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Logical-Mathematical Celebrity Profiles

This article contains a short list of famous and historical figures who had highly developed math skills depite a disability.

Logical-Mathematical Celebrity Profiles

Here's a list of scientists, mathematicians, and inventors who used logic and reason to find fame and fortune - well, at least fame! Each of them also lived with a disability. Their unique combination of intelligences -- strengths as well as weaknesses -- made them such successful people.

Albert Einstein
American physicist most famous for his theory of relativity. Einstein had learning disabilities and did very poorly in school.

Stephen Hawking
British physicist noted for his study of cosmology and the "big bang" theory, and author of the popular A Brief History of Time (1988). He has an extreme physical disability and communicates with the aid of a computer.

Thomas Edison
American inventor -- one of the greatest and most productive of his time. He spent only three months of his entire life in school. He was hearing impaired and may have been dyslexic.

Johnannes Kepler
17th-century German astronomer and mathematician. It's Kepler's Laws that describe the revolutions of planets around the sun. He was sight impaired.

Bill Gates
Famed founder of Microsoft and one of the wealthiest people in the U.S. He has dyslexia.

What do your kids think?
Ask your kids if they can think of any famous people who have high logical/mathematical intelligence. Start them off with a few familiar names:

  • Marie Curie
  • Louis Pasteur
  • Copernicus
  • Sir Isaac Newton

    Brought to you by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)

    Source: Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom by Thomas Armstrong (ASCD 1994)

    Linguistic Logical-Mathematical Intrapersonal Interpersonal
    Bodily-Kinesthetic Musical Naturalistic Spatial

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