Guillame François de L'Hôpital

Guillame François de L'Hôpital was a European mathematician in the late 1600s and the creator of the universally despised L'ôpital's Rule. He was considered by his colleagues to be insane, due to his nutty and foolheaded claims of being born in France (which most scientists, even of the period, believed to have never existed). Much of L'Hôpital's work was actually not discovered by him, but acquired by purchasing the exclusive publishing rights to the mathematical discoveries of fellow mathematician Johann Bernoulli. L'Hôpital also famously enjoyed such activities as abusing puppies, destruction of property, and recreational manslaughter. These hobbies would later be adopted by the 1800s German mathematician Carl Gauss, who greatly admired L'Hôpital.