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Sophie Germain and the Chladni Experiment

Sophie Germain and the Chladni Experiment

Tabea Tietz
On June 27, 1831, French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher Marie-Sophie Germain passed away. She is best known for her work in number theory and contributions to the applied mathematics of acoustics and elasticity. Her work on Fermat’s Last Theorem provided a foundation for mathematicians exploring the subject for hundreds of years after. Because of prejudice against her gender, she was unable to make a career out of mathematics, but she worked independently throughout her…
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astronomy
Georg von Peuerbach – Astronomy at the Beginning of the Scientific Revolution in Early Modern Age

Georg von Peuerbach – Astronomy at the Beginning of the Scientific Revolution in Early Modern Age

Tabea Tietz
On May 30, 1423, Austrian astronomer, mathematician and instrument maker Georg von Peuerbach was born. He is best known for his streamlined presentation of Ptolemaic Astronomy in the Theoricae Novae Planetarum. Furthermore, he promoted the use of Arabic numerals (introduced 250 years earlier in place of Roman numerals), especially in a table of sines he calculated with unprecedented accuracy. Not much is known about Peuerbach’s Early Life There is not much known about…
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mathematics
Gaspard Monge and his System of Descriptive Geometry

Gaspard Monge and his System of Descriptive Geometry

Tabea Tietz
On May 10, 1746, French mathematician Gaspard Monge, Comte de Péluse was born. He is best known for being the inventor of descriptive geometry as the mathematical basis of technical drawing, and being the father of differential geometry. During the French Revolution Monge served as the Minister of the Marine, and was involved in the reform of the French educational system, helping to found the École Polytechnique. “Descriptive geometry has two objects: the first is…
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mathematics
Henri Poincaré – the Last Universalist of Mathematics

Henri Poincaré – the Last Universalist of Mathematics

Tabea Tietz
On April 29, 1854, French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and a philosopher of science Henri Poincaré was born. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as The Last Universalist since he excelled in all fields of the discipline as it existed during his lifetime. “A scientist worthy of the name, above all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great…
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mathematics
Joseph Fourier and the Greenhouse Effect

Joseph Fourier and the Greenhouse Effect

Harald Sack
On March 21, 1768, French mathematician and physicist Jean Baptiste Joseph du Fourier was born. He is probably best known for his work in thermodynamics, where he introduced the concept of the Fourier Analysis, named in honor after him. There, he claimed that every mathematical function of a variable can be expanded to a sum of sines of multiples of that variable. What people most likely don’t know is that Fourier also was the…
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mathematics
The Life and Work of Philippe de La Hire

The Life and Work of Philippe de La Hire

Tabea Tietz
On March 18, 1640, French mathematician, astronomer, architect, and key figure in the Académie royale des sciences Philippe de La Hire was born. Educated as an Artist Philippe de La Hire was educated as an artist and became skilled in drawing and painting early. It is believed that de La Hire received no formal education in an official school even though his father was probably teaching him at home. At the age of…
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mathematics
Frank P. Ramsey and the Ramsey Theory

Frank P. Ramsey and the Ramsey Theory

Harald Sack
On February 22, 1903, precocious British philosopher, mathematician and economist Frank Plumpton Ramsey was born. Although he died already at age 26, he had made significant contributions to logic, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language and decision theory. He remains noted for his Ramsey Theory, a mathematical study of combinatorial objects in which a certain degree of order must occur as the scale of the object becomes large. “The first problem I…
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mathematics
Lejeune Dirichlet and the Mathematical Function

Lejeune Dirichlet and the Mathematical Function

Harald Sack
On February 13, 1805, German mathematician Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet was born. Dirichlet is best known for his papers on conditions for the convergence of trigonometric series and the use of the series to represent arbitrary functions. He also proposed in 1837 the modern definition of a mathematical function. “In mathematics as in other fields, to find one self lost in wonder at some manifestation is frequently the half of a new discovery.”…
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mathematics
Euclid of Alexandria – the Father of Geometry

Euclid of Alexandria – the Father of Geometry

Harald Sack
At about 330 BC, Euclid of Alexandria was born, who often is referred to as the Father of Geometry. His Elements is one of the most influential works in the history of mathematics, serving as the main textbook for teaching mathematics (especially geometry) from the time of its publication until the late 19th or early 20th century. In the Elements, Euclid deduced the principles of what is now called Euclidean geometry from…
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mathematics
Ernst Kummer and the Introduction of Ideal Numbers

Ernst Kummer and the Introduction of Ideal Numbers

Harald Sack
On January 29, 1810, German mathematician Ernst Eduard Kummer was born. One of his major contributions is the introduction of ideal numbers, which are defined as a special subgroup of a ring. He extended the fundamental theorem of arithmetic to complex number fields.He also discovered the fourth order surface based on the singular surface of the quadratic line complex. This Kummer surface has 16 isolated conical double points and 16 singular tangent…
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