Timeline Mathematics
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c200-300
Diophantus, a 3rd century Hellenistic mathematician, wrote a series of
classical texts on Algebra called Arithmetica.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, Z1
p.8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diophantus)
1519 May 2, Artist Leonardo da
Vinci (67) died at Cloux, France. In 1994 A. Richard Turner wrote
"Inventing Leonardo," a history of Leonardo legends. In 2004 Bulent
Atalay authored “Math and the Mona Lisa: The Art and Science of
Leonardo da Vinci.”
http://library.thinkquest.org/13681/data/davin2.shtml?tqskip=1
(TL-MB, 1988, p.11)(AP, 5/2/97)(NH, 5/97, p.58)(MC,
5/2/02)(Econ, 5/15/04, p.80)
1650 Feb 11, Rene Descartes
(b.1596), French mathematician and philosopher: "I think therefore I
am", died in Stockholm. [see Feb 1]
(Dr, 7/20/96, supl p.1)(MC, 2/11/02)
1673 The most important of
Christian Huygens' written works, the "Horologium Oscillatorium," was
published in Paris. It discussed the mathematics surrounding pendulum
motion and the law of centrifugal force for uniform circular motion.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_huygens.htm)
1706 Pi, the 16th letter of the
Greek alphabet, was 1st used as a mathematical symbol by William Jones
of Wales. Pi represents the approximate ratio of a circle’s
circumference to its diameter.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, p.C5)(WSJ, 3/15/05, p.B1)
1761 Apr 17, Thomas Bayes
(b.1702), English theologian and mathematician, died. He established a
mathematical basis for probability inference.
(www.britannica.com)
1783 The great Swiss mathematician
Leonhard Euler introduced latin squares as a new kind of magic squares.
It later formed the basis for the “sudoku” number game.
(www.cut-the-knot.org/arithmetic/latin.shtml)(Econ,
5/21/05, p.67)
1802 Aug 5, Niels Henrik Abel
(d.1829), mathematician, was born in Frindoe, Norway.
(Internet)(SFC, 3/26/04, p.A15)
1824 Niels Henrik Abel
(1802-1829), Norwegian mathematician, proved that equations of the 5th
order cannot generally be solved.
(Econ, 5/15/04, p.80)
1829 Apr 6, Niels Henrik Abel
(b.1802), Norwegian mathematician, died of tuberculosis. After him
comes the term Abelian group, an algebraic commutative group. In 2004
Peter Pesic authored “Abel’s Proof: An Essay on the Sources and Meaning
of Mathematical Unsolvability.”
(AHD, 1971, p.2)(SFC, 3/26/04, p.A15)(Econ, 5/15/04,
p.80)
1832 May 31, Evariste Galois
(b.1811), French mathematician who developed a general theory of
equations, died from wounds suffered in a duel. In 2005 Mario Livio
authored “The Equation That couldn’t Be Solved: How Mathematical Genius
Discovered the Language of Symmetry.”
(www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Galois.html)(Econ,
8/27/05, p.68)
1865 Sep 2, William Rowan
Hamilton, Ireland's greatest man of science who made contributions in
the study of optics and applications of algebra to geometry, died.
(Internet)
1870 Sophus Lie (1842-1899),
Norwegian mathematician, became a media sensation after he was found
outside Paris with a backpack filled with undeciperable mathematical
notes and arrested as a spy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophus_Lie)
1871 Oct 18, Charles Babbage
(b.1792), English mathematician and inventor of a calculating machine,
died. In 2001 Doron Swade authored “The Difference Engine: Charles
Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer.”
(www.thocp.net/biographies/babbage_charles.html)(WSJ, 3/7/09, p.W8)
1899 Feb 18, Sophus Lie (b.1842),
Norwegian mathematician, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophus_Lie)
1900 Aug, David Hilbert (d.1943),
a German mathematician, presented a challenge list of 23 equations at a
meeting of the Int’l. Congress of Mathematicians in Paris. In 2000
three of the equations still remained unsolved.
(SFC, 5/25/00, p.A2)(SFEC, 8/27/00, BR p.1)
1906 Apr 28, Kurt Gödel
(d.1978), Austrian mathematician, was born in the Moravian city of
Brno. Godel later developed his incompleteness theorem showing that
within any logical system, no matter how rigidly structured, there are
always questions that cannot be answered with certainty, contradictions
that may be discovered, and errors that may lurk.
(V.D.-H.K.p.340)(SFC, 6/14/05, p.D2)
1912 Apr 29, Henri Poincare
(d.1912), French mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, died. He
investigated the idea of space and led to the notion that space is too
complex for mathematics. In 2002 Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman
solved the 1904 Poincare Conjecture. In 2007 Donal O’Shea authored “The
Poincare Conjecture.”
