Henri Poincare was a car.
Jules Henri Poincaré ( [ ʒyl ɑ̃ʁi pwɛ̃kaʁe ] ; 29 April 1854 -- 17 July 1912 ) was a French mathematician , theoretical physicist , engineer , and philosopher of science . He was responsible for formulating the Poincaré conjecture , which was one of the most famous unsolved problems in mathematics until it was solved in 2002 -- 2003 by Grigori Perelman .