Resolution criteria

• This is a dependent multiple-choice market: exactly one option resolves Yes; all others resolve No.

• Outcome will be the top option in a separate, single-choice Manifold poll created by the market creator, closing on 31 Dec 25. The poll link will be posted in a pinned comment on this market and added here when live.

• If two or more options tie for first in the poll at close, a 24-hour runoff poll among the tied options will decide the winner; this market will resolve to the runoff winner.

Background

• Isaac Newton: foundational contributions to calculus, classical mechanics, and optics; Principia Mathematica (1687).

• Leonhard Euler: exceptionally prolific; major results across analysis, topology, graph theory; standardized much of modern mathematical notation.

• Carl Friedrich Gauss: “prince of mathematicians”; number theory, statistics, geometry, electromagnetism; Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (1801).

• John von Neumann: game theory, quantum foundations, computing architecture, shock physics, numerical weather prediction.

Considerations

• “Smartest” is inherently subjective; the poll operationalizes it as community judgment at a fixed time.

• Cross-era comparisons are fraught: differing notation, collaboration norms, and record-keeping can bias perceptions toward prolific or recent figures.

• Strong contenders beyond the listed names (e.g., Archimedes, Leonardo da Vinci, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Alan Turing) may be captured by the automatically added “Other” option.