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How to Calculate Fortune – Jakob Bernoulli

How to Calculate Fortune – Jakob Bernoulli

Harald Sack
On August 16, 1705, Swiss mathematician Jakob Bernoulli passed away. The Swiss Bernoulli family is well known for their many offsprings who gained prominent merits in mathematics and physics in the 18th century. Jakob Bernoulli, born in 1654 (or 1655 according to the new Gregorian calendar), is best known for his work Ars Conjectandi (The Art of Conjecture). In this work, published 8 years after his death in 1713 by his nephew Nicholas,…
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computer science
It’s Computable – thanks to Alonzo Church

It’s Computable – thanks to Alonzo Church

Harald Sack
You know, the fact that you can read your email on a cell phone as well as on your desktop computer or almost any other computer connected to the internet, in principle is possible thanks to mathematician Alonzo Church, who gave the proof (together with Alan Turing) that everything that is computable on the simple model of a Turing Machine, also is computable with any other ‘computer model’.[8] Academic Career Alonzo Church…
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mathematics
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time – Bertrand Russell, Logician and Pacifist

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time – Bertrand Russell, Logician and Pacifist

Harald Sack
On July 11, 1906, mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell was suspended from Trinity College, Cambridge due to his engagement in pacifist activities. The remarkable Bertrand Russell, a philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic was best known for the famous ‘Principia Mathematica‘, which he published along with Alfred North Whitehead between 1910 and 1913. “Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of…
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computer science
Let Us Calculate – the Last Universal Academic Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Let Us Calculate – the Last Universal Academic Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Harald Sack
On July 1, 1646, one of the last universally interdisciplinary academics, active in the fields of mathematics, physics, history, politics, philosophy, and librarianship was born. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz counts as one of the most influential scientists of the late 17th and early 18th century and impersonates a meaningful representative of the Age of Enlightenment. Moreover, I even have a personal relationship with him since he is also the namesake of the association to…
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history
It is not Certain that Everything is Uncertain – Blaise Pascal’s Thoughts

It is not Certain that Everything is Uncertain – Blaise Pascal’s Thoughts

Harald Sack
On June 19, 1623, French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic theologian Blaise Pascal was born. “A few rules include all that is necessary for the perfection of the definitions, the axioms, and the demonstrations, and consequently of the entire method of the geometrical proofs of the art of persuading.” – Blaise Pascal, The Art of Persuasion (1660) The Son of a Tax Collector “It is not certain that everything is uncertain.”…
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mathematics
Although I Cannot Prove it… – The Famous Goldbach Conjecture

Although I Cannot Prove it… – The Famous Goldbach Conjecture

Harald Sack
On the 7th of June 1742, Prussian mathematician Christian Goldbach wrote a letter to his famous colleague Leonard Euler, which should make history. Well, at least in the mathematical world. In this letter Christian Goldbach refined an already previously stated conjecture from number theory concerning primes to his friend Euler, which by today is known as the famous Goldbach conjecture. It states: Every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the…
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mathematics
How Fast Can you Solve Rubik’s Cube?

How Fast Can you Solve Rubik’s Cube?

Tabea Tietz
On June 2, 1980, the world’s most famous puzzle – Rubik’s Cube – started to spread all over the world, infecting the population with addiction and curiosity about its solving. The Rubik’s Cube Craze The Rubik’s Cube started to take over Germany in 1980, but its birth lays back in Hungary in the mid 1970’s. The magic cube is named after its creator Ernő Rubik, who is a Hungarian architect and inventor.…
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history
Only the Good Die Young – the Very Short Life of Évariste Galois

Only the Good Die Young – the Very Short Life of Évariste Galois

Harald Sack
On June 1st, 1832, French mathematician Évariste Galois was killed in a duel. He was only 20 years of age. He left an elaborate manuscript three years earlier, in which he established that an algebraic equation is solvable by radicals, if and only if the group of permutations of its roots has a certain structure, thereby solving a problem standing for 350 years. But why did he have to die so young? Just because…
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computer science
Do You Speak Polish… Or Maybe Reverse Polish?

Do You Speak Polish… Or Maybe Reverse Polish?

Harald Sack
I guess almost nobody except a few mathematicians and computer scientists have ever heard of the Australian computer scientist Charles Leonard Hamblin, who passed away on May 14, 1985. And also most of my fellow computer scientists might not have heard of him. But, one of his major contributions to computer science was the introduction of the so-called Reverse Polish Notation. Does that ring a bell? Charles Leonard Hamblin – Early Years…
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mathematics
Ramon Llull and the Tree of Knowledge

Ramon Llull and the Tree of Knowledge

Harald Sack
Probably in 1232, philosopher, logician, Franciscan tertiary and Catalan writer Ramon Llull (Anglicised Raymond Lully, Raymond Lull; in Latin Raimundus or Raymundus Lullus or Lullius) was born. He is credited with writing the first major work of Catalan literature Recently surfaced manuscripts show his work to have predated by several centuries prominent work on elections theory. He is also considered a pioneer of computation theory, especially given his influence on Leibniz.[2] “For…
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