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There is no royal road to geometry. The only way to
a knowledge of geometry is a set of 13 books, 465 propositions, and 5
postulates. A point is that which has no part. A line is breathless
length. A straight line is a line which lies evenly with the point on
itself. A unit is that by virtue of which each of the things that exist
is called one. A number is a multitude composed of units.
Give this person a penny, since he must make a profit out of what he
learns. |
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Eureka, eureka! Water is flowing, the goldsmith is
guilty of fraud.
I shall devise engines of war and Thou shall defend Syracuse against the
army and the navy of Marcellus. Romans are taking over the city and I am
busy with my diagrams. A soldier is commanding me to accompany him; I
say no, he is enraged; he drew his sword through me.
Place a cylinder circumscribing a sphere on my tombstone. |
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When I traced at my pleasure the winding to and fro
of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch the earth with my feet: I
stand in presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia, food of
the gods.
The earth is at the center of the universe and does not move. The
planets and stars for philosophical reasons move continuously in
perfectly circular orbits. The value of pi is 3 17/120 = 3.14166
and I know the value of square root of 2.
Pappus of Alexandria, hurry up, unfortunately the great age of Greek
mathematics is drawing its last breath. |
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Fitzgerald made me famous and Blaise made me
unknown. I am a mathematician, astronomer, and a famous poet. I
classified algebraic equations up to the third degree in a rigorous and
systematic manner and solved them through geometric means. My book,
Algebra is known for its thoroughness and clarity as well as its
content. It is considered as one of the masterpieces of Islamic
mathematics. I am one of the creators of the most exact and perfect
solar calendar. |
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My name is Leonardo but I am better known by my
nickname. I was educated in North Africa and traveled widely with my
father, where I discovered the enormous advantages of the Hindu-Arabic
decimal system and the use of Arabic numerals, so I introduced them into
Europe. In my book Liber abaci, I showed how to compute exchanges
of currency. I also posed this question: "How many pairs of rabbits will
be produced in a year, beginning with a single pair, if in every month
each pair bears a new pair which becomes productive from the second
month on?" |
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I am a Franciscan friar living in a monastery near
Palace Royal of Paris. My main interests are Philosophy, science, and
mathematics. Almost every scientist in Western Europe who is active in
these fields is my friend. With the approval and support of our patron,
Cardinal Richelieu, my Parisian friends meet regularly in my room. The
Academy of Science will be chartered in 1666, 18 years after my death. I
like to work on prime numbers. People are still working on my kind of
primes. I used my pulse to approximate the speed of sound. .
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My son you have a frail constitution, you may lie in
bed until 11 a.m. First look at this fly crawling on the ceiling, then
explain about Analytic Geometry... Today, November 10, 1619, is an
exciting day, René is in a state of exhaustion, but he found his
method... I live in the land of bears among rocks and ice, and this
masculine woman of 19 wants me to meet her at 5 a.m. to show her how to
draw a tangent. Why doesn't she comb her hair? I won't last more than 4
months. |
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Marin once asked me if whether the number n =
100,895,598,169 is prime or not. I did not need many years to answer
his question, without any hesitation I replied
n = 112,303 x 898,423. René claims he got his idea for
Analytic Geometry from a crawling fly in his room. But several months
before the publication of his book on geometry, he had my original
manuscript of the Introduction. Isaac told the world that his
ideas about calculus came directly from the way I draw tangents. One of
my theorems is very famous. |
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I wanted to help my father in his job, so I invented
a calculator. Next time when you glance at your wrist watch, say thanks
Blaise. Torricelli experimented with mercury in a tube, I did it too
with many variations and great care. Sorry, if the syringe hurts, don't
blame me, it was a byproduct of my experiments with mercury. My name
should be on every single bus that you ride. I was the first to think of
a bus system and organized a public transportation company. |
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I was born on a Christmas Day, my father who was a
farmer died before I was born. When I was young I made a toy gristmill
that ground wheat to flour, with a mouse serving as motive power, and a
wooden clock that worked by water. In the early years of my
professorship, I became interested in optics and made the first
reflecting telescope. One day Halley asked me: "What would be the curve
described by the planets on the supposition that gravity diminishes as
the square of the distance?" I answered immediately, "an ellipse". I
revolutionized mathematics. |
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With every lost hour a part of life perishes.... As
soon as I began to learn logic, I was fascinated by its order and
classification. The laws of thought are essentially algebraic in nature.
I am the father of symbolic logic. I am also known as one of the two
fathers of the most important branch of mathematics. My main interests
are: (1) logic, (2) theology, (3) metaphysics, (4) science. In my
Essais de Théodicée,I gave a rational explanation for the presence
of evil in the world. |
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My father wanted me to follow him into the church
and sent me to the University of Basel to prepare for the ministry.
However geometry soon became my favorite subject. The brother of James,
Johann persuaded my father that I should study mathematics. I went to
St. Petersburg and for 3 years I was a medical lieutenant in the Russian
navy. I made some of my greatest discoveries while holding a baby on my
arm with other children playing around my feet. The St. Petersburg
Academy published my unpublished work for nearly 50 years after my
death. |
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Mécanique Céleste is my own work on gravitation. No
one else thought of that.
Not even once, you mentioned God as the author of the universe!? Sire, I
have no need of that hypothesis... I am very versatile in politics, I
could be royalist as well as republican; the main thing is my well
being.... My Transformation can solve many problems in mathematics such
as differential equations. Engineers must know my transformation in
order to make their life worth living. |
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In my Analytical Theory of Heat I employed a
trigonometric series, by means of which discontinuous functions can be
expressed as the sum of an infinite series of sines and cosines. I am
becoming very famous, engineers need my fast transform to filter sounds,
images, data transportation, and many other things.
Napoleon is my friend, he made me a Baron. I am building the first real
road from Grenoble to Turin. My other friend is Champollion. He is the
one who deciphered the Rosetta Stone. My room is extremely hot, because
I always feel cold.
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I am only three, but I must tell my father about the
error in his payroll account... I need fame, an increase in my pension
from the Duke, and a professorship in astronomy..... Ceres, this tiny
new planet or asteroid gets moving away from the Sun. I shall use my
method of least squares and my skill of numerical computation to grab
that little asteroid.... I found the orbit, give me a telescope, I'll
show you its exact position... If you are serious and want to learn
mathematics, read all my Disquisitiones. |
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He is a narrow-minded smug hypocrite and not even a
republican. We shall not waste our valuable time to read his articles.
I started as a military engineer and went to Cherbourg to work on
Napoleon's English invasion fleet. When I returned to Paris, I devoted
myself to mathematics, and pioneered the study of analysis and the
theory of permutation groups; I proved that the angles of a convex
polyhedron are determined by its faces. In 1816 I won the Grand Prix of
the French Academy of Science. |
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The key to progress in mathematics is to study the
masters and not the pupils.
In my group, you may commute freely back and forth. In Calculus you may
need my test for the convergence of power series. I am the one who told
Crello, why don't you make the first periodical devoted wholly to
mathematical research? Call it Journal für die Reine und Angewandte
Mathematik. I suffered from a pulmonary condition and was unable to
find a teaching position. Two days after my death at 26, a letter came
in which I was offered a teaching post at the University of Berlin.
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