MacTutor
Mathematicians Of The Day
20th February
On this day in 1648, a letter from Pierre de Fermat through Frenicle de Bessy to Kenelm Digby reached John Wallis saying that Fermat had solved equations of the type for all non-square values up to 150. Thus begins the saga of the mis-naming of Pell's equation.
The postage stamp of one of today's mathematicians at THIS LINK was issued in 1981.
The postage stamp of one of today's mathematicians at THIS LINK was issued in 1981.
Click on Ⓟ for a poster.
Born:
- 1844: Ludwig Boltzmann Ⓟ
- 1860: Matyáš Lerch Ⓟ
- 1865: Charles Cailler Ⓟ
- 1921: Boris Trakhtenbrot Ⓟ
- 1929: Madan Lal Puri Ⓟ
- 1931: John Milnor Ⓟ
Died:
- 1762: Tobias Mayer Ⓟ
- 1778: Laura Bassi Ⓟ
- 1955: Arthur Lee Dixon Ⓟ
Quotation of the day
From Ludwig Boltzmann
To go straight to the deepest depth, I went for Hegel; what unclear thoughtless flow of words I was to find there! My unlucky star led me from Hegel to Schopenhauer ... Even in Kant there were many things that I could grasp so little that given his general acuity of mind I almost suspected that he was pulling the reader's leg or was even an imposter.
