MacTutor
Mathematicians Of The Day
21st January
On this day in 1665, Samuel Pepys, having acquired a copy of Robert Hooke's Micrographia the day before, stayed up to read it,
Before I went to bed I sat up till two o'clock in my chamber reading of Mr Hooke's Microscopicall Observations, the most ingenious book that ever I read in my life.
Click on Ⓟ for a poster.
Born:
- 1793: Théodore Olivier Ⓟ
- 1846: Pieter Hendrik Schoute Ⓟ
- 1860: David Eugene Smith Ⓟ
- 1874: René Baire Ⓟ
- 1897: Alexander Weinstein Ⓟ
- 1915: André Lichnerowicz Ⓟ
- 1915: Yuri Vladimirovich Linnik Ⓟ
- 1923: Henri Cabannes Ⓟ
- 1942: Francisco González Acuña Ⓟ
Died:
- 1892: John Couch Adams Ⓟ
- 1931: Cesare Burali-Forti Ⓟ
- 1937: Donald Macmillan
- 1946: Harry Bateman Ⓟ
- 1957: Arthur Bowley Ⓟ
- 1974: Arnaud Denjoy Ⓟ
- 2004: John Lewis Ⓟ
Quotation of the day
From David Eugene Smith
The field of mathematics is now so extensive that no one can [any] longer pretend to cover it, least of all the specialist in any one department. Furthermore it takes a century or more to weigh men and their discoveries, thus making the judgment of contemporaries often quite worthless.