(V.D.-H.K.p.272)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9)
1920 Apr 26, Srinivasa Ramanujan
(b.1887), Indian mathematician, died in India. In 1913 English
mathematician G.H. Hardy recognized his brilliant work, and asked
Ramanujan to study under him at Cambridge. In 2007 British playwright
Simon McBurney created “A Disappearing Number,” for his theater group
“Complicite,” based on Ramanujan’s 5 years a Cambridge.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan)(Econ, 9/1/07, p.76)
1936 The 1st Fields Medal in
mathematics, the mathematics equivalent to the Nobel Prize, was awarded
to Lars Valerian Ahlfors (1907-1996), Finish-born mathematician and
Jesse Douglas of MIT. At the 1924 International Congress of
Mathematicians in Toronto, a resolution was adopted that at each ICM,
two gold medals should be awarded to recognize outstanding mathematical
achievement. Professor J. C. Fields, a Canadian mathematician who was
Secretary of the 1924 Congress, later donated funds establishing the
medals, which were named in his honor.
(www.mathunion.org/medals/Fields/index.html)
1937 E.T. Bell authored “Men of
Mathematics.”
(WSJ, 11/11/06, p.P10)
1941 Jan 11, Emanuel Lasker
(b.1868), German mathematician and chess player, died. In 1927 he
authored “Lasker’s Manual of Chess.”
(WSJ, 3/22/08,
p.W10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Lasker)
1943 Feb 14, David Hilbert
(b.1862), German mathematician, died. He is considered the father of
modern mathematics.
(Econ, 4/2/05,
p.73)(www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs462/Hall/hilbert.html)
1947 Dec 1, Godfrey Harold Hardy
(b.1877), English mathematician, died. Non-mathematicians usually know
G.H. Hardy for “A Mathematician's Apology,” his essay from 1940 on the
aesthetics of mathematics.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._H._Hardy)
1954 Jun 7, Alan Turing (b.1912),
English mathematician, died of suicide. Turing, a homosexual, was
convicted in 1952 of gross indecency and forced to take estrogen
injections. In 2006 David Leavitt authored ”The Man Who Knew Too Much:
Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer.
(www.turing.org.uk/turing/)(Econ, 7/8/06, p.79)
1966 Paul Cohen (1934-2007),
Stanford professor, won the Fields Medal, the top prize in mathematics.
(SFC, 3/30/07, p.B6)
1972 Hewlett-Packard introduced
the first scientific handheld calculator, the HP-35, which made the
slide-rule obsolete.
(SFC, 3/3/99,
p.A11)(www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/timeline/index.html)
1983-84 Shiing-Shen Chern (1911-2004), US Berkeley
mathematician, was awarded the Wolf Prize in mathematics, the
equivalent of the Nobel Prize. He reshaped differential geometry.
(SFC, 12/9/04, p.B7)
2000 United Parcel Service (UPS)
introduced an algorithm called VOLCANO (Volume, Location and Aircraft
Network Optimizer), which was jointly developed with MIT.
(Econ, 9/15/07, p.86)
2001 Aug 23, The Norwegian
government established the Abel Prize in mathematics in honor of the
Niels Henrik Abel (1802-1829).
(Internet)
2005 May 13, George Bernard
Dantzig (90), Stanford math professor, died in Palo Alto, Ca. His
discoveries included linear programming and the Simplex Algorithm,
which provide means for solving complicated problems with many
variables. They are used to find efficient means for producing complex
products.
(SSFC, 5/15/05, p.B3)
2006 Aug 22, In Spain Grigory
Perelman (40), a reclusive Russian, won a Fields Medal, the math
world's highest honor, for solving a problem that has stumped some of
the discipline's greatest minds for a century, but he refused the award.
(AP, 8/22/06)
2007 Mar 18, Scientists said that
after four years of intensive collaboration, 18 top mathematicians and
computer scientists from the United States and Europe have successfully
mapped E8, one of the largest and most complicated structures in
mathematics. E8 was discovered over a century ago, in 1887, and until
now, no one thought the structure could ever be understood.
(AFP, 3/19/07)
2008 Aug 13, Henri Cartan
(b.1904), French mathematician, died in Paris. In 1956 he and Samuel
Eilenberg wrote a fundamental textbook on homological algebra.
(SFC, 8/25/08, p.B3)
2009 May 28, Swedish media
reported that a 16-year-old Iraqi immigrant living in Sweden has
cracked a maths puzzle that has stumped experts for more than 300
years. Mohamed Altoumaimi has found a formula to explain and simplify
the so-called Bernoulli numbers, a sequence of calculations named after
the 17th century Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
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