In Memoriam

Researchers in this directory who are no longer with us

The Top 100 and the regional pages list living researchers only, so the directory stays accurate for anyone using it to make contact. This page remembers the 0 key figures from the ranked pool who have passed away (the most highly ranked of the deceased), plus a separate listing of foundational figures whose careers predate the digital publication record our pipeline reads from.

Foundational figures

The pipeline behind this site ranks researchers whose work appears on arXiv or in OpenAlex, which mostly means careers active from the mid-1990s onward. The names below predate that coverage. Their work is the bedrock on which modern research is built. They are listed by last name; each contribution is noted at the bottom of the page.

Foundational figures: contributions

• Jean Bourgain (1954-2018): Fields Medalist whose work on exponential sums and the large sieve advanced bounds related to the zeta-function and L-functions
• G. H. Hardy (1877-1947): With Littlewood, established foundational results on the zeros of the Riemann zeta-function, including infinitely many zeros on the critical line
• A. E. Ingham (1900-1967): His tract The Distribution of Prime Numbers and his work on the zeta-function and the prime number theorem are classics of analytic number theory
• Aleksandar Ivić (1949-2020): Leading analyst on the Riemann zeta function; his book The Riemann Zeta-Function (1985) remains a standard reference
• Borge Jessen (1907-1993): With Wintner, studied the value distribution of the Riemann zeta-function via almost-periodic and probabilistic methods
• Anatoly A. Karatsuba (1937-2008): Major contributions to the theory of the Riemann zeta function and Dirichlet L-functions; founder of a major Russian school
• J. E. Littlewood (1885-1977): Long collaboration with Hardy on the zeta-function and the distribution of primes; proved the sign of pi(x) - li(x) changes infinitely often
• Charles-Jean de la Vallée Poussin (1866-1962): Co-proved the Prime Number Theorem (1896) and established the classical zero-free region of the Riemann zeta-function
• Atle Selberg (1917-2007): Fields Medalist; the Selberg class and Selberg trace formula are cornerstones of analytic number theory and the spectral approach to RH
• E. C. Titchmarsh (1899-1963): Author of The Theory of the Riemann Zeta-Function, the standard monograph on the subject for generations
• Pál Turán (1910-1976): Created the power-sum (Turan) method and applied it to the zeros of the zeta-function and to comparative prime number theory
• Sergei Voronin (1946-1997): Proved the universality theorem for the Riemann zeta-function, showing it approximates any non-vanishing analytic function
• Aurel Wintner (1903-1958): Contributions to analytic number theory and probabilistic number theory bearing on the zeta-function and Dirichlet series

Key figures from ranked pool