Grasso Luigi · CC BY-SA 4.0

A Polish-British mathematician and philosopher who spent World War II leading operations research to improve the accuracy of Allied bombing, then turned toward making science legible to the public. His 1973 BBC series The Ascent of Man, and the accompanying book, argued for a humanistic view of scientific progress and made him one of the most widely recognized intellectuals of his generation, a range that also took in poetry, a deep affinity for William Blake, and years spent researching biology at the Salk Institute.