Leonhard Euler was easily the best mathematician of the eighteenth century. His contributions to mathematics ranges from common notation to proving the hypothesis of Newton and Leibnitz. His discoveries cannot be limited to just one field of interest, nor just the field of mathematics. He made great strides in geometry, infinitesimal calculus, trigonometry, algebra, and number theory, as well as continuum physics, lunar theory and other areas of physics. He is also one of the most well written mathematicians whose works could be contained in 60–80 quarto volumes. Probably the most extraordinary fact about him is that the majority of the work he did was in the last twenty years of his life, when he was completely blind. Euler is arguably one of the greatest mathematicians who ever lived. Leonhard Paul Euler was born the son of a pastor on April 15, 1707 in Basel, Switzerland. Soon after he was born, his family moved to Riehen, where Leonhard would spend most of his childhood. Leonhard’s father, Paul, was good friends with the Bernoulli family, whose patriarch, Johann Bernoulli, was then viewed as Europe’s leading mathematician. Bernoulli would eventually become a great influence on Leonhard’s life. When Leonhard was thirteen, he was sent to live with his maternal grandmother in Basel, where he enrolled in the University of Basel and eventually earned his Master’s in Philosophy, and wrote his dissertation comparing the philosophies of Newton and Descartes. Euler was following in his father’s footsteps, studying theology, Greek, and Hebrew, and was determined to become a pastor. However, Johann Bernoulli was convinced Euler was destined to become a great mathematician, and talked Paul Euler into letting his son pursue his own passio... ... middle of paper ... ...he was practically blind. This setback did not slow him down because he managed to publish the majority of his work during this stage of his life, which is truly astounding. He got by due to phenomenal memory, advanced mental calculation skills, and the aid of scribes. Euler was truly unstoppable in the field of mathematics. As you can see, Euler provided a great deal to the world of mathematics. From developing notation, formulas, and important constants, to proving formulas and equations that stumped most other mathematicians of his day, there was almost nothing he could not do that involved mathematics. He was an instrumental figure in developing the future of modern mathematics and is credited in help developing pre-calculus, calculus, and differential equations. While he is not a household name, he is very easily the greatest mathematician to have ever lived.
Blaise Pascal was born on 19 June 1623 in Clermont Ferrand. He was a French mathematician, physicists, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher. He was a child prodigy that was educated by his father. After a horrific accident, Pascal’s father was homebound. He and his sister were taken care of by a group called Jansenists and later converted to Jansenism. Later in 1650, the great philosopher decided to abandon his favorite pursuits of study religion. In one of his Pensees he referred to the abandonment as “contemplate the greatness and the misery of man”.
Overall George Boole’s life was filled with many moments of success, but was Boole an advance towards where mathematics is today? As many times that Boole was recognized his work finally paid off. At one point even Albert Einstein used Boole’s methods of mathematics to continue to advance of his own mathematics and sciences.
It is said that when history looks upon the life of an individual when their time has passed; it is not the dates on the tombstone that define the man but the dash in between. Such was the case in the life of theologian, philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal. Pascal was born on the 19th of June 1623, in Clermont-Ferrand France and died at the age of 39 of tuberculosis on the 19th August 1662 in Paris, but the bulk of his career, his success and life achievement began in his early years. As a young boy, Pascal’s lost his mother and soon afterward his father moved the family, Blaise and his two sisters to Paris. Pascal’s father, Étienne Pascal was a mathematician himself and taught Pascal Latin and Greek, which at the time was considered
...use many of his concepts and ideas today, such as the law of conservation of matter and the calculus concept of dy/dx. Leibniz sought after knowledge and gave the world many new and innovative ways to think. Through his advancements in mathematics, many other fields of study took root and thrived. Leibniz died November 14, 1716. His contributions to society brought about a new way of thinking and challenged what the world knew.
Gauss is regarded as the greatest mathematician of the nineteenth century and, along with Archimedes and Isaac Newton, one of the three greatest mathematicians of all time. (Eves 476)
...st important scientists in history. It is said that they both shaped the sciences and mathematics that we use and study today. Euclid’s postulates and Archimedes’ calculus are both important fundamentals and tools in mathematics, while discoveries, such Archimedes’ method of using water to measure the volume of an irregularly shaped object, helped shaped all of today’s physics and scientific principles. It is for these reasons that they are remembered for their contributions to the world of mathematics and sciences today, and will continue to be remembered for years to come.
However, his greatest contribution to mathematics is considered to be logic, for without logic there would be no reasoning and therefore no true valid rules to the science of mathematics.
