greatest academic influence(s) in my life in chronological order:

Terence Tao - When I was a olympiad freak in high school
Stephen Hawking - In high school days, when i wanted to be a astrophysicist..
Richard Feynman, Emmy Noether - In my pre-univ days, when I read Feynman's Lectures (She is is the reason I learnt group theory)
Claude Shannon - Now.... probably forever

People tell me my way of thinking is weird... I guess that's because I tried to imitate such a variety of people...math+physics+engineering = messed up proofs

In general, its my mother... she always motivated the lazy ol' me to study

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What interested me before mathematics, when I was in junior-high school, was cosmology. And Einstein was my biggest influence during those years (he still is very important to me). I had a big interest in Hawking as well. Sagan is nice too but he was not influencial. (I only recently learned that Einstein, Hawkin and Sagan were in turn all influenced by Spinoza. Einstein to such a large extent that when he was once asked to write a paper summarizing Spinoza's philosophy he felt it was improper for him to do that and speak for Spinoza). I realized that to study cosmology I needed to know math, so I turned to math, but then I liked math more.

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"Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain power
over people is to assure the people that they are ruling
themselves. Once they believe that, they make wonderfully
submissive slaves." - Joseph Sobran

Pete Sampras and Eckart Tolle.

I would have never been able to guess from your username.

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"Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain power
over people is to assure the people that they are ruling
themselves. Once they believe that, they make wonderfully
submissive slaves." - Joseph Sobran

i finished high school 4 years ago, in '04 my math teacher was the biggest influence for me, that's why i study math now.

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Glad it's not just me that has teachers as their influence

In Year 9(13-14 years old, not sure what grade that is around the world) I had a maths teacher who - at the time - did the impossible, made maths interesting.

Been hooked ever since =), so much so that I'm starting my 4 year Masters this September.

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Craig

i thought about that and i think you might be partially right! haha

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My husband. I met him when I was 18, and his love and acceptance of me has influenced my life dramatically. I don't think most people go to their grave ever having anyone in their life that is so accepting and supportive. He has taught me so much, and we're always exchanging such wonderful and engaging thoughts and ideas, and we have fun together too. Surely, I would be a less insightful, well-rounded, resourceful, and emotionally stable person without him.

Murray Rothbard - My favorite economist, historian, political thinker, and philosopher.

Also, my parents.

My parents, and my sister.

Herman Hesse through his masterpiece Demian.