Jakob Bernoulli (Basel, December 27, 1654 - August 16, 1705), also known as Jacob, Jacques or James Bernoulli was a Swiss mathematician and scientist and the older brother of Johann Bernoulli.
Jakob Bernoulli met Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke on a trip to England in 1676, after which he devoted his life to science and mathematics. He lectured at the University of Basel from 1682, becoming Professor of Mathematics in 1687.
He corresponded with Gottfried Leibniz, and thus learnt calculus, and collaborated with his brother Johann.
His early papers on transcendental curves (1696) and isoperimetry (1700, 1701) are early examples of its application.
His masterwork was Ars Conjectandi (the Art of Conjecturing), a groundbreaking work on probability theory. It was published eight years after his death in 1713 by his nephew Nicholas. The terms Bernoulli trial and Bernoulli Numbers result from this work, and are named after him.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Jakob_Bernoulli".
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
René Descartes
René Descartes (March 31, 1596 – February 11, 1650), also known as Cartesius, was a French philosopher, mathematician and part-time mercenary in the opening phases of the Thirty Years' War. He is noted equally for his groundbreaking work in philosophy and mathematics. As the inventor of the Cartesian coordinate system, he formulated the basis of modern geometry (analytic geometry), which in turn influenced the development of modern calculus.
Descartes, dubbed the "Founder of Modern Philosophy" and the "Father of Modern Mathematics," ranks as one of the most important and influential thinkers in modern western history. He inspired his contemporaries and subsequent generations of philosophers, leading them to form what we know today as continental rationalism, a philosophical position which developed in 17th and 18th century Europe.
His most famous statement is "Cogito ergo sum" ("I am thinking therefore I exist." ).
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Descartes".
Descartes, dubbed the "Founder of Modern Philosophy" and the "Father of Modern Mathematics," ranks as one of the most important and influential thinkers in modern western history. He inspired his contemporaries and subsequent generations of philosophers, leading them to form what we know today as continental rationalism, a philosophical position which developed in 17th and 18th century Europe.
His most famous statement is "Cogito ergo sum" ("I am thinking therefore I exist." ).
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Descartes".
Carl Gauss
Carl Friedrich Gauss (Gauß) (April 30, 1777 – February 23, 1855) was a German mathematician and scientist of profound genius who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, magnetism, astronomy and optics. Sometimes known as "the prince of mathematicians", Gauss had a remarkable influence in many fields of mathematics and science and is ranked beside Euler, Newton and Archimedes as one of history's greatest mathematicians.
Gauss was a child prodigy, of whom there are many anecdotes pertaining to his astounding precocity while a mere toddler, and made his first ground-breaking mathematical discoveries while still a teenager. He completed Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, his magnum opus, at the age of twenty-four. This work was fundamental in consolidating number theory as a discipline and has shaped the field to the present day.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Carl_Friedrich_Gauss".
Gauss was a child prodigy, of whom there are many anecdotes pertaining to his astounding precocity while a mere toddler, and made his first ground-breaking mathematical discoveries while still a teenager. He completed Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, his magnum opus, at the age of twenty-four. This work was fundamental in consolidating number theory as a discipline and has shaped the field to the present day.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Carl_Friedrich_Gauss".
Monday, November 21, 2005
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton, PRS (25 December 1642 (OS) – 20 March 1727 (OS) / 4 January 1643 (NS) – 31 March 1727 (NS)) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, inventor, philosopher and alchemist. A man of profound genius, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists in history. He is associated with the scientific revolution and the advancement of heliocentrism.
Among his scientific accomplishments, Newton wrote the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, wherein he described universal gravitation and, via his laws of motion, laid the groundwork for classical mechanics. With Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz he shares credit for the development of differential calculus. Newton was the first to promulgate a set of natural laws that could govern both terrestrial motion and celestial motion, and is credited with providing mathematical substantiation for Kepler's laws of planetary motion, which he expanded by arguing that orbits (such as those of comets) could be elliptic, hyperbolic, or parabolic.
Newton was the first to realise that the spectrum of colours observed when white light passed through a prism is inherent in the white light and not added by the prism (as Roger Bacon had claimed in the 13th century), and also notably argued that light is composed of particles.
Newton also developed a law of cooling, proved the binomial theorem, and discovered the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Isaac_Newton".
Among his scientific accomplishments, Newton wrote the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, wherein he described universal gravitation and, via his laws of motion, laid the groundwork for classical mechanics. With Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz he shares credit for the development of differential calculus. Newton was the first to promulgate a set of natural laws that could govern both terrestrial motion and celestial motion, and is credited with providing mathematical substantiation for Kepler's laws of planetary motion, which he expanded by arguing that orbits (such as those of comets) could be elliptic, hyperbolic, or parabolic.
Newton was the first to realise that the spectrum of colours observed when white light passed through a prism is inherent in the white light and not added by the prism (as Roger Bacon had claimed in the 13th century), and also notably argued that light is composed of particles.
Newton also developed a law of cooling, proved the binomial theorem, and discovered the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Isaac_Newton".
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (also Leibnitz) (Leipzig July 1 (June 21 Old Style), 1646 – November 14, 1716 in Hannover) was a German philosopher, scientist, mathematician, diplomat, librarian, and lawyer of Sorbian origin. Leibniz is credited with coining the term "function" (1694), which he used to describe a quantity related to a curve, such as a curve's slope or a specific point on the curve. Leibniz is generally, with Newton, jointly credited for the development of modern calculus, particularly for his development of the integral and the product rule. He also initiated the development of the modern idea of conservation of energy through his concept of vis viva.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Gottfried_Leibniz".
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Gottfried_Leibniz".
Liu Hui
Liu Hui was a Chinese mathematician who lived in the 200s in the Wei Kingdom. In 263 he published a book with solutions to mathematical problems presented in the famous Chinese book of mathematics known as Jiuzhang Suanshu or The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art.
In these commentaries he presented (among other things):
An estimate of π in the comments to chapter 1. He estimated pi to 3.141014 and suggested that 3.14 was a good approximation. His estimation is made with a method similar to Archimedes. The Nine Chapters used the value 3 as π, but Zhang Heng had previously estimated it to the square root of 10;
Gaussian elimination;
Cavalieri's principle to find the volume of a cylinder.
The comments are often explanations why some methods work and why some others do not. He also presented, in a separate appendix called Haidao suanjing or The Sea Island Mathematical Manual, several problems related to surveying.
Liu Hui was one of the first mathematicians known to leave roots unevaluated, giving more exact results instead of approximations.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Liu_Hui".
In these commentaries he presented (among other things):
An estimate of π in the comments to chapter 1. He estimated pi to 3.141014 and suggested that 3.14 was a good approximation. His estimation is made with a method similar to Archimedes. The Nine Chapters used the value 3 as π, but Zhang Heng had previously estimated it to the square root of 10;
Gaussian elimination;
Cavalieri's principle to find the volume of a cylinder.
The comments are often explanations why some methods work and why some others do not. He also presented, in a separate appendix called Haidao suanjing or The Sea Island Mathematical Manual, several problems related to surveying.
Liu Hui was one of the first mathematicians known to leave roots unevaluated, giving more exact results instead of approximations.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Liu_Hui".
Great Mathematicians in the History
This idea to introduce some greatest mathematicians in human history came to me a few days ago. This is not only for fun but also to give us inspiration from their stories of coming up great ideas. Most sources are from Wikipedia and the Mathematics Genealogy Project.
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