No other scholar has affected more fields of learning than Blaise Pascal. Born in 1623 in Clermont, France, he was born into a family of respected mathematicians. Being the childhood prodigy that he was, he came up with a theory at the age of three that was Euclid’s book on the sum of the interior of triangles. At the age of sixteen, he was brought by his father Etienne to discuss about math with the greatest minds at the time. He spent his life working with math but also came up with a plethora of new discoveries in the physical sciences, religion, computers, and in math. He died at the ripe age of thirty nine in 1662(). Blaise Pascal has contributed to the fields of mathematics, physical science and computers in countless ways.
His father taught his Latin but after a while saw his son’s greater passion towards mathematics. However, Andre resumed his Latin lessons to enable him to study the work of famous mathematicians Leonhard Euler and Bernoulli. While in the study of his father’s library his favorite study books were George Louis Leclerc history book and Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond Encyclopedia, became Ampere’s schoolmasters (Andre). When Ampere finished in his father’s library he had his father take him to the library in Lyon. While there he studied calculus. A couple of weeks later he was able to do difficult treaties on applied mathematics (Levy, Pg. 135). Later in life he said “the new as much about mathematics when he was 18, than he knew in his entire life. His reading...
Allen, James. "Greatest Mathematicians Born Between 1800 and 1850 A.D.." Fabpedigree. N.p.. Web. 8 Dec 2013. .
There have been many great mathematicians in the world, though many are not well known. People have been studying math for ages, the oldest mathematical object dated all the way back to around 35,000 BC. There are still mathematicians today, studying math and figuring out ways to improve the mathematical world. Some of the most well-known mathematicians include Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Aristotle. These mathematicians (and many more) have influenced the mathematical world and mathematics would not be where it is today without them. There were many great individuals who contributed greatly in mathematics but there was one family with eight great mathematicians who were very influential in mathematics. This was the Bernoulli family. The Bernoulli family contributed a lot to mathematics, medicine, physics, and other areas. Even though they were great mathematicians, there was also hatred and jealousy between many of them. These men did not want their brothers or sons outdoing them in mathematics. Most Bernoulli fathers told their sons not to study mathematics even if they wanted. They were told to study medicine, business, or law, instead, though most of them found a way to study mathematics. The mathematicians in this family include Jacob, Johann, Daniel, Nicolaus I, Nicolaus II, Johann II, Johann III, and Jacob II Bernoulli.
Carl Friedrich Gauss is revered as a very important man in the world of mathematicians. The discoveries he completed while he was alive contributed to many areas of mathematics like geometry, statistics, number theory, statistics, and more. Gauss was an extremely brilliant mathematician and that is precisely why he is remembered all through today. Although Gauss left many contributions in each of the aforementioned fields, two of his discoveries in the fields of mathematics and astronomy seem to have had the most tremendous effect on modern day mathematics.
Rene Descartes may have been most famous However, mathematics appealed to him the most for its innate truthfulness and application to other branches of knowledge. Later in his life, he developed both mathematical and philosophical concepts that are still used widely today. Overall, Rene Descartes should be considered one of the most influential mathematicians of all time for his work in analytic geometry, which set the foundation for algebraic, differential, discrete, and computational geometry, as well as his application of mathematics into philosophy.
The life of Albert Einstein began at Ulm, in Wuttemberg, Germany on March 14, 1879. He was born to his father Hermann Einstein, a salesman and engineer and to his mother Pauline Einstein. However, Einstein was one of two children, the 2nd being named Maja, born two years after him. As a toddler, he wasn’t capable of talking until the age of three. Education always remained a big part of Einstein’s lifetime. He went to elementary school at the Luitpold Gymnasium in Munich while receiving a Prussian education but had problems with it. Indeed, Albert experienced a speech difficulty, a slow modulation in his speaking where he’d pause to contemplate what he’d say next. In 1899, the Einstein family greeted a poor Polish medical student, Max Tulmud to come over for Thursday evening meals. Max introduced Einstein to higher levels of math and science. From Euclid, Albert began to apprehend deductive reasoning and by the age of twelve, he learned Euclidean geometry from a school booklet. From there his studies of calculus skyrocketed.
The 17th Century saw Napier, Briggs and others greatly extend the power of mathematics as a calculator science with his discovery of logarithms. Cavalieri made progress towards the calculus with his infinitesimal methods and Descartes added the power of algebraic methods to geometry. Euclid, who lived around 300 BC in Alexandria, first stated his five postulates in his book The Elements that forms the base for all of his later Abu Abd-Allah ibn Musa al’Khwarizmi, was born abo...