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Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring. Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multi-volume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity. He was the first person to describe the phenomenon and cause of human-induced climate change, in 1800 and again in 1831, based on observations generated during his travels. Humboldt graduated from the Freiberg School of Mines in 1792 and was appointed to a Prussian government position in the Department of Mines as an inspector in Bayreuth and the Fichtel mountains. Humboldt was excellent at his job, with production of gold ore in his first year outstripping the previous eight years.

Arnaldo Faustini was an Italian polar geographer, writer, and cartographer. He is considered by some to be the first South European polar specialist. Born in Rome, he received his doctorate at the University of Rome at the age of 21. Faustini worked at a newspaper based in Rome as scientific editor. He had a special interest in polar subjects, and published 19 books on polar subjects in his native Italian. He also wrote numerous articles. Among the polar explorers Faustini knew personally were Roald Amundsen, Ernest Shackleton, Robert F. Scott, and Adrien de Gerlache, of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition. Faustini translated into Italian De Gerlache's French language account of his voyage. Faustini also drew the map of the area explored by the Belgians. In gratitude, De Gerlache gave him the flag from the expedition's ship, the SS Belgica. The polar explorer Augustus Greely invited Faustini to the United States in 1915 for a lecture tour. While lecturing at Columbia University, Faustini met Amelia Del Colle, who later became his wife. Faustini's interests were wide-ranging. In an unpublished 1918 manuscript entitled Catalogo Descrittivo di Ponti ed Archi Naturali ("Descriptive Catalog of Natural Bridges and Arches”), Faustini wrote: "Completed under every standpoint, for a future, eventual publication – text, topographical sketches, illustrations, contents, indexes, etc., that I think to be my greatest work of physical geography." He was fluent in French, English, Spanish and Russian and understood Greek. The crater Faustini on the Moon is named after him. His papers on the Arctic and Antarctic are held in the Archives of the Istituto Geografico Polare "Silvio Zavatti" (Zavatti Polar Institute) in Fermo.

Eratosthenes of Cyrene was a Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. He was a man of learning, becoming the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria. He is best known for being the first person to calculate the circumference of the Earth, which he did by comparing altitudes of the mid-day sun at two places a known North-South distance apart. His calculation was remarkably accurate. He was also the first to calculate the tilt of the Earth's axis (again with remarkable accuracy). Additionally, he may have accurately calculated the distance from the Earth to the Sun and invented the leap day. He created the first map of the world, incorporating parallels and meridians based on the available geographic knowledge of his era. Eratosthenes was the founder of scientific chronology; he endeavored to revise the dates of the chief literary and political events from the conquest of Troy. Eratosthenes dated The Sack of Troy to 1183 BC. In number theory, he introduced the sieve of Eratosthenes, an efficient method of identifying prime numbers. He was a figure of influence in many fields. According to an entry in the Suda (a 10th-century reference), his critics scorned him, calling him Beta (the second letter of the Greek alphabet) because he always came in second in all his endeavors. Nonetheless, his devotees nicknamed him Pentathlos after the Olympians who were well rounded competitors, for he had proven himself to be knowledgeable in every area of learning. Eratosthenes yearned to understand the complexities of the entire world.