Math Makers: The Lives and Works of 50 Famous Mathematicians

Description

An entertaining history of mathematics as chronicled through fifty short biographies. Mathematics today is the fruit of centuries of brilliant insights by men and women whose personalities and life experiences were often as extraordinary as their mathematical achievements. This entertaining history of mathematics chronicles those achievements through fifty short biographies that bring these great thinkers to life while making their contributions understandable to readers with little math background. Among the fascinating characters profiled are Isaac Newton (1642-1727), the founder of classical physics and infinitesimal calculus—he frequently quarreled with fellow scientists and was obsessed by alchemy and arcane Bible interpretation; Sophie Germain (1776 - 1831), who studied secretly at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, using the name of a previously enrolled male student—she is remembered for her work on Fermat's Last Theorem and on elasticity theory; Emmy Noether (1882 - 1935), whom Albert Einstein described as the most important woman in the history of mathematics—she made important contributions to abstract algebra and in physics she clarified the connection between conservation laws and symmetry; and Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920), who came from humble origins in India and had almost no formal training, yet made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions.The unusual behavior and life circumstances of these and many other intriguing personalities make for fascinating reading and a highly enjoyable introduction to mathematics. MATH MAKERS Dedication Contents Introduction Chapter 1. Thales of Miletus: Greek (ca. 624–546 BCE) Chapter 2. Pythagoras: Greek (575–500 BCE) Chapter 3. Eudoxus of Cnidus : Greek (390–337 BCE) Chapter 4. Euclid: Greek (ca. 300 BCE) Chapter 5. Archimedes: Greek (ca. 287–ca. 212 BCE) Chapter 6. Eratosthenes: Greek (276–194 BCE) Chapter 7. Claudius Ptolemy: Greco-Roman (100–170) Chapter 8. Diophantus of Alexandria: Hellenistic Greek (ca. 201–285) Chapter 9. Brahmagupta: Indian (598–668) Chapter 10. Leonardo Pisano Bigollo, “Fibonacci”: Italian (1170–1250) Chapter 11. Gerolamo Cardano: Italian (1501–1576) Chapter 12. John Napier: Scottish (1550–1617) Chapter 13. Johannes Kepler: German (1571–1630) Chapter 14. René Descartes: French (1596–1650) Chapter 15. Pierre de Fermat: French (1607–1665) Chapter 16. Blaise Pascal: French (1623–1662) Chapter 17. Isaac Newton: English (1642–1727) Chapter 18. Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz: German (1646–1716) Chapter 19. Giovanni Ceva: Italian (1647–1734) Chapter 20. Robert Simson: Scottish (1687–1768) Chapter 21. Christian Goldbach: German (1690–1764) Chapter 22. The Bernoullis: Swiss (1700–1782) Chapter 23. Leonhard Euler: Swiss (1707–1783) Chapter 24. Maria Gaetana Agnesi: Italian (1718–1799) Chapter 25. Pierre Simon Laplace: French (1749–1827) Chapter 26. Lorenzo Mascheroni: Italian (1750–1800) Chapter 27. Joseph-Louis Lagrange: French/Italian (1736–1813) Chapter 28. Sophie Germain: French (1776–1831) Chapter 29. Carl Friedrich Gauss: German (1777–1855) Chapter 30. Charles Babbage: English (1791–1871) Chapter 31. Niels Henrik Abel: Norwegian (1802–1829) Chapter 32. Évariste Galois: French (1811–1832) Chapter 33. James Joseph Sylvester: English (1814–1897) Chapter 34. Ada Lovelace: English (1815–1852) Chapter 35. George Boole: English (1815–1864) Chapter 36. Bernhard Riemann: German (1826–1866) Chapter 37. Georg Cantor: German (1845–1918) Chapter 38. Sofia Kovalevskaya: Russian (1850–1891) Chapter 39. Giuseppe Peano: Italian (1858–1932) Chapter 40. David Hilbert: German (1862–1943) Chapter 41. G. H. Hardy: English (1877–1947) Chapter 42. Emmy Noether: German (1882–1935) Chapter 43. Srinivasa Ramanujan: Indian (1887–1920) Chapter 44. John von Neumann: Hungarian-American (1903–1957) Chapter 45. Kurt Gödel: Austrian-American (1906–1978) Chapter 46. Alan Turing: English (1912–1954) Chapter 47. Paul Erdős: Hungarian (1913–1996) Chapter 48. Herbert A. Hauptman: American (1917–2011) Chapter 49. Benoit Mandelbrot: Polish-American (1924–2010) Chapter 50. Maryam Mirzakhani: Iranian (1977–2017) Epilogue Appendix: Hilbert’s Axioms Notes References