Mathematicians Of The Day
20th January
On this day in 1633, Galileo, at age 68, left his home in Florence, Italy, to face the Inquisition in Rome. By 22 Jun 1633, he buckled under the threats and interrogation by the Inquisition, and renounced his belief that the Earth revolved around the Sun.
Click on Ⓟ for a poster.
Born:
- 1573: Simon Mayr Ⓟ
- 1775: André-Marie Ampère Ⓟ
- 1831: Edward Routh Ⓟ
- 1895: Gábor Szegő Ⓟ
- 1904: Renato Caccioppoli Ⓟ
- 1920: Edwin Hewitt Ⓟ
- 1937: John Knopfmacher Ⓟ
Died:
- 1590: Giovanni Benedetti Ⓟ
- 1760: John Colson Ⓟ
- 1864: Giovanni Plana Ⓟ
- 1872: Henry Moseley Ⓟ
- 1907: Agnes Mary Clerke Ⓟ
- 1955: Alexander Durie Russell Ⓟ
- 1971: Jan A Schouten Ⓟ
- 2001: Crispin Nash-Williams Ⓟ
Quotation of the day
From André-Marie Ampère
Ordinarily logic is divided into the examination of ideas, judgments, arguments, and methods. The two latter are generally reduced to judgments, that is, arguments are reduced to apodictic judgments that such and such conclusions follow from such and such premises, and method is reduced to judgments that prescribe the procedure that should be followed in the search for truth.
[Ampère expresses how arguments have a logical structure which he expected should be applied to relate scientific theories to experimental evidence.]