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James Joseph Sylvester – Lawyer and Mathematician

James Joseph Sylvester – Lawyer and Mathematician

Harald Sack
On September 3, 1815, English mathematician James Joseph Sylvester was born. He made fundamental contributions to matrix theory, invariant theory, number theory, partition theory and combinatorics. He also was the founder of the American Journal of Mathematics. “It seems to be expected of every pilgrim up the slopes of the mathematical Parnassus, that he will at some point or other of his journey sit down and invent a definite integral or two…
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mathematics
John Venn and the Venn Diagram

John Venn and the Venn Diagram

Tabea Tietz
On August 4, 1834, English logician and philosopher John Venn was born. He is best known for his contribution of the eponymous Venn diagram, used in the fields of set theory, probability, logic, statistics, and computer science. “I began at once somewhat more steady work on the subjects and books which I should have to lecture on. I now first hit upon the diagrammatical device of representing propositions by inclusive and exclusive circles.…
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mathematics
William Penney and the British Nuclear Programme

William Penney and the British Nuclear Programme

Tabea Tietz
On June 24, 1909, English mathematician William George Penney, Baron Penney , was born. He is acknowledged as having had a leading role in the development of Britain’s nuclear programme, a clandestine programme started in 1942 during World War II which produced the first British atomic bomb in 1952. William Penney – Early Years William Penney was raised in Sheerness, Kent, and attended the local technical school in Colchester where he completed his technical…
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mathematics
Hermann Minkowski and the four-dimensional Space-Time

Hermann Minkowski and the four-dimensional Space-Time

Tabea Tietz
On June 22, 1864, German mathematician Hermann Minkowski was born. Minkowski developed the geometry of numbers and used geometrical methods to solve problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity. But he is perhaps best known for his work in relativity, in which he showed in 1907 that his former student Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity can be understood geometrically as a theory of four-dimensional space–time, since known as the “Minkowski…
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mathematics
Abraham de Moivre and the Doctrine of Chances

Abraham de Moivre and the Doctrine of Chances

Harald Sack
On May 26, 1667, French mathematician Abraham de Moivre was born. De Moivre is best known for de Moivre‘s formula, one of those that link complex numbers and trigonometry, and for his work on the normal distribution and probability theory. He was a friend of Isaac Newton, Edmond Halley, and James Stirling. De Moivre wrote a book on probability theory, The Doctrine of Chances, said to have been prized by gamblers. He…
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mathematics
John Charles Fields and the Fields Medal

John Charles Fields and the Fields Medal

Harald Sack
On May 14, 1863, Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields was born. He is the founder of the Fields Medal for outstanding achievement in mathematics. First awarded in 1936, the medal has been awarded since 1950 every four years at the International Congress of Mathematicians to two to four recipients under the age of 40. John Charles Fields – Early Years Born in Hamilton, Ontario to Harriet Bowes and John Charles Field, a leather…
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mathematics
Vito Volterra and Functional Analysis

Vito Volterra and Functional Analysis

Harald Sack
On May 3, 1860, Italian mathematician and physicist Vito Volterra was born. He is known for his contributions to mathematical biology and integral equations. Moreover, he is considered as one of the founders of functional analysis. “Empires die, but Euclid’s theorems keep their youth forever” — Vito Volterra Youth and Education Vito Volterra was born in Ancona, then part of the Papal States, as son of Abramo Volterra, a cloth merchant, into…
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mathematics
John Arbuthnot and the Laws of Chance

John Arbuthnot and the Laws of Chance

Harald Sack
On April 29, 1667, Scottish physician, satirist and polymath John Arbuthnot was baptized. He is best remembered for his contributions to mathematics, his membership in the Scriblerus Club (where he inspired both Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels as well as Alexander Pope), and for inventing the figure of John Bull. He published Of the Laws of Chance (1692), the first work on probability published in English, being his translation of a work by…
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mathematics
Felix Klein and the Klein-Bottle

Felix Klein and the Klein-Bottle

Tabea Tietz
On April 25, 1849, German mathematician and mathematics educator Felix Klein was born. Klein is known for his work in group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the connections between geometry and group theory. His 1872 Erlangen Program, classifying geometries by their underlying symmetry groups, was a hugely influential synthesis of much of the mathematics of the day. Klein also devised the Klein-bottle, a one-sided surface which, if traveled upon, could…
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mathematics
John Graunt and the Science of Demography

John Graunt and the Science of Demography

Harald Sack
On April 18, 1674, English herberdasher and statistician John Graunt passed away. Graunt is considered by many historians to have founded the science of demography as the statistical study of human populations. For his published analysis of the parish records of christenings and deaths, he was made a charter member of the Royal Society. “Having always observed that most of them who constantly took in the weekly Bills of Mortality made little other use of them…
